Family Travel Archives - Page 2 of 7

Jul 20 2017

Disney World Fastpass+ Tips and Tricks

When Walt Disney World implemented its FastPass+ system, it fundamentally changed the way guests could tour Disney parks. Visiting Walt Disney World requires much more planning than you might think. Fastpass+ is a big part of that. If you know how the system works, you can ride more and wait much less. Or, if your child isn’t interested in rides, you can use it to see more characters. Here are some of my favorite Disney World FastPass+ tips and tricks. The last one is a real favorite of mine; it can be really powerful if you use it, as I can attest. I made a visual guide for that one that hopefully can help you.

Note: I recognize not everyone loves planning and maximizing. Still, if you use one or two of these tips you might make your Disney vacation just a little bit more magical!

Disney World Fastpass+ can be confusing to some, but learn how to maximize your time in the parks and minimize stress with these simple tips and tricks. — Simple rule: Even though the Flight of Passage queue is really cool, get a Fastpass+ reservation for this if you can! (Photo Credit | Kent Phillips, wdwnews.com)

Quick Primer on Disney World FastPass+

FastPass+ doesn’t cost any extra money. As long as you have a Disney ticket, you can make FastPass+ reservations. For Disney guests staying on site at a Disney hotel, you can start making FastPass+ reservations 60 days in advance of the first night of your reservations. For all other guests, you can make FastPass+ reservations 30 days in advance. Fastpass+ reservations are for one hour time windows, usually with a 15 minute grace period. After you’ve used your initial 3 FastPass+ reservations you can make additional FastPass+ reservations, more on that later.

Every Disney guest receives an allotment of 3 initial FastPass+ reservations per theme park day. At the Magic Kingdom, these 3 FastPass+ reservations can be used for any attraction. Epcot, Hollywood Studios, and Animal Kingdom (and the new, awesome Pandora: World of Avatar) have a “tiered” FastPass+ system. That means you can only make one reservation on the most popular transactions. Your other two fast passes can be used for any attraction. The top tier attractions at Epcot are Frozen Ever After, Soarin’, and Test Track. Animal Kingdom puts the Pandora attractions (Flight of Passage and Na’vi River Journey) in the top tier. The top tier attractions at Hollywood Studios that matter the most to the majority of guests are Rock ‘n’ Rollercoaster and Toy Story Mania.

Take advantage of your Disney World Fastpass+ early booking window, especially if you stay on site at a Disney Hotel

One major benefit to staying on site is the ability to make FastPass+ reservations for the length of your vacation. Let’s say you have a 5 night stay on Disney property. 60 days before the first night of your reservation, you can make FastPass+ reservations for your entire stay plus the day you check out. So if you’re staying on site at a Disney hotel, you can book FastPass+ reservations way ahead of everyone else.

There are lots of benefits to staying off site but this is one of the best benefits of staying at a Disney hotel. Regular guests and annual pass holders can only book 30 days in advance, but you have to book day by day. In other words, you can’t do multiple days at once if they’re beyond your 30 day window.

Regardless of your personal window, one of the most important FastPass+ tips is book as early as you can. This will give you the best chance to get those hard to get rides like Frozen Ever After, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, or the Pandora rides with the least amount of stress.

Book your FastPass+ reservations for early in the day

When you book your initial three fast passes, you want to book them for as early in the day as possible. Since each FastPass+ reservation window is an hour long, booking early in the day basically takes up your entire morning (9-10, 10-11, 11-12).

The reason to book early in the day isn’t the obvious one. When you get to Disney parks early, the lines are much shorter than later in the day, so it’s actually one of the best times to wait in line. Fast passes help make your waits even shorter, but the real reason why you want to use up your FastPass+ reservations early in the day is to utilize the extra FastPass+ reservation you get after using your initial three. We’ll talk more about this “rolling fourth fast pass” later, but basically, after the first three you can keep booking and using FastPass+ reservations one at time.

Prioritize the busiest rides

If you want to minimize time in line, you’ll want to prioritize getting Fastpass+ reservations for the busiest rides. A list of the busiest ride in each park is below. Unless there’s something you MUST do, try to get most of your Fastpass+ reservations for these attractions. Generally, common sense will tell you which attractions you need to book.

Magic Kingdom

Seven Dwarfs Mine Train
Meet Mickey Mouse at Town Square Theater
Peter Pan’s Flight

Epcot

Frozen Ever After
Soarin’
Test Track

Disney’s Hollywood Studios

Toy Story Mania!
Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster

Disney’s Animal Kingdom

Flight of Passage
Kilimanjaro Safaris
Expedition Everest

Utilize your extra FastPass reservations early and often

After you’ve used your initial three Fastpass+ reservations, you get a fourth Fastpass+ reservation to use. This reservation can be used for any attraction in any park. In other words, once you get to this point you don’t need to worry about “tiered” attractions. Of course, it’s likely that many of the most coveted reservations are gone. Use these “rolling fourth” Fastpass+ reservations to book attractions that have lines but aren’t the most popular. Each time you use one, you can reserve another, so once you’ve gone through your initial three you can make Fastpass+ reservations for the rest of the day. That’s why you want to get the initial three done ASAP.

Use the My Disney Experience app and this technique for hard to get FastPass+ reservations

I learned a simple technique for hard to get Fastpass+ reservations from the Backside of Magic podcast. The basic premise is this. For hard to get reservations, you can often get lucky on the day of using your My Disney Experience app. First, make a reservation for a non-popular attraction. Then, go into your Disney app on your phone and choose to “Modify” that reservation. At that point you can quickly keep searching for Fastpass+ availability. I personally just jumped back and forth between “Afternoon” and “4:00 PM” until I found availability for Frozen Ever After.

My best guess as to why this works? This is the equivalent of furiously refreshing your browser trying to buy concert tickets or something. People switch Fastpass+ reservations all the time, this “refreshing” gives you the best chance to hop onto them when they open up. Best of all, you can do this in line in another attraction. I had no trouble securing Seven Dwarfs Mine Train and Frozen Ever After for 3 people when I messed around with it last week.

The downside is, your spouse and children might get annoyed that your face is buried in a phone the entire time. But think of how happy they will be not to wait in line!

Final Thoughts

The Disney Fastpass+ reservation system can be a real asset when you tour the parks. Follow these guidelines if they help minimize your stress when entering the parks. You can really use them to your advantage to cut down your wait times!

Any other tips I missed? Hit me up with any questions or comments down below.

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Jul 12 2017

Preparing to travel alone with a preschooler

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My 4.5 year old daughter M and I head out to Chicago soon for a fun little daddy-daughter weekend. We plan to spend a night in the city on our own using a Hyatt credit card free night and then will meet up with some friends for the weekend. This will be our third time traveling together alone (fourth if you count my flight with the two kids). Might be the last for awhile since her brother just turned two and I can start taking him on solo trips. Now that we’ve done this a few times, I’m beginning to pinpoint what makes travel alone with kids difficult for me as a dad. So let’s a take a look at what preparations I need to make to travel alone with a preschooler!

Preparing to shoulder 100% of the “mental load”

A coworker shared a comic with me the other day about the “mental load” many moms bear. (By the way, don’t click on it expecting a funny comic like I did! It’s just a straight up essay with pictures – not even any satire 🙁 sadface). The comic introduces this concept of “mental load” in a household. I’ve found this concept very useful and I’ve been thinking about it a lot. Basically, there is a huge burden in keeping track of everything that goes on in a household and while raising children, mentally. Then you put the work of the actual tasks on top of that mental burden and those two things add up to be quite a job. It’s a good concept, in my opinion. Here’s a stay at home dad’s take on it (in response to the original comic). Lifehacker even shared some tips for how to relieve mental load from the more burdened partner.

One of the many challenge traveling alone with kids is preparing to shoulder 100% of that mental load. Jess definitely carries more than 50% of the mental load in general, so when I travel alone with the kids I need to mentally psych myself up for taking on her (bigger) percentage completely. What that means for me is mentally going through the various aspects of the trip and calculating the best way to get through them. I’m rarely a planner, but I make an exception for traveling alone with the kids (and Disney World).

Now if I could offer a word of advice to parents considering traveling alone with their kids: if you don’t know how to shoulder 100% of the mental load at home, you’re in a tough spot if you have to do it on the road. Act accordingly.

Booking flights, hotels, and transportation

Since we don’t travel as much as we used to, I’ve found my miles and points accounts building. So I’ve quickly learned to adopt Freequent Flyer’s spend cash last mantra. Obviously, I still care about my cents per point value, but I’m always looking to redeem points first. To that end, I booked our outbound using United miles (12.5K per ticket) and our return using Jetblue miles (about 11,000 points per ticket). These are prices I can definitely live with, especially given the constraint I put on our flights. I couldn’t leave too early in the morning and didn’t want to deal with a connection since I’m traveling alone with a preschooler.

Getting ready to travel alone with a preschooler isn't easy, but in this post I help you think about what you need to do to get ready for a great trip! — Can’t say I’m thrilled to fly the friendly skies again, but gotta do what you gotta do (Photo Credit | Pixabay)

For hotels, I booked the one night I needed at the Hyatt Place Chicago/River North using my Cat 1-4 certificate I get from the Hyatt credit card. While I could have stayed at the Hyatt Regency or even used points to book the Conrad or the Park Hyatt, I don’t need frills when traveling alone with a kid. I just need a good location and I needed to use that free night. Note, I don’t actually think of this night as “free”. I paid $75 (the annual fee) for this room, so about 50% savings.

As for transportation, I’m not renting a car since we plan to link up with our friends after that first night. To save time, we’re going to Lyft to and from O’Hare, which costs more but M and I only have about 24 hours on our own so I want to make the most of it. I’ll be bringing along our mifold booster – no more bulky car seat huzzah!

Luggage and stroller

M and I will have to duke it out tonight. She wants to bring her Trunki, which we love but I sort of regret ever buying. Is it super cute? Yes. Is it super annoying to deal with a little kid trying to drag that through the airport? Also yes. But I don’t want to bring more than one suitcase, so we might just end up bringing that. Sigh.

I also decided that since we’ll be doing a couple of miles of walking each day, I’ll still need M’s stroller. Our Uppababy G-lite has taken a beating over the years, but it’s still ticking and still our favorite stroller to travel with. Small and compact wins the day when you’re traveling.

Entertainment and snacks

Now that M’s older, I’m not super worried about keeping her entertained on the flight anymore. Chicago’s pretty close by, so I’m just running with our tablet (a Nexus 7 from like 5 years ago that I rooted), my phone, her Kidzgear kids’ headphones, some coloring books, and a couple of real books. Shouldn’t be an issue. United also has that personal device entertainment stuff so I might use that on my laptop in a pinch.

In terms of snacks, I’m just grabbing two small tupperwares with goldfish and crackers – again, shouldn’t be a major issue. 3 hour flights seem like a piece of cake after Hong Kong. If you want to see other stuff I’ve used in the past to keep the kids entertained, I’ve included my favorites on my Family Travel Gear page.

Wallet

I always like to empty out my wallet before a trip, though that presents some conundrums. What if I find a MS friendly location? What if something goes on sale and I need to buy it online?

My general theory is that vacation is vacation, so I don’t want to be bound by hacking or deals. Still…I don’t like missing deals. One thing I know people do (and I should get around to) is use 1Password or equivalent to store all their CC info electronically, which covers online deals. Generally, I carry whatever card I’m meeting min spend on and a couple of others just in case.

On this particular trip, I’ll probably cut down to three cards: Jetblue Plus card (working on Mosaic status), AMEX Delta Plat business (sign up bonus), and Chase Sapphire Reserve (all around card). I’ll throw my Priority Pass card in there as well for lounge access and call it a day. Hopefully I don’t miss out on any deals, but if I do, hey, I’m spending some quality time with my daughter.

Final Thoughts

I love traveling alone with my kids and can’t wait to take H on his first solo trip in the future. M and I have done this so many times, it’s old hat now. Sure, I may have to take on 100% of the mental load (for one kid, obviously Jess also takes on 100% of the load for H since he’s staying behind), but it’s well worth the experience. I can’t wait to show M “the giant mirror shaped like a bean” and the other adventures awaiting us in Chicago!

How do you prepare to travel alone with your kids? I’d love to hear everyone else’s thought processes/tips/ideas in the comments!

Jun 22 2017

How to save money on Disney tickets and hotels using points

It’s great travel hacking together with friends, especially when it comes to workshopping ideas. For ideas on how to save money on Disney, I always find myself working with Robert Dwyer, who put me onto the idea of using Thank You Points to book a Disney cruise. We’ve been chatting about upcoming trips and wanted to figure out whether you can use points for Disney tickets and hotels. Turns out, you can, sometimes for a big savings. Note, this post may be too in the weeds for some, so e-mail me if you have questions!

Before I get to my research, let me answer some questions or comments I know I’ll get. First of all, you definitely can get more “value” out of your points. If you use your Ultimate Rewards points to book Lufthansa first class, you can come out ahead in terms of raw cent per point value.

Did you know you can use points for Disney tickets and hotels? You can save lots of money by paying for a Disney vacation with points not cash, here's how. — A trip to Disney can be expensive, but you can pay with points instead of cash if you’d like

But as Bob constantly reminds me (and I think he stole it from Milenomics), book the trips you want to take. Or in the case of families, book the trip your family wants to take. “Value” is a spectrum that takes into account monetary value and entertainment value by the end user (i.e., your kids and loved ones).

Secondly, I may hear comments that transferable point currencies have “better” uses. They most certainly do. But some people sit on seven figures worth of miles and points (like business road warriors). Sometimes you just want to burn points. And, most importantly, using points for Disney tickets and hotels saves you from using cash – which theoretically should help your financial future in the long run (see my discussion with Noah from Money Metagame on the podcast).

Alright, let’s take a look at how to use points for your Disney vacation. TL;DR – Chase Sapphire Reserve gets you the best value. If you’d like the quick version on how to use Chase points, see this guide I wrote on using your Chase points for Disney tickets!

The basics: book through travel concierge

So before I get to brass tacks and numbers, let’s take a look at the basics in theory. There are three major transferable currencies: American Express Membership Rewards (MR), Citi Thank You Points (TYP), and Chase Ultimate Rewards (UR). Each currency can be transferred to airline partners for the aforementioned “better value.”

However, you can also use each currency to book travel. When booking airfare, you get a minimum of 1 cent per point with all these currencies. So a $200 plane ticket costs 20,000 points.

In addition to booking airfare, which can be done online, you can also call the number on the back of your card and ask to book a vacation package using points (or cash if you prefer). This gets you transferred to a department that can put together a Disney vacation for you. As long as you have the right type of credit card, you can pay for part or all of this vacation with points. The devil is in the details: depending on your card you can get different value for your points.

So let’s take a look at which card issuer gets you the most value for your points when redeeming for Disney hotel and ticket packages. I’ll first go through a case study, what the vacation package costs in cash from Disney, and then I’ll show how much it costs in each of the three point currencies.

Case study – Family Suite at Disney’s Art of Animation with 4 day base tickets (2 adults, 2 kids)

For my case study, I picked a random 5 night family suite stay in August at Disney’s Art of Animation for two adults and two children (3-9). I added 4 day base tickets to that (no park hopper). Here’s the breakdown in costs.

As a package: $3199.11

A la carte: $1745.15 (room) + $1448.40 (tickets) = $3193.55 <= tricky Disney!

A la carte: $1745.15 (room) + $1303.56 (4 day tickets but must visit each of the four parks once) = $3048.71

$3000+ is a lot of cash to lay out for a five night vacation, even if it’s a family suite at Art of Animation. So let’s take a look at what it’d cost if booked in points, starting from “worst” value and ending with the “best”. (In quotes because you need to factor in how many of each currency you have, opportunity cost, etc. etc.

Buy Disney tickets and hotel packages using AMEX Membership Rewards (OK)

All American Express Membership Rewards cards, even the no annual fee ones, allow you to use points to pay for your travel. The problem is, the most you can get is 1 cent per point when redeeming for airfare (plus the 50% rebate with the Business Platinum). Making things worse, you get even less than that when booking for other types of travel, like Disney.

To book a Disney vacation package, call the number of the back of your card and say you want to redeem points for travel. If asked, specifically try to get transferred over to cruises and vacation packages (they generally go together). Then feed the agent your dates and type of ticket desired. They will quote you a price in dollars and in points (if you ask for the latter).

I poked around this page from AMEX and found that the most you can get for points redeemed towards vacation packages is 0.7 cents per point.

AMEX wanted to charge $3199.11 in cash. A rate of 0.7 cents per point means the vacation costs ~450,000 Membership Rewards points. If you compare that with the ability to cash out your Membership Rewards as gift cards for one cent per point or for airfare, you might consider calling that $4500. Unless you’re swimming in MR, I prefer the other options.

Buy Disney tickets and hotel packages using Citi Thank You Points (Better)

Since I only have the Citi Prestige and Preferred, I can only get 1 cent per point for non-air travel at the most. Like AMEX, I called the number on the back of my card and said I wanted to book a hotel vacation package with points. If you hold the Citi Prestige, make sure you say “with points”, otherwise they’ll send you to the cash booking agents (incorrectly assuming you want to use your fourth night free).

Citi also quoted me $3199.11 (the same as the Disney package and AMEX), so using Thank You Points would cost me 319,911 points. Better, since you’re getting the same value you could get for gift cards. But you’d still get less value than you could get for airfare (about $4000).

Now I couldn’t confirm this because I no longer hold the card, but I’m guessing like with my cruise deposit, Thank You Premier holders can get 1.25 cents per point. That means if you hold a Premier card, you can book this hotel room and ticket package for 255,929 points. Now we’re talking, since the equivalent in airfare would only be $3199.11.

Buy Disney tickets and hotel packages using Chase Ultimate Rewards (Best)

So I went through the same song and dance with the Chase phone agent, though I should note I spent the least time on hold with them. Chase offered the same Art of Animation room/ticket package for $3251.31 (sorta weird that it’s a shade more).

However, if you have the Chase Sapphire Reserve, you get to apply the 1.5 cents per point valuation when booking this package. That means that Reserve cardholders would only need to pay 216,754 points for this package. That could get you the same value in airfare, but if you redeemed for cash, that many points would only get you $2167.54. So in that sense you can “save” the most this way.

I also checked Port Orleans: Riverside. Again, Chase charged slightly more ($2875 vs. $2867 that Disney wanted), but again you could get the 1.5 cents per point with the Reserve so it would cost 191,667 points.

If you are an Ink or Sapphire Preferred holder, you can get 1.25 cents per point when booking these packages.

Can you buy tickets without the hotel?

One thing to note: you can save a lot (cash OR points) by staying off Disney property. So if it were possible to use points to buy tickets alone, that would be huge.

AMEX and Citi flat out told me this was impossible, but it seems like Chase is a YMMV situation. A phone agent told both Robert and myself that we had to book hotel and tickets together. However, one of the CSR agents I have been e-mailing with quoted me $1450 for tickets (same as Disney a la carte) OR 99,666 points. Two other people have told me they’ve been successful buying tickets using points from Chase, so it seems like a YMMV situation but one worth checking out.

How to decide whether to pay with points or cash

Like I said at the top, I’m sure some people say they would never use their points for this purpose. I can see how people might see this as an extreme version of buying magazines with your miles. Let me offer a couple of counterpoints to this logic.

First of all, when people rave about how transferable point currencies are great because they are so flexible, this is that flexibility in action. Points are not cash. While MR, TYP, and UR all can be redeemed for cash or cash equivalents, in many instances you can likely get more value out of using points this way.

Secondly, these points currencies are valuable but that doesn’t mean using them this way is a waste. Take Chase Sapphire Reserve as an example. Yes, you could use 200K points to book $3000 worth of flights. But, um, what’s the difference between that and using it to book $3000 worth of Disney? Take the trips you want to take!

You could also use those 200K points to more or less book one round trip seat in Lufthansa first class. That indeed would cost like $10,000, but you’d be flying alone without your family. I’m not saying that’s not a good use of your points, all I’m pointing out is that value is in the eye of the beholder. With Chase Ultimate Rewards, there’s so much value to be had that sometimes it’s tough to decide how to use your points. Just make sure you use them!

To me, it comes down to this. Cash can be used for other things. You’ve earned these points to (most likely) save money on your travel. If you use them this way, you’re fulfilling that goal.

Final Thoughts

Membership Rewards, Thank You Points, and Ultimate Rewards points can all be used to book your Disney vacation. They give you the chance to save cash by leveraging your point balances to pay Disney’s prices. These redemptions won’t be for everyone. Still, consider them if you’re trying to cut down cash costs on your Disney trips. And in many cases, Chase Ultimate Rewards comes out as the clear winner.

I still need to try a few things out. Does adding airfare to an AMEX or Citi booking unlock the 50% rebate (AMEX business platinum) or the 1.25 cpp (Citi Prestige)? Or does the airfare get added separately? Also, can you use this for packages in other Disney properties, like Hong Kong or Paris?

What are your experiences with booking Disney vacations using points? Hit up the comments and share your stories.

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Can’t get enough Disney? Check out our Disney planning podcast, Disney Deciphered (latest episode embedded below)!

Jun 15 2017

Hong Kong Revisited: Hong Kong Hello Kitty Dim Sum Review

One of the things we definitely wanted to try this visit to Hong Kong was Hello Kitty Dim Sum. Despite bending parenting rules and dealing with jet lag, ultimately we needed to take this trip to the restaurant for the kids. (Is what I tell myself). I cannot tell you why this restaurant exists, but I can tell you a little bit about it. So let’s take a quick look at the Hello Kitty Dim Sum restaurant. I’ll also toss in a bit about the pop up Hello Kitty supermarket at the end as a bonus!

Location and Ambience

If you’re coming via MTR, either take the West Rail (purple) to Austin or the Tsuen Wan line (red) to Jordan. We actually hung out at Ocean Terminal and Harbour City beforehand, so we just walked up Canton Road. It’s possible to walk a long portion of this inside the Harbour City mall, so if you’re prone to overheating it might be worth budgeting a little extra time to navigate that maze.

Did you know there is a Hello Kitty dim sum restaurant in Hong Kong? And the food is pretty good! Learn about what to order and more in this review. — If you’re staying where in Tsim Sha Tsui you can probably walk to the restaurant

I’ll be honest, I’m not sure what I was expecting, but I wasn’t really blown away by the decor and ambience of the restaurant. I found it…fine? I don’t know what I expected I guess! More pink, maybe? The tables and chairs have nice Hello Kitty decorations and the restaurant features a couple big Hello Kitties but nothing wowed me. Just don’t expect to be taken to a dreamworld of magic or anything like that and it will be fine, haha.

Food and Price

Simply put, the Hello Kitty dim sum restaurant offers good (but not great) food at a bit of an upcharge. I didn’t find the prices exorbitant, maybe $1-$2 USD more per dish.

What really impressed me was the presentation. I expected the dishes to be cute and the definitely were. But everything is just done so clean and neatly – it really is amazing to see. Obviously the steamed pork buns (char siu bao) stand out the most but everything looks pretty. And even though I prefer fried turnip cake (lo bak goh), I can’t say I minded the gigantic Hello Kitty shaped one. Those two dishes plus shrimp dumplings (har gao) I would recommend everyone try. Other than that, order what you might normally get at dim sum.

My dad also ordered this like ground meat thing that was shaped like a Hello Kitty bow. It tasted fine but um…let’s just say ground meat is better off misshapen. It looked weird!

Anyway, I definitely enjoyed the food, flavor did not take a back seat to presentation. You can get better dim sum, for sure, but you’ll probably need a Michelin starred dim sum restaurant to surpass this by a large margin. If you’re into Hello Kitty or quirky food, the food quality and presentation definitely justify the upcharge.

Hello Kitty Pop Up Supermarket

Very quickly, currently Hong Kong features a pop up Hello Kitty supermarket at YATA. It’s right outside of the Hong Kong University MTR station on the newly expanded Island line (light blue). You can buy regular groceries but you’re probably there for the specialty Hello Kitty items. You can buy cookie cutters, molds, lunch boxes, Hello Kitty Pocky-like snacks, ET CETERA. Honestly, it’s pretty awesome. Check it out before it pops…down?

Final Thoughts

One thing I love about Asia is you get these crazy things that are tough to find in the U.S. (though there was a pop up Hello Kitty food truck by my house a few months ago!). If you or your kids enjoy Hello Kitty stuff, do yourself a favor and go check out the dim sum and the pop up supermarket. Like everything in Hong Kong, they’re easy to get to. Unlike everything in Hong Kong, neither was super crowded! The products sold at both are good quality and worth checking out. Enjoy!

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May 28 2017

Hong Kong Revisited: Breaking all the parenting rules in Hong Kong

Raising kids in America means being subjected to a large set of rules about what’s safe and best for your children. I semi-religiously adhere to these rules – car seat height and weight limitations, proper etiquette, acceptable tactics for disciplining your children, etc. etc. Most of these “rules” probably reduce statistical probabilities from like 0.5% to 0.4%, but I try not to deviate too much from the norm. Traveling internationally, however, generally requires breaking parenting rules. Or at least bending them. Even if the international standard of the country we visit matches the US, sometimes practically it’s impossible to follow all the rules.

On our recent trip to Hong Kong, I was surprised to find it’s become a lot more baby friendly than our last visit in 2014. The MTR subway system looks to be adding elevators to every single station unlike some other metropolitan cities (*cough cough* LONDON). It seems like car seats are being used more regularly, though they also seem ridiculously expensive. I saw a lot more strollers, too.

Every parent knows that sometimes you have to break parenting rules, especially on the road. Here are some of the rules we had to bend/break in Hong Kong. — It seems car seats are much more prevalent in Hong Kong now, though still nothing like the US

Still, like I said, practically, we ended up bending and breaking a lot of parenting rules on our trip. To me, it’s something that just happens on vacation and I’m okay with it. But feel free to judge me if you’d like – we all parent in our own ways. I’d also love to hear what family and parenting rules you bend or break when on vacation, overseas or otherwise. So check out my list and let me know in the comments!

Eating – eat whatever you want, whenever you want

I’d say in terms of strictness, I’d rank us above average amongst American families. It definitely helps that my daughter didn’t realize she enjoyed ice cream until she turned 4 (that’s not an exaggeration). She still doesn’t enjoy the taste of chocolate. But my wife makes sure they eat organic things or whatever and I try not to share my chips with them so we both do our part.

With toddler jet lag and the foreign environment, we got very lax about eating. Everything of course started on the 15 hour flight to Hong Kong. When our kids are cranky, the easiest way to placate them is with food and we did that in spades. Noodles on demand (from the airline) and crackers on demand (from us) meant that we fed our kids quite a bit. You have to make compromises to survive a flight like that so we did.

This continued in Hong Kong as we found our son didn’t have much of an appetite while jet lagged. That meant he got a ton of calories from crackers the first couple of days. Not ideal, but we did it to survive. At meals we didn’t make a big deal about “trying everything” until the kids were better adjusted. To be honest, my thinking went something like this: “Should he be eating so many crackers…….oh shoot he’s rolling on the ground better give him a cracker!” For my daughter: “Hmm…if I let her eat this sour patch kid she will let me close my eyes for two minutes.”

So yeah, all of our eating restrictions went out the window and I don’t regret it one bit.

Night time routines – we’ll do whatever it takes

Building on the food thing, general best practice dictates that people not consume food or drink after they brush their teeth. Crazy, I know. Well, one thing I decided after taking my son for a walk at 2 AM through the streets of Causeway Bay was that I’d do whatever it takes to get him to rest. So although I put him to bed at his regular time, I prepared myself for him to wake up in three hours. Same with my daughter.

By hook or by crook, I would get H as much sleep as possible. One night that meant standing up with him in the carrier. It meant co-sleeping with him every night (which I love doing by the way but he will have none of it at home, so haha sucker!). It meant giving him milk at night to calm him down. I may or may not have given him crackers at 3 AM one night, I honestly could not tell you. I definitely showed him a video (La Luna, I think) hoping he would fall asleep watching it (he did not).

A lot of this was because of his jet lag. As he adjusted, I broke the rules less and less. By the end of the trip I only would give him water if he woke up in the middle of the night. So it’s not like if I took a three week vacation I’d let my kids eat cookies in bed, but at least during those first few days of adjusting, I let a lot of the rules go. And that was just fine.

Escalators – that’s not how you’re supposed to ride

Our most egregious rule breaking probably were riding escalators. Yes, Hong Kong has a ton of elevators and the MTR has made big strides. But our home MTR station, Causeway Bay, did not have an operational elevator because the station was under construction (I think to improve handicap access hilariously enough). They posted agents at the escalators telling you to take your kids out of strollers before riding. They also said if you need help you could call a phone number and people would come to carry you up and down (I think this was for wheelchairs).

Anyway:

So our kids rode their strollers up and down escalators quite a bit the week we were in Hong Kong. Am I proud of it? No. Would I do it again? Most probably definitely. If it’s 2 minutes up the escalator versus 12 minutes wandering around trying to find an elevator, I’ll likely take the 2 minutes every time.

Car seats – we don’t need no stinkin car seats

OK, that’s not really true. I would have loved to have a car seat. But since we planned on taking the MTR for most of the trip, we did not bring one. We brought a mifold (portable booster) for M but knew that H would mostly be going without. Now I’d probably never ride without a car seat in the States. If I’m being honest, it’s more because I don’t want to get a ticket. Which is probably why they give tickets!

But sometimes taking a taxi was the only option and so we rode with H in our laps. And, oops, sometimes we forgot or didn’t use the mifold too, so M was without a safety mechanism as well. It’s not something we enjoyed doing, but it’s something we did to make the trip smoother. I understand that some parents would never ever do that and I totally respect that. I’m certainly not recommending you forego car seats just because you’re traveling, but just being honest in admitting that we did.

Why I’m comfortable breaking parenting rules and why I consider you to at least consider bending them

“Rules are meant to be broken.” While I don’t necessarily believe that 100%, I do sort of operate that way in my normal life. Heck, isn’t that what travel hacking is all about? But I’ve learned a lot while parenting, and one thing I’ve realized is my ultimate lack of control over my children and their futures. When Jess was pregnant with our first, I was nervous all the time. What if something went wrong, what if I am a bad father, what if what if what if? Now that H and M are running around in this world, I have the illusion that I have a greater measure of control than I did when they were in the womb.

But really, we don’t. Parenting rules? They are ways to decrease the statistical probabilities of something bad happening, but nothing can bring those probabilities to 0. Parenting in general? Parenting is a way to increase the statistical probability your child will be a positively contributing, functional member of society, but nothing we do can make that probability 100.

So I’m comfortable breaking parenting rules because sometimes that’s the best option. Everything in life is a give and take. Walk 20 extra minutes to find the elevator but maybe your son will be so overtired they won’t eat and that’s bad for their nutrition. Milk might hurt their teeth at night, but lack of sleep might hurt them more. We can’t control everything. So I’m comfortable when I need to bend or break the rules because I know I’m just doing my best to put my children in the best situation possible for them. And yes, I am well aware that traveling internationally with these little kids comes with a bunch of cons – but I believe the pros outweigh them.

Anyway, bottom line is, we can only control so much and sometime we need to make compromises. That’s something I encourage all parents to do whether they are traveling or not. Parenting means meeting our kids where they are, and sometimes that means bending hard and set parenting rules at the very least.

Final Thoughts

Like I said, I’m not telling you to break the rules all the time. I’m just sharing that sometimes when we are on the road we let some of the rules go by the wayside, and I’m okay with that. I don’t think that makes me any worse of a parent (though I’m sure some others might think that!). I’d love to hear people’s thoughts in the comments. Are there rules you break with your kids when you travel? Or when you’re at home? Let me know, and let’s have a mature discussion about it.