Trip Report; Video

[sweetlovin']

https://plus.google.com/photos/103247010048907084999/albums/5902443785172559521

I have so much going on since I have gotten back, but here is a video link of the trip

 

[stenogoddess]

Thanks so much for sharing this with us! You guys really went all over the place! I hope you don't mind if I ask a quick question? I saw y'all flew out of Atlanta, and when we go we will leave out of Savannah which pretty much means connecting through ATL anyway. I find trying to figure out my plan for the air to be super annoying! I'm about ready to just hand all my money to Delta and be done with it. I was wondering which airline you flew out and where you connected through and how did it work? I saw you had some kiddos with you and I was wondering how they did with being on the plane for so long? Thanks so much! Hope it's not a bother.

 

[MarineVet]

Thanks so much for sharing this with us! You guys really went all over the place! I hope you don't mind if I ask a quick question? I saw y'all flew out of Atlanta, and when we go we will leave out of Savannah which pretty much means connecting through ATL anyway. I find trying to figure out my plan for the air to be super annoying! I'm about ready to just hand all my money to Delta and be done with it. I was wondering which airline you flew out and where you connected through and how did it work? I saw you had some kiddos with you and I was wondering how they did with being on the plane for so long? Thanks so much! Hope it's not a bother.

Hello. I'm not the OP, but I live just up the road from you in Charleston, and there are no direct flights for us either. Delta is my best option, as I flew over to Tokyo Narita in March and wanted to avoid any potential weather troubles on a northern route. Wanting only one stop, that left me to connect through Atlanta or Dallas and American was higher than Delta for my trip. Could you get a better deal out of Jacksonville?

I sprung for the economy plus seats for the International flights; more money but a little extra leg room was nice. However there were only two of us, so it was manageable. I was surprised at how much they fed us - two meals and two snacks, and they offered cups of water pretty often. I didn't travel with children, but the kids I saw did seem to sleep a good bit and each seat has a personal entertainment screen - there are all kinds of movies available including Disney animation. They asked for the windows shades to be lowered in the early evening as we "chased the sun" and it never got dark, which did enable sleeping. Apparently, so did the wine one man was drinking, he was across the aisle from me. He drank three glasses of wine early on, and I swear he slept like a rock for the next 10 hours! LOL! I was envious. I was more envious of those folks in Business class with the fold flat seats!

But it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, in fact the flight over was nice. There was an equipment shortage and our plane was delayed by 3 hours- but the payoff was a lot of people canceled because they couldn't make their connection in Japan, so there was an empty seat in our row of three. The flight back was full and the man on the aisle of our row was rude and ill tempered and I swore next time I will get an aisle seat instead of a window seat.

One piece of advice and we learned this the hard way- however much time you think you need to get back to Narita, add some more and leave earlier. There were high winds on our departure day which made the train to the airport slow to a crawl on all bridges. It actually stopped for 20 minutes at one point, and we arrived at the airport 15 minutes before departure. We ran to the counter and checked in, and the Delta agent was so nice, she ran us to the gate. All of our luggage made it too. We got there just as they were about to shut the door.

I hope some of this is helpful, and I hope you have a wonderful trip. When are you planning to go?

 

[stenogoddess]

Hello. I'm not the OP, but I live just up the road from you in Charleston, and there are no direct flights for us either. Delta is my best option, as I flew over to Tokyo Narita in March and wanted to avoid any potential weather troubles on a northern route. Wanting only one stop, that left me to connect through Atlanta or Dallas and American was higher than Delta for my trip. Could you get a better deal out of Jacksonville?

I sprung for the economy plus seats for the International flights; more money but a little extra leg room was nice. However there were only two of us, so it was manageable. I was surprised at how much they fed us - two meals and two snacks, and they offered cups of water pretty often. I didn't travel with children, but the kids I saw did seem to sleep a good bit and each seat has a personal entertainment screen - there are all kinds of movies available including Disney animation. They asked for the windows shades to be lowered in the early evening as we "chased the sun" and it never got dark, which did enable sleeping. Apparently, so did the wine one man was drinking, he was across the aisle from me. He drank three glasses of wine early on, and I swear he slept like a rock for the next 10 hours! LOL! I was envious. I was more envious of those folks in Business class with the fold flat seats!

But it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, in fact the flight over was nice. There was an equipment shortage and our plane was delayed by 3 hours- but the payoff was a lot of people canceled because they couldn't make their connection in Japan, so there was an empty seat in our row of three. The flight back was full and the man on the aisle of our row was rude and ill tempered and I swore next time I will get an aisle seat instead of a window seat.

One piece of advice and we learned this the hard way- however much time you think you need to get back to Narita, add some more and leave earlier. There were high winds on our departure day which made the train to the airport slow to a crawl on all bridges. It actually stopped for 20 minutes at one point, and we arrived at the airport 15 minutes before departure. We ran to the counter and checked in, and the Delta agent was so nice, she ran us to the gate. All of our luggage made it too. We got there just as they were about to shut the door.

I hope some of this is helpful, and I hope you have a wonderful trip. When are you planning to go?

MarineVet: Thanks so much for getting back to me! I really, really appreciate it. It always feels like if I can get the air nailed down the rest of it will pretty much fall in line. I'm hoping for a 2015 trip, but really fingers crossing for a 2014 trip. I "think" I've nailed down June as our time to go because I think I've figured out that that's when school finals are and so the parks might be a little more manageable for us. Right now my plan is to fly in Sunday and go straight out to the parks to take advantage of them during the week when hopefully crowds will be somewhat less and then head into Tokyo itself Friday after rush hour to look around at what they have to see and then fly out either Saturday or Sunday. (we should really get more vacation time in the U.S.!

I had read about a couple that got stuck on that train back into town for literally hours not really knowing what was going on and so that was another reason that I wanted to get back to town way before the flight just in case.

The details for planning this trip, everything just seems like a fight to figure out. I was wondering if this is how oversees people feels when they try to come to WDW. Like it's all just too big and overwhelming. But I keep chipping away and learning things here and there. I have thought about using a travel agent though just for some added security and an extra pair of eyes to look everything over with me. Even figuring out the arrival times and the lose a day/find a day thing with the plane is killing me! Plus, I don't even speak Japanese, so there's that. But in the end I think Disney Sea will be more than worth it. Never mind the super cool other stuff Tokyo has going for it.

Thanks again!

 

[sweetlovin']

Thanks so much for sharing this with us! You guys really went all over the place! I hope you don't mind if I ask a quick question? I saw y'all flew out of Atlanta, and when we go we will leave out of Savannah which pretty much means connecting through ATL anyway. I find trying to figure out my plan for the air to be super annoying! I'm about ready to just hand all my money to Delta and be done with it. I was wondering which airline you flew out and where you connected through and how did it work? I saw you had some kiddos with you and I was wondering how they did with being on the plane for so long? Thanks so much! Hope it's not a bother.

I am so sorry I just saw this. We flew United to Chicago, Chicago to Hong Kong, and Hong Kong to Singapore. We are in ATL. However, I used miles to fly all of us over there. So, we flew to Singapore, then I paid the less than $100 per country to hop around Asia. Flying back from Tokyo all the of the flights back to ATL were through Frankfurt and Munich. At first, I was really annoyed considering I was booking Sept 2012 to leave June 2013. It hit me that one of the airlines gave a free stop over, and it happened to be United. So we stopped for 10days in Germany before heading back to ATL.

Before you book though, I remember airlines having really good sales around Thanksgiving. I was able to get Paris roundtrip for $650 a few years back on American. And United I booked to go to London (although I left from DC) and booked for $700 roundtrip. I realize this isn't Asia, but I have seen prices to the Philippines as low as $850 - 900 roundtrip from ATL.

Hope I was not too late seeing this

If you fly Delta, I would ask about the free layover as well. I am not sure where the stopovers are with them. American lets you stop for free the last USA state. Most of their flights go through Dallas, but every so often you can find a flight through Honolulu. I would fly American to stop over for free there, but not Dallas. United is usually through Germany.

Also, I am flying to Fiji this Thanksgiving. The airfare was $750 roundtrip from LAX. Another thing to look for are really good rates from LAX. Southwest always seems to have a promo for decent airfare out to LAX. I was able to pay $145 each way in Sept and $170 each way in Nov. Make sure you add it up both ways, it could save you a lot of money and a ton of layovers/time flying if you fly direct to LAX first.

Of course, it ended up not saving me any because I decided to take everyone early and stop at Disneyland, but for most people, that can be a huge savings on airfare.

 

[sweetlovin']

My kids were amazing. No complaints and I packed lots and lots of snacks. I don't know how old your kids are, but I also packed Caprisun Lemonades in each of their check in luggage. You can't take it on carry on, but they have drinks on the airplane. I did notice that all of the drinks were gone by the time we got home. It made a huge difference for my kids being able to grab food and drinks from their bags as needed. On their carry ons I put pringles, muffins, cheese and crackers, ritz crackers...ect. It made their bags a little heavier at first, but they were so grateful as they do not care for much of the airplane food.

Overall, the flight to Singapore was 30 hours, but I had told them ahead of time. My little one adjusted to the time change the best by not sleeping the night before we left. I kept her up until about 3:30-4am. My older kids didn't listen to me tell them to stay up the night before, so they were wide awake in Singapore at 2am. It made for a longer day for them.

I do find it easier to fly west because we tend to be morning people. So the time change is a bit easier. Coming home from Asia or Australia can be one of the hardest changes.

 

[wiigirl]

Thanks for sharing....loved the video.

 

[sweetlovin']

Thank you! School started 3 weeks ago here and it has been crazy trying to sit down and write anything. I thought this would be a lot easier.

 

[amyren]

Thanks for sharing! What an incredible adventure. I love the fact that you travel WITH your kids! We have taken our daughter all over Europe and plan to take her to Japan next summer. She'll be 6... still trying to figure out what to do with baby brother. Anyway LOVE the pictures!

 

[SeattleRedBear]

What? No Disneyland Paris!

Great video! Gives me inspiration to do something like this to record future trips.

 

[stenogoddess]

I am so sorry I just saw this. We flew United to Chicago, Chicago to Hong Kong, and Hong Kong to Singapore. We are in ATL. However, I used miles to fly all of us over there. So, we flew to Singapore, then I paid the less than $100 per country to hop around Asia. Flying back from Tokyo all the of the flights back to ATL were through Frankfurt and Munich. At first, I was really annoyed considering I was booking Sept 2012 to leave June 2013. It hit me that one of the airlines gave a free stop over, and it happened to be United. So we stopped for 10days in Germany before heading back to ATL.

Before you book though, I remember airlines having really good sales around Thanksgiving. I was able to get Paris roundtrip for $650 a few years back on American. And United I booked to go to London (although I left from DC) and booked for $700 roundtrip. I realize this isn't Asia, but I have seen prices to the Philippines as low as $850 - 900 roundtrip from ATL.

Hope I was not too late seeing this

If you fly Delta, I would ask about the free layover as well. I am not sure where the stopovers are with them. American lets you stop for free the last USA state. Most of their flights go through Dallas, but every so often you can find a flight through Honolulu. I would fly American to stop over for free there, but not Dallas. United is usually through Germany.

Also, I am flying to Fiji this Thanksgiving. The airfare was $750 roundtrip from LAX. Another thing to look for are really good rates from LAX. Southwest always seems to have a promo for decent airfare out to LAX. I was able to pay $145 each way in Sept and $170 each way in Nov. Make sure you add it up both ways, it could save you a lot of money and a ton of layovers/time flying if you fly direct to LAX first.

Of course, it ended up not saving me any because I decided to take everyone early and stop at Disneyland, but for most people, that can be a huge savings on airfare.

Thanks so much! Much to think about. LOVE the idea of a Honolulu or Germany stop over!

 

[sweetlovin']

What? No Disneyland Paris!

Great video! Gives me inspiration to do something like this to record future trips.

Thank you on the video

LOL! My kids were asking to go to Disneyland Paris and I went back and forth on it for a long time. We have already been to DLP and by the time we would have gotten then the French and English kids would have been out of school, making the park more crowded.

It was only $150 per person roundtrip from Munich to Paris, so we did seriously consider it.

What is really funny is my kids have now been to every Disney overseas, but 2 of them have not been to Disneyland.

 

[sweetlovin']

Thanks for sharing! What an incredible adventure. I love the fact that you travel WITH your kids! We have taken our daughter all over Europe and plan to take her to Japan next summer. She'll be 6... still trying to figure out what to do with baby brother. Anyway LOVE the pictures!

Thank you I travel with and without my kids depending on the year. I take my kids on individual trips even years. So next year, 2014, each of them picked a place to go with just mommy. Summer next year, I will be in Spain, Morocco and Portugal sans kids. Odd years we go as a family so this year, 2013, we did the big trip this summer and Thanksgiving we head to Fiji and Cairns.

We are going to flip 2015 and 2016, because the plan is to have enough United Miles to fly back to Asia for Shanghai Disney. So we will hit Thailand (because I have a child that has been asking to go there) Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo (this time touring Japan) use the stop over in Germany and include DLP. We will try to start/end in Orlando or LAX to include the US Disney's. There is an island of the Philippines, Palawan, that we might head to as well depending on the cost. It looks so relaxing

I know I won't have enough miles (65K) each to fly us all until 2016, but no one wants to wait until 2017.

Good luck with your kids and your trips I know my 6yo loved DLP when we went in 2011. She didn't love walking all of Paris (and we walked a lot!!)