Author Topic: Family trip to Japan, Thailand and Hong Kong ( with a stop in Detroit)  (Read 18974 times)

Offline CR

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Introduction

Our family just completed a 3-week trip to Japan, Thailand and Hong Kong (plus an overnight in Detroit) mostly with points and miles. A little background of our family so you can better understand the trip report. First of all, we love to travel and see the world. This passion has developed strongly because of our ability to travel worldwide thanks to miles and points. Over the years the more we have traveled we find ourselves thirsty to discover more and see the world. Since many of our trips have been with our children, they too (especially the older ones) have developed a strong interest, desire and appreciation for travel. We have 4 children ages (19, 16, 10 and 7) with the older two being boys. My husband has the ability to work remotely during the less busy times of the year, which includes the summer and thankfully that allows us to travel over a longer period of time. My children have traveled a lot over the years and are real frequent flyers in that sense. They are very accustomed to the airport routine (baggage check, TSA/security, customs, lounges, boarding etc.) which makes flying a breeze with them. They all have Global entry/ TSA Pre check as well, which further assists in reducing stress and saves lots of time. The children have experienced First/ Business class travel in the past and know a lot about many types of planes and airlines.

I have been an avid miles and points geek for many years now. I know this is not typical of a woman, however this is truly one of my hobbies. Since I enjoy numbers and math, I have been doing our family finances exclusively for close to 15 years. This has allowed me to be fully involved in all aspects of credit card spending and furthermore strategic spending in order to maximize our miles/points earning potential. Being organized is key in this process and I love every minute of it. I also enjoy trip planning and have planned every single one of our trips (awards and activities) on my own. My husband is very supportive in this process however focuses on his business and does not really play the “points and miles game”.
This is my first ever trip report that I am writing here on DDF. I have gained so much over the years from this website and the DDF community that I would like to give back whatever I can…I have a lot to share. Thank God, everything worked out better than planned. I hope you enjoy following along.

The Planning Process

Travel during the summer works out really well for our family for many reasons. We have concluded that a three-week trip is about the maximum amount of time we can be away. I try to plan it over one half of the summer this way my children can be enrolled in camp for the other half. Between the pre-trip excitement and packing and the post trip jetlag / enjoyment of just being back home, we are all set for one month in the summer.

Generally we have a travel bucket list (one as a couple and one for our family), however some of our travel ended up as a result of an award sale or price glitch ( a big one was a family trip to Australia where we flew Business First to Melbourne with miles and returned from Sydney with Virgin Australia tickets that were approx. $100 in the summer of 2016 – the deal was posted on DDMS back in winter of 2016). Since we have 3 weeks to enjoy traveling, it is ideal for us to travel farther and/or combine multiple destinations in one area which we wouldn’t be able to do in a shorter trip. We also “splurge” on award travel in first or business class when we take long flights. Splitting our family between economy/business/ first does not work for us and we all fly the same class.

I have accumulated and spent lots of miles/points over the years. However, since I work hard to accumulate a large volume of points (without spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a year) I tend to be “stingy” with them and try to maximize its value and make them go farther and work for us longer (kind of the same way we look at our finances). Since we are a family of 6, award travel in J or F round trip adds up to a hefty sum. Keep in mind that we need 2 hotel rooms at a minimum and are aiming for suites as much as possible (we do Vrbo/Airbnb as well when it makes sense) so lots of points are needed to make a 3-week trip to anywhere far.
Thailand has always been on my radar being that it’s a beautiful country, with Chabad restaurant/s- and Shabbos meals in all major tourist areas, the USD goes really far there and there are lots of unique cool attractions/sightseeing to do. However, my greatest concern was safety for my family. (I have read/heard too many stories in the news and the risk wasn’t worth it.) I kind of felt that would be a destination I would visit one day without the children. Long story short…Amex MR was having a 30% bonus for points transferred to Virgin Atlantic. There are some sweet spots to Asia (with Delta and ANA). The sweet spots are to Japan. To be honest Japan was never on my bucket list, perhaps I would have wanted to visit during the cherry blossom season but that was never a good time for me to travel. So, I quickly did some travel research about family travel to Japan… and I concluded that it’s a great safe place to visit and it would be our gateway city to Asia. I realized that since we are pretty close to Thailand it would be an amazing opportunity to take our family there. I needed to research practical ways to make Thailand work for us. In the end I concluded that we would only stay in 5-star hotels/ resorts (with brands that we are familiar with in the States) because of the security and international hotel standards. Since we weren’t renting a car, we would book trips through a travel agency with local travel guides with lots of references. Also being that we don’t have real little kids and we are 4 adults (2 adults and 2 older children) with 2 children ages 7 & 10 that are accustomed to traveling, I would be comfortable with the idea of traveling to Thailand.

The Booking Process

After a week or two of searching, I found award space for 6 from various Midwest cities to Tokyo/Narita in Delta One Suites for the dates I wanted. The price was 60K Virgin Miles (just under 47K Amex transferred) per person in Delta One Suites! I found awards for 6 from MSP and DTW- now I had to choose a departure city. I have never been to either city and would have love to check out that city prior to the flight to Japan. Visiting Mall of America in MSP would have been nice, but I went for DTW. I decided to surprise my husband for this pre-trip to DTW, he had grown up in Detroit and had not been back for 27 years! I would plan the most amazing day for our family there. Delta was also having an award sale from various cities for 6K one-way Delta Miles basic economy (Since we have the Delta credit card, we can choose our seats and get 1 free bag per person). So, I booked the 6 award tickets from DTW- Tokyo/NRT for 60K Virgin x 6= 360K Virgin Atlantic (only 278K AMEX MR) in Delta One Suites. I also booked 6K Delta miles from PHL-DTW. (we live in the tri state area and can chose between PHL/ EWR/JFK). The Tokyo flight was departing mid-day and we booked the PHL- DTW leg the previous morning. Leaving us a full day to discover Detroit.
Now I had to start thinking about return tickets in either J or F. There are many options in that part of the world with so many different alliances with different miles/points. Luckily, I had enough points/miles in different currencies for me to be flexible.  I wanted a direct flight back and I wanted to spend the least number of miles in J or F for our entire family. I went through many options and practical ideas and concluded we would end our trip in Hong Kong and would aim for Cathay Pacific Business return ticket to JFK. (After much research I concluded that realistically I can find 6 J award seats - there are over 30 seats in business on those flights. I would never find awards in F for our entire family). The cost for business class seats are 50K Alaska miles per person (50K x 6= 300K Alaska miles). We were about 2.5 months away from the time we were planning to return. I was flexible with a few return dates however I already had a ticket to Japan and had to work on all other shorter flights as well (Japan to Thailand, inter Thailand flights, Thailand to HKG). This was a daunting task to coordinate it all, find all the awards/ tickets for 6 people, stay the ideal time in each location (plan Shabbos at hotel that is walking distance to Chabad) and of course find 6 Cathay J tickets with dates not on or close to Shabbos. At this point there was zero availability. I would check many times a day on British Airways (Alaska doesn’t show Cathay availability). Occasionally I would see some premium economy for 2 or 3 passengers, but nothing in J. I spent a lot of time researching this particular award route – HKG to JFK in Business and when the awards open up. All the comments/research showed that it will be released slowly 6 weeks out (that meant 3 weeks prior to us departing!) I have to admit I have never had tickets booked for a family trip that last minute but I was confident that I would find the tickets and the 16-hour flight in a lie flat business seat would all be worth it. I had many back up options including economy with stopover booked via Chase. Obviously, I didn’t want to do it and I also knew that no matter what we are all flying on the same flight. There are 3 flights a day to JFK or EWR (all with lots of J seats) I checked BA countless times a day for the next month. Here and there I would find one seat and would speak to Alaska agents from time to time and they all shared with me that they have never seen more than 4 Business seats available at one time. I started to get worried, but I knew it had been done and I would give it my best shot. I devoted all my spare time to working on the other flights, hotels, and activities.
Luckily things started to fall into place. Literally to the day of 6 weeks prior to the departure of that flight I started seeing 1, 2 or 3 seats in J for different flights on a given day (all were < 6 weeks prior to departure). I started having hope and then started actually contemplating which flight time would work best for our family. (I never thought I would have that luxury of choice between different times.) I chose the 6:45 PM flight from HKG to JFK which arrives in JFK 16 hours later at 10:45 PM (hence HKG is 12 hours ahead). I figured that would be amazing for sleeping and arrival into JFK as well, so we can sleep some part of the night at home and function somewhat the next day. I can’t believe I actually did such a thing, but at first, I booked the only 3 seats in J available for that flight. (I booked my husband and 2 younger children first). I had 24 hours to cancel but hoped I would find more space in the interim. Just before the 24 hours were over, I found 1 more seat in J. I booked it for my second son. 24 hours had passed since the original booking and I had faith that since one more opened up recently, hopefully additional seats would open up. In the worst-case scenario, my 19-year-old son and I would fly together (or even separately…) Another day passed, and another seat was booked in J for that same flight. Luckily late that night I found the 6th and final award seat that I needed and we were all booked! What an ordeal.
 
The other flights were fairly straightforward and I will discuss them throughout the trip report in chronological order. I will also discuss our hotels and the decision-making process related to our family needs. We did lots of activities and learned so much. We took thousands of pictures. I plan on sharing some of them in this report.
I definitely believe that years of travel with and without our children have given us the experience needed to make the many decisions we are faced with when booking such a lengthy family trip around the world. We also learned valuable things along the way that will help us for future trips as well, which I will share.

Basic Itinerary

Tuesday – 7:00 AM / PHL-DTW / Stayed in Embassy Suites DTW
Wednesday- 12:15 PM / DTW- NRT Delta One Suites
Thursday – arrival NRT 2:05 PM / Stayed at Stayed at Sheraton Miyako Hotel
Friday – Sheraton Miyako Hotel
Saturday – Sheraton Miyako Hotel
Sunday- Hyatt Regency Tokyo
Monday- Hyatt Regency Toky0
Tuesday- Hyatt Regency Tokyo
Wednesday- 10:35 AM – 3:05 PM / HND- BKK Thai Airways Economy stayed at Intercontinental Bangkok
Thursday- 9:15 AM -10:45 AM / BKK – USM Bangkok Airways Economy Stayed at Conrad Koh Samui (2-bedroom Villa)
Friday – Conrad Koh Samui
Saturday – Conrad Koh Samui
Sunday – Conrad Koh Samui
Monday – Conrad Koh Samui
Tuesday – 10:00 AM – 11:50 AM / USM- CNX Bangkok Airways Economy stayed at Le Meridian Chiang Mai
Wednesday – Le Meridian Chiang Mai
Thursday - Le Meridian Chiang Mai
Friday- Le Meridian Chiang Mai
Saturday - Le Meridian Chiang Mai
Sunday – 6:05 AM – 9:45 AM / CNX- HKG Air Asia Economy stayed at Intercontinental Hong Kong
Monday - Intercontinental Hong Kong
Tuesday - Intercontinental Hong Kong
Wednesday – 6:45 PM – 10:45 PM / HKG-JFK Cathay Pacific Business


Offline BarryLincoln

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Great start!!! Thank you for sharing!!! And thank you for all the detail!!  Look forward to reading the rest... sounds like a great trip!!

Offline mgoldhammer18

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love it so far.  Please provide us with some more details and pictures  ;)

Offline 12HRS

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Excited to see this, Have a trip to HK in a couple weeks.

Offline moisheyb

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Just wow!

6 seats on Cathy that's amazing!

Can't wait to hear the rest of it :)

Offline CR

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Detroit
As mentioned earlier we used 6K Delta miles per person for 6 OW tickets from PHL- DTW. The flight was smooth and uneventful landing us in Detroit at 8:30 AM. After getting our luggage and rental car (booked via Chase portal with points) we checked into our hotel which was a 5-minute drive from the airport.
Embassy Suites DTW – points bookings are 40K vs HH cash rate at $120/night, did a cash booking using HH Aspire card. This was a great choice for the 1-night stay, as we get a 2-room suite for that price which includes breakfast. I reserved 2 queen beds plus we had the sofa in the second room, giving us enough sleeping space for the one night. The hotel lobby open areas were recently redone and were very nice and clean. After checking into our room, we ate a quick breakfast which we had brought from home and drove to the Henry Ford Museum 15 minutes away.
Henry Ford Museum- I had purchased tickets in advance for the museum/factory tour combo. The Museum is part of Greenfield village- an open-air museum which has over 80 acres of historic districts of 300 years of American Life. Since we had a busy day planned in Detroit, I only purchased tickets for the actual museum and factory tour and did not explore the village at all.
The museum is massive and is top rated in the country. I have never been to a museum that big anywhere in the world. We spent much of our time in the car, train, plane areas as well as in many of the interactive exhibits. We spent close to 3.5 hours in the museum alone and could have easily stayed another hour or two.
 
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We then took the shuttle to the Ford Factory. The shuttle leaves every 15 min until 3 PM from the museum. It was a ten-minute ride to the factory, which is a world in itself. Note then when purchasing tickets to the factory tour they do not guarantee you watching the actual assembly line in action. However, you are guided throughout the plant and can see it all. We were told once we arrived that they were not in production that day, it seems that the first 2 weeks of July is switchover from the previous year to the new year car models, as well as do scheduled maintenance throughout the plant.
The Ford factory tour has multiple stations as they call it. 2 Theaters, the first one being more historic of Henry Ford and how it all began. The second is a Manufacturing Innovation Theater which is a 3 D experience showcasing the engineering of the F150 truck. The main lobby area has a “Legacy Gallery” which showcases some famous Ford cars like the ’55 Thunderbird and ’65 Mustang. We then proceeded to the observation deck for panoramic views of the plant with a guided tour and a Q&A. The final part was the tour was of the Assembly plant of the F150. Although there were no workers assembling the trucks at that time, we were able to see all of the trucks in the assembly line and all the areas of assembly. Very complex equipment, robotics and skilled workers can produce a complete F150 truck in 1 minute at full line speeds (per museum website)!
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After we completed the factory tour, we traveled to the Jewish section of Detroit to eat a very late lunch. We checked out Jerusalem Pizza, got to taste the famous chicken pizza, which was recommended here on DDF. We liked that, however also enjoyed the breakfast pizza which had (mostly facon and eggs).
After lunch my husband gave us a tour of the town, he spent his childhood in. We drove by his old house, his neighborhood park, yeshiva etc. We had to stop at the famous Zeman’s Bakery (99 years old and Kosher, apparently the oldest kosher bakery in the US) and tried the famous seven-layer cake, which was delicious.

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We had a quick dinner at Kravings and drove back to the hotel for the night. We managed to get a quick evening swim in the pool which is half indoors and half outdoors. Later that evening my husband returned the rental car and the complimentary hotel shuttle brought him back to the hotel. This was our only car rental in this 3-week trip!
Breakfast the following morning worked out well for us Kosher eaters. The hotel staff were very accommodating in showing us the wrappers for the bagels, breads and pastries (most of which was kosher) so we can actually enjoy much of the food. They brought us disposable plates etc.  They had kosher yogurt, cereals, plenty of fruit and they even brought us a new bottle of almond milk since we don’t drink dairy!
We left the hotel at 9 AM with the complimentary hotel shuttle to the airport. We were refreshed and excited for our big adventure. Delta One Suites all the way to Tokyo!
To be continued…
« Last Edit: August 04, 2019, 10:59:38 PM by CR »

Offline thaber

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keep it going :)

Offline mmgfarb

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Great start to a TR, looking forward to reading the rest! There hasn't been a TR this detailed on DDF in a while do kudos to you. Can't believe you found 6 J seats on those two flights also.
"JS [is] a fetid cesspool of unvarnished linguistic manure, with lots of useless drivel and post-padding." -Moishebatchy

Offline CR

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Thank you for all the feedback. It is definitely time consuming but I am enjoying reliving this awesome experience as I am writing it. I feel that sharing many details can help people in so many ways. I have so much more to share. Keep following along :)

Offline Dawie

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Amazing!

Offline iluv2travel

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Re: Family trip to Japan, Thailand and Hong Kong ( with a stop in Detroit)
« Reply #10 on: August 05, 2019, 05:32:15 PM »
Thank you for all the feedback. It is definitely time consuming but I am enjoying reliving this awesome experience as I am writing it. I feel that sharing many details can help people in so many ways. I have so much more to share. Keep following along :)

Can't wait for more! You sound so super organized!

Offline normathej

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Re: Family trip to Japan, Thailand and Hong Kong ( with a stop in Detroit)
« Reply #11 on: August 06, 2019, 10:36:56 AM »
Wow, this is amazing.  You've got some serious organizational skills...

Offline CR

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Re: Family trip to Japan, Thailand and Hong Kong ( with a stop in Detroit)
« Reply #12 on: August 07, 2019, 04:30:30 PM »
Before I discuss our flight to Japan, I wanted to discuss some of the stuff we packed including food (we are on a strictly Kosher diet). I realize I should have written it prior to the Detroit segment, nevertheless I will discuss it here.

Packing for this trip

I am a firm believer in being organized as much as possible with packing as it makes things so much easier and less stressful. When planning for such a large trip with so many details, there are obvious things that may go wrong, so many things that are beyond our control, but one thing for sure- I can prepare and do many things in advance in order to make things easier, save time and most importantly reduce a whole lot of unnecessary stress. I will explain.
My best advice for travel is to get packing cubes. I like the large ones, personally I use the one from ebags which come in a set of 3 which is what we used on this trip. https://www.ebags.com/product/ebags/large-packing-cubes-3pc-set/48438?productid=1234149
Each family member has a different color and we each brought 3 bags on this trip. Initially when I was introduced to these bags, I thought they looked small and won’ t fit much but I was pleasantly surprised. We pack each bag with similar category belongings so you can easily find what you are looking for (socks, underclothes, pajamas etc. in one bag). Everything stays folded in those bags no matter how many times the suitcase is thrown around! When we arrive at a hotel (even if its just one night) I pull out each family member’s bags and make a pile near their bed. We literally can be unpacked and settled in a hotel room in under 15 minutes. The packing/unpacking process at home is also much easier as I pack straight from the drawers to these bags and unpack in a similar matter. We put our slides/flip flops in these bags too. For this trip we brought 9-10 days of clothing since I wasn’t sure exactly when and where we would be able to do laundry. Since we were staying only in hotels, I knew I wasn’t paying the hotel laundry service $10 to wash a t shirt, I had to find other alternatives, which we did and I will discuss later.
Some of the odds and ends I packed for this trip: A large Ziploc bag filled with laundry supplies (Tide pods, dryer sheets and gel stain remover stick). Sunscreen and Off spray. Small first aid bag (band aids, bacitracin, hydrocortisone, gauze pads/roll, medical tape, disinfectant, tweezers, nail clipper.) Medical bag with over the counter medicines. I bought small clear pill bags from a pharmacy and filled and labeled each bag with medicine (Motrin, Tylenol, Tums, Zantac, Melatonin, Benadryl, Claritin, etc.) We took chewable Motrin, liquid Advil, Epipens, variety of eye drops and ear drops, Mupirocin etc. (I know this seems crazy…but I am a nurse and especially going to foreign counties I feel more comfortable being prepared.)
For this trip we checked in 6 bags and took 4 small carry ons. The 6th bag we checked in was a soft duffle bag made by Samsonite https://www.amazon.com/Samsonite-Tote-ton-Duffle-Black/dp/B003KR1K40/ref=sr_1_3?crid=2E6CIEI8JOEF7&keywords=samsonite+duffel+bag&qid=1565195528&s=gateway&sprefix=samsoni%2Caps%2C143&sr=8-3
This contained a large cardboard egg box filled with lots of food, about 1 week into our trip we were able to discard the box and fold this duffle bag and put it into another suitcase. From then on, we checked in only 5 suitcases. All our suitcases are different colors and we try to pack certain ones with food/ cookware etc. and other ones with clothing so that we can easily find things when we need them. As far as our carry ones, I designate different ones for different things. One particular one is for electronics (laptop, tablets, headphones, camera, chargers, converters, luggage scale etc.) this way at any point in our travels we know exactly where to find things. One suitcase with have clothing for the flight (sweatshirts, sweatpants, leggings, pajamas, change of clothing for younger ones etc.). One suitcase will have tefillin (we were traveling with 3 pairs) & toiletry bags etc. The final one will have food for flight (and delicate items) as well as tradition soup cups (I find they get destroyed in a regular suitcase). The purpose of these soup cups is backup food at any point in our 3-week trip. For example, one child hated all the food on the flight to Tokyo so he had a soup. It really came handy during some occasions and as a parent you always want to have food available to a child that is hungry.
 
Food for this trip

Since we keep a strictly kosher diet, I had to find out the different food options in the various countries we visited prior to the trip and plan accordingly.
Detroit – obviously no issue- we were one day into our trip and brought along breakfast and snacks and ate out for lunch and dinner.
Japan – Was by far the hardest country with food. I was getting conflicting reports regarding being in meats ( deli) and other frozen items that had no labels on them (like homemade meals) so I decided to totally avoid bringing those items in. If I would bring them in and rely on these foods as meals, should they take them away we would be stuck. I decided to take a medium size soft cooler with a number of packages of shredded cheese, potato knishes, blintzes etc. I avoided larger frozen dairy foods like frozen pizza b/c of the space it takes. This cooler was stored in the commercial freezer of each hotel we visited in this entire trip. My husband explained to them we are kosher and all hotels were very accommodating in storing the cooler. We were only staying in Tokyo for this trip so we ate at Chabad of Tokyo for dinner most nights and for Shabbos. Also, In Japan you cannot find any food with kosher labels. So, the only thing we can buy was fresh fruits and vegetables and eggs.
Thailand - Bangkok (Meat & Dairy restaurant), Koh Samui (Meat & Dairy Restaurant) Chiang Mai (Meat Restaurant). All Chabad houses in Thailand have their own bakery and will sell you pita, rolls, baguettes, pastries, cakes etc. Note that variety and quantity may be limited at times. Shabbos in Thailand we can eat with Chabad (if staying nearby) or order entire Shabbos meals from them as well. No stores sell any food with kosher labels; however, Chabad houses do sell a small variety of Israeli products like Bisli, pickles etc. Just like Japan we can only purchase fruits & vegetables and eggs.
Hong Kong – Has a couple of kosher restaurants (Dairy and Meat), you can find international stores with some foods labeled Kosher. Some Haagen Daaz ice cream bars in stores like 7 eleven were Kosher. There are options for Shabbos meals, although we weren’t there for Shabbos this trip.
I had to pack breakfast for the entire trip (excluding Conrad Koh Samui where we got free kosher breakfast from Chabad through the hotel as a HH Diamond member). We are not dairy milk drinkers so that solved some problems. I took along shelf stable soy milk and almond milk. I packed lots of cereal, granola, many boxes of oatmeal packets and pancake mix. I brought along an electric burner, frying pan, small pot, spatula, big spoon, peeler and a knife. We also brought along a sandwich maker and tons of loaves of bread which I froze prior to the trip. I knew the bread had to last us until Thailand so I planned accordingly. Some other foods I took: bottle of oil spray, variety of pasta (elbows, spaghetti, orzo), rice and rice pilaf and tuna fish cans. I brought along tons of snacks, snack bags, individually wrapped pastries, cookies, pretzels, granola bars etc. I packed along a large bag with mini condiments such as ketchup, mayo, salad dressing, pancake syrup, salt, pepper, etc. I took along disposable plates, bowls and cutlery. I packed precut foil, many Ziploc sandwich bags, large Ziploc bags, couple of disposable small storage containers (for tuna salad, cut up fruit etc.) You would be surprised how many things you can make if you have the right staples and cooking supplies, combined with eggs, fruits & vegetables that we purchased along the way.

The flight to Japan

Checking in DTW for the NRT flight was easy and quick. A new hack I used that I had read somewhere was to label the back of the passports with a sticker with initial of each person. This way you can easily find the passport you need. I also keep them in a Zipper Ziploc bag so it’s easy to grab. During check in the agent wanted to know when we are returning to the US and on what flight. Since the entire trip was booked one way from A to B, B to C etc. I had to go though our general itinerary with her and eventually she said she needed the confirmation numbers only for the HKG-JFK leg. After check in and security we took the in-airport train (pretty cool and not underground) to the Delta Sky Club. There are 3 Delta Sky Clubs in Terminal A, we went to the one across gate A38 b/c that was the only lounge that had showers. Lounge was great overall and very spacious. We had some coffee, drinks and fruit. Some of the adults took showers with no waiting time at all. My children really appreciate the quiet time in a relaxing area prior to the flight. We boarded the flight about 45 before takeoff. As we walked onto the plane the young male flight attendant greets me and says “Welcome to you and your family, thank you so much for flying with us today”. he then whispered loudly in my ear “You know, your family alone is the revenue for this flight… so really thank you so much”. I smiled and was laughing inside. I guess it’s a great thing that the flight attendants don’t know how much you paid for the flight and we all get treated the same. We all love window seats and I try to reserve them as much as possible as long as we can remain in the same area. This flight was on an A350. We had seats 2A, 2B, 3A, 4A, 5A and 6A. Row 1 has only seats B & C in the center of the plane. So, 5/6 of us had window seats which worked out well. The sliding doors is a cool feature, obviously anyone walking around can see straight into your cabin but when you are lying down you feel like you are in a little room. Doors must remain open during takeoff and landing. Delta gives out amenity kits by Tumi. The flight was 13 hours long. Not ideal for sleeping even if you have a lie flat bed. We all took melatonin and got between 4-6 hours of sleep overall. We got a lunch meat meal after takeoff and breakfast before landing. Food was decently OK.

20190703_113249 by cr**, on Flickr

20190703_114003 by cr**, on Flickr

20190703_122220 by cr**, on Flickr

20190703_130950 by cr**, on Flickr


Offline moisheyb

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Re: Family trip to Japan, Thailand and Hong Kong ( with a stop in Detroit)
« Reply #13 on: August 07, 2019, 10:22:46 PM »
Wow talking about a detailed packing list!!
Very impressive!

Offline Mimo

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Re: Family trip to Japan, Thailand and Hong Kong ( with a stop in Detroit)
« Reply #14 on: August 08, 2019, 01:49:33 PM »
loving this TR especialy the food segmant!

Offline lakewood34

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Re: Family trip to Japan, Thailand and Hong Kong ( with a stop in Detroit)
« Reply #15 on: August 08, 2019, 05:13:56 PM »
do you enjoy the pre preparation and the packing etc. or do is that a means to a end

Offline mochjas

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Re: Family trip to Japan, Thailand and Hong Kong ( with a stop in Detroit)
« Reply #16 on: August 08, 2019, 05:14:48 PM »
do you enjoy the pre preparation and the packing etc. or do is that a means to a end
Why is this relevant?

Offline iluv2travel

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Re: Family trip to Japan, Thailand and Hong Kong ( with a stop in Detroit)
« Reply #17 on: August 09, 2019, 11:08:23 AM »
Question: How were you able to fit each person's clothing into only three of those packing bags? Even if you washed during the trip, my stuff would take up more than 3 of those.

Offline CR

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Re: Family trip to Japan, Thailand and Hong Kong ( with a stop in Detroit)
« Reply #18 on: August 09, 2019, 05:00:34 PM »
Question: How were you able to fit each person's clothing into only three of those packing bags? Even if you washed during the trip, my stuff would take up more than 3 of those.
These bags (Large ebags type) are much larger then you expect and can really fit so much. We packed all summer clothing so definitely took less space then winter clothing would. My husband and boys took mostly shorts, t shirts. Younger kids clothing bags definitely had extra space. Also keep in mind we each took sweatshirt, sweatpants, kind of stuff on carry on.

Offline lakewood34

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Re: Family trip to Japan, Thailand and Hong Kong ( with a stop in Detroit)
« Reply #19 on: August 09, 2019, 07:23:14 PM »
Why is this relevant?

your right it's not. I personally don't really enjoy the planning I was wondering overall if others enjoy the planning and anticipation or is it a means to a end.
This is probably the wrong place for such a question as it is not specific to this trip thread and I will try to find the appropriate place to post the question