Trip Reports Archives - Page 2 of 27

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.

May 11 2017

Hong Kong Revisited: Toddler jet lag, our experience, and some ideas for how to deal with it

Jet lag hits almost every human hard, but in my experience, toddler jet lag is the worst. 18 months – 3 year old kids possess the wonderful qualities of knowing what they want but not adequately expressing those needs. They also begin to assert their independence with little to no concept of what that actually entails. So toddler jet lag can be pretty brutal, especially when doing a 12 hour time change for 7 short days!

At this point in our family travel careers, we’ve handled toddler jet lag 5 or 6 times (2x to Asia, 4x to Europe or so, I lose track). I thought I’d share our latest experience in Hong Kong along with some thoughts on how to minimize jet lag’s deleterious effects on toddlers.

Both times we've taken our kid(s) to Asia, we've had to deal with some severe toddler jet lag. Here are some ideas for how to minimize the negative effects. — After London we prepared ourselves for some rough jet lag in Hong Kong

For the record, M (4 years old), absolutely killed it jet lag wise (unlike in London, above). She adjusted better than everyone in our family including her grandparents. I only have one personal datapoint, but from what I hear from my friends who take their kids back to Asia, post toddler stage they can handle it pretty well!

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Our experience in Hong Kong

Like I said at the top, Hong Kong and Boston have a time difference of 12 hours. That means 6:00 PM = 6:00 AM, up is down, down is up! We compounded our jet lag issues with a flight that left Boston at 1:45 AM, an adventure unto itself.

So H, our 20 month old, experienced some severe toddler jet lag issues. When we travel we generally co-sleep, for the most part I handled this duty in Hong Kong. Let’s take a look at the play by play of what happened. Note, we couldn’t let him cry it out at any point (which we happily would have done) because my parents and M both were sleeping in (separate) adjacent rooms).

Night 1

We arrived in Hong Kong at 5:00 AM and had a full day. H had only slept about 9-10 hours total between home in Boston and the flight. That night he woke up 3 times, 1-1.5 hours each time. In an incredibly foul mood every time, often full blown crying. Jess ended up having to stay up with him from 4:30-9:30 AM, then H slept for like 3 hours.

Night 2

After a decent day (outside of eating, jet lag sapped my son’s appetite), H went to bed at 8 PM. Promising! But then he woke up at 10 PM for about an hour. After sleeping from 11-1 AM, H woke up AGAIN and at this point I had tired of carrying him around or what not. So I made the decision to take him for a walk in Causeway Bay at around 2 AM.

He seemed to enjoy it, and it was nice walking around the quiet city, but I was pretty exhausted. He also didn’t even bother falling asleep. The two of us crawled back into bed around 4 and slept from 430-630 AM, and then we got up and made our way to Hong Kong Disneyland. I’d definitely say this night hurt the most.

Nights 3 & 4

At this point, H finally started truly adjusting and I also had come up with some more techniques. Night 3 he woke up every 2-3 hours, but instead of holding him I just switched to using our Beco carrier (affiliate link). That saved a lot of frustration because even when he kicked and screamed he had nowhere to go and I had no way to drop him. I also caved and gave him milk, which at that point just had to be done for sanity’s sake.

On night 4 he only woke up twice and only stayed up for an hour each time and I managed to cut out the milk. And with that, he finally beat jet lag! Night 5 he had a regular night of sleep, just in time to go home three days later. 🙂

Tips for beating toddler jet lag

As you can see, toddler jet lag can be pretty brutal. We experienced similar difficulties in London and on our first trip to Taiwan. Some might ask whether it’s worth it to travel with kids that young. Personally, I believe it is. You also sometimes do not have a choice, especially if you need to go overseas to visit family. So here are some ideas based on what I’ve learned about how to deal with toddler jet lag.

Try to create a regular sleep schedule as soon as possible

All kids, but especially toddlers, thrive on routine. Our son likes doing things at home in the same order and same way every day. This comes down even to silly things like he gets frustrated if mom is the one giving him a bath or if dad is the one changing him afterwards (it must be the other way around). Travel helps break kids out of their routines in a good way, but when dealing with toddler jet lag you really want to create your road routine as soon as possible.

Thus, we try to create a regular sleep schedule as soon as we can. That might mean putting the kids down at 8 PM and then taking a relaxing midnight stroll, but it’s the 8 PM part that matters. Dinner, bath, bed: we rinsed and repeated every night, shooting for 8 PM, and that really helped to speed up getting over jet lag.

Be flexible with naptime (or even bedtime) until the child adjusts

While we try to create a solid routine for bedtime and morning, we try to be flexible with naps. Think of it this way: your kid uses naps to catch up on whatever sleep he missed at night. So we made sure that we left plenty of space for naps. Sometimes that would be an extra nap in the morning, delaying our day activities. Other times that meant a long stroller nap while we explored Hong Kong.

But I think the key thing here is don’t sweat it too much if your child misses his “regular” nap time. Jet lag throws everyone for a loop, so just let them sleep when they need to sleep and be flexible until the issue has mostly subsided. Really, you have to be more flexible about naps when on the road in general so this is just an extension of that.

Keep mealtimes regular

Keeping mealtimes regular will help both adults and kids adjust to jet lag faster. In the 80s, someone came up with this crazy fast/feast/eat a big breakfast idea that supposedly helps you beat jet lag (the Argonne anti-jet-lag diet). That’s completely unrealistic for little kids but the fact that your biological clock ties in to your eating habits makes perfect sense.

So I recommend that you try to keep mealtimes as regular as possible once you reach your destination. Snack to supplement as necessary (the kids will be grumpy after all) but try to make a routine out of your meals. This should help your kids to adjust mentally, if not physically. Like I said, H had a horrible appetite those first few days of jet lag, so we went heavy on the milk for calories. Gotta do what you gotta do.

Fill your day with activities, but not too many

I’m often tempted to just spend the entire first day in a new environment hanging out and taking it easy at home. You’d think just getting rest would help with the jet lag but nothing could be further from the truth.

For starters, you and your kids will go insane staying in the hotel or apartment all day. You need to get outside just to change things up and get them into new environments. Secondly, getting exposed to sunlight helps your body to adjust biologically.

Most importantly, you went to another country for a reason – get out there and go see some of it! I think one or two activities, or even just some scheduled walks, on the first day can really help to kick that jet lag. No need to create an action packed day, but definitely don’t just stay inside “resting” all day either.

Bring equipment to help you out

You know what works best for your kids, so be sure to come prepared. I know a long plane ride seems stressful but you need to be equally prepared for the first day or two of jet lag. Bring favorite toys, favorite stroller, baby carrier like our aforementioned Beco (affiliate link), whatever you need to keep your kids occupied.

For our kids, it’s most important to make sure we have food and snacks. They get extra cranky when tired and hungry, so we made sure to always have milk and crackers on hand. We also brought our last two Go-go Squeez pouches that I got from DisneySMMC, for true emergencies! Easy and mess free is the most stress free.

Meet your children where they are

My last bit of advice relates not only to toddler jet lag but parenting in general. You gotta know when to hold em’, know when to fold em’, as Kenny Rogers says. You can make all the plans, contingency plans, and emergency plans you can think of – sometimes your kids just won’t cooperate.

So even if you have the best plan to help them beat toddler jet lag, you have to meet them where they are. And if that means you have to go home early, you go home early. If that means you wake up late, you wake up late. If that means taking a walk at 2 AM, take a walk at 2 AM.

Meet your children where they are, both physically and emotionally, and that will really help decrease your stress and theirs. In turn, they can better adjust to the mental and physical toll jet lag can take so you can get on with your vacation!

Final Thoughts

Toddler jet lag can be pretty rough, because toddlers are rough! Still, I have loved traveling with my kids even at that age. So I do what I can to minimize the toddler jet lag, and these tips have worked for me.

How do you deal with toddler jet lag or jet lag in general? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

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May 01 2017

Hong Kong Disneyland Best Attractions and Rides

Hong Kong Disneyland is a vastly underrated park in my opinion. The park houses unique rides and experiences that any Disney fan (and many non Disney fans) would enjoy. Here’s my ranking of my favorites –Hong Kong Disneyland best rides and attractions, not to be missed.

Two notes. Obviously, this list details my subjective opinions so adjust according to your family’s needs and preferences. Secondly, there will be mild spoilers for these rides, so if you’re like me and like to go in with a fresh slate consider yourself warned. Also, even though I ranked these, you could pretty much rank them 1A, 1B, 1C, etc.

So here are my favorite attractions at Hong Kong Disneyland, ranked in ascending order.

7. Fairytale Forest

It might surprise some that this is on the list, but I think Fairytale Forest is a great place to visit, especially if you have young kids. The Fairytale Forest gives you a chance to walk through a magical garden filled with features from five different famous Disney stories.

Hong Kong Disneyland features a lot of unique attractions. If you're visiting from the USA, here are the 7 Hong Kong Disneyland best rides and attractions! — You can get a lot of cool shots in the Fairytale Forest

Each section of the garden features a unique photo opportunity with some great framing (literally). There’s also a small diorama of a scene from each movie in each section. You also hear iconic music from each film in each part of the forest. Topping it all off, you can meet Tinkerbell. Overall, it’s a great little attraction that’s worth a look.

6. It’s a Small World

OK, OK. I know lots of people refuse to ride It’s a Small World for fear of getting that darn music stuck in your head for days on end. But I think the Hong Kong Disneyland version is well worth your time.

The rooms, room order, and many of the animatronics are different. Obviously, Asia’s presence looms much larger in Hong Kong Disneyland. But the real star of the show? Characters from Disney movies sprinkled throughout the ride. Not only that, but small bits from the iconic songs from these movies sprinkle themselves into the main It’s a Small World theme. Purists might not like the Disney characters being in there, but I guarantee your kids will. (A few days after I wrote this, my four year old daughter randomly volunteered that she did indeed prefer the Hong Kong version for this very reason!)

Bonus tip: Stick around to watch the clock on the Small World facade. It’s lovely to watch!

5. Hyperspace Mountain

I’d rank this higher up the list, but Space Mountain received this overlay in multiple parks (though it’s leaving Disneyland soon). As you queue, you’re briefed by Admiral Akbar on an important mission you’ll be undertaking for the Rebel Alliance. You also get some briefing in Cantonese and Mandarin – I really appreciated hearing Star Wars stuff in another language!

The ride itself features Star Wars overlays and speakers narrating what’s going on in the mission. Most of it is in Cantonese but you can get the gist without (bad guys blow up, etc. etc.) The ride is a ton of fun and honestly I prefer it to the original (I know many disagree). It surprised me at almost every turn and I walked out with a huge smile.

4. Big Grizzly Mountain Runaway Mine Cars

Out of all the rides on the list, I never managed to ride Grizzly Gulch Runaway Mine Cars, much to my chagrin. But if I had rode, it might be even higher up the list. I’m a sucker for rides that go backwards like these runaway mine cars. From what I could see, the track is long, and since this is the only true ride in Grizzly Gulch, it has to be a show stopper. Watching people ride and hearing friends’ accounts, I think it definitely fits the bill.

3. Mickey and the Wondrous Book

My first day in the park, I kept seeing loads of people coming out of an attraction called Mickey and the Wondrous Book. I had never heard of it so I looked it up when I got home. Turns out it’s a theater show, featuring Mickey and Goofy trying to get Olaf back into the correct pages of a magical storybook.

Along the way they meet characters from both iconic Disney movies (Frozen) and some of the smaller ones (The Princess and the Frog). You’ll love the music, dance choreography, and hearing Mickey and Goofy speak in Cantonese. Don’t worry, there are subtitles and half the show is in English.

The show also features some original songs which sound great, too (we’re still singing it). The show features great special effects and brings joy to kids and adults alike. Don’t miss it.

2. Ironman Experience

Walt Disney World in Florida has that weird rule where they can’t showcase the majority of Marvel characters. Since no such rule exists for Hong Kong Disneyland, they built a Star Tours type ride around Ironman called the Ironman Experience. In fact, this is the first Marvel based ride in any Disney theme park.

You board a tour vehicle at a technology expo in Hong Kong, but of course things go wrong and you get involved in some superhero action. The flight simulator holds over forty people at a time so they can move the line fairly quickly. It showcases some impressive shots of Hong Kong which add to the fun.

My only disappointment? They didn’t shell out the money for Robert Downey Jr or someone who even sounds close to him. I equate him so much with the character now it jarred me a bit to hear someone else. That bumped this ride out of #1 contention. Still, don’t let that deter you – Fastpass this ride a few times!

1. Mystic Manor

It’s been a week and I’m still thinking about Mystic Manor. Due to cultural reasons, ghosts couldn’t be included in Hong Kong Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion. What they came up with instead felt nothing short of spectacular the first time I experienced it.

The premise: an explorer offers you a tour of his mansion. Unfortunately, his mischievious pet monkey Marcus opens a magical music box that brings all the artifacts to life. I actually think Mystic Manor feels scarier than the original Haunted Mansion, because these live artifacts give the illusion of putting you in real danger. Well as much as you can in a Disney park.

Another neat feature of the ride – it’s trackless. The cars give the illusion that they move on their own. It’s probably magnets or something but it looks really cool. Finally, the ride makes excellent use of color and effects. It’s absolutely my favorite attraction at Hong Kong Disneyland.

Final Thoughts

Hong Kong Disneyland features a lot of the classic Disney rides, but 5 of my 7 favorite attractions can’t be found anywhere else. Best of all, lines generally are shorter than in other Disney parks around the world, so you could probably hit all seven of these attractions in one day with plenty of time to spare.

If you’ve been to Hong Kong Disneyland, what rides do you enjoy the most? Let me know in the comments!

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Apr 27 2017

Hong Kong Revisited: Surviving the 15 hour flight with two young kids

So we took M back to Asia before she turned two and figured we owed H the same. Coming to Hong Kong for only a week seemed like a great idea back in August, time will tell whether it was! But since H managed to get himself born in July going this summer before he turns two is impossible. The first and last steps of our journey: flights with two kids on Cathay Pacific BOS-HKG (and return) in business class.

My buddy Dan reviewed Cathay Pacific business class awhile back so I won’t bother too much with the details. Bottom line: super solid, comfortable product with good food and tons of entertainment. Truly an ideal way to fly to Hong Kong in business class as an adult. Also, one of the only reasons we managed to go to Hong Kong for such a short time (7 nights) with such young kids was being able to fly in business class. (The other? Grandparents.)

We took Cathay Pacific BOS-HKG in business class with our four year old and toddler. Here's how we managed to survive the 15 hour flight. — Hong Kong Airport – look at the camera, kid!

This post will focus on how the flight affected our kids. We spent 420,000 AA miles to fly in J so it’s fair to question whether it was worth it. Here are some things that stood out to me as a parent of a 4 year old and an almost 2 year old flying BOS-HKG on Cathay Pacific.

The lap infant fare cost much less than expected

You need to buy a lap infant ticket when flying internationally.Of course this ticket doesn’t cost a ton since it’s not full price – for most airlines, including AA, it costs 10% of the cash fare. This includes award tickets (though some awesome airlines like British Airways and Korean Air charge 10% of the miles. Aeroplan also has set cash costs which really save you money if you’re booking premium cabins). I wrote about my experience doing just that with United here. You technically need to get a lap infant ticket on domestic flights as well but those cost nothing.

Anyway, I prepared myself to pay 10% of the cash fare for our business class seats, around $800. Like with United, I decided to wait until the last week to call in for the lap infant. Business class fares don’t fluctuate too much so I didn’t think I risked much.

The AAgent surprised me by quoting me about $240 for the lap infant ticket. I’m not sure how she came up with that (coach fare, perhaps), but I took it and ran! So you never know…but be prepared to pay quite a bit. We have before.

Leaving at 1:45 AM is really tough on the kids (outbound)

As a parent, I always prefer direct flights. So when Cathay Pacific started the Boston to Hong Kong flight it was pretty exciting. The downside, however, is a 1:45 AM departure time on the outbound.

We decided to put the kids to bed at normal time (8 PM, I guess an hour early for M). We woke them up right around 11:30 PM and then left immediately. They were pretty groggy and then mostly delirious at the airport, not a great start to the trip.

Of course, we didn’t sleep at all so by the time we all boarded the plane we had kids with not enough sleep and parents with none. Jess boarded first with M and got her settled while H and I played in the empty terminal. By the time the boys got on the plane, it was time to go, so we settled in for the long haul.

The return flight leaves at a much more reasonable time, 6:10 PM Hong Kong time. Of course, it arrives at 10:10 PM Boston time, leading to a lot of jet lag, but I’ll leave that to another post.

15.5 hours is an incredibly long time

Our flight to Hong Kong took 15 and a half hours, the return took about 15. For the most part, the return was much easier – both kids slept about eight hours. The rest of the time M watched a ton of Doc McStuffins and other TV, while H…went nuts? I’d say 18-24 months is quite possibly the worst time to travel with your child.

A toddler that age knows what they want but can’t express it. They want to go places but don’t necessarily have the physical skills to do so consistently. Plus, H needs to move around much more than his sister did at that age.

One thing I’m not sure we made the right decision about, we got three seats in a row. That means to cross to the other side we had to go through the galley. That meant more room for H to walk, but I felt bad cutting through to help out. Eventually I just started climbing over the center console!

Entertaining the kids

Disclosure: Links in this paragraph earn me a small commission on Amazon if you buy through the links. I only linked products that we found useful, appreciate the support!

We bought a bunch of stuff to entertain the kids on the plane. Some things, like Wikki sticks and some car magnets, didn’t work out too well for our kids. But other stuff, like this Melissa and Doug Color Blast coloring book (with “magic pen”), provided great entertainment not only on the plane but throughout the trip.

Besides that coloring book, three other things we bought stood out. First, we bought more take and toss sippy cups. We find that our kids thermoses sort of explode due to changes in cabin pressure; these sippy cups provide a way to keep the kids hydrated without worrying about a mess. (Tip: if you do bring a thermos, keep the cap open to adjust for the pressure. Science!). They only cost $1.25 when I got the, $4 now but still worth it to me. Note they are add on items.

Secondly, Jess bought this huge Tsum Tsum sticker book which occupied M for a long time. She loves this sticker book and played with it a ton even after we arrived. Jess bought it at Target for $15 or something but you can grab it from Amazon for $10.

But da real MVP by far was this pill planner box Jess bought. I confess, I was completely skeptical about this. But I should have realized multi-purpose items reign supreme. We hid snacks, stickers, etc. in the pill planning box and both kids loved to pop each box open to get what was inside. This especially saved us with H, who probably used the box for over an hour throughout the course of each flight. Pill planning boxes – not just for the elderly!

Flying in business class helps, though I’m not sure how much

Like I said at the top, we couldn’t have done this trip without flying in business class. But that mostly is a function of how little time we were in Hong Kong. Now I know Trevor can do Hong Kong in 48 hours, but kids obviously are different. Not only do they get a ton of jetlag, but the parents get a lot less rest – so adrenaline runs out.

The best part of flying business was maximizing rest. When the kids slept, we could lay down fully, so even though I only grabbed three hours on each flight, I felt better than if I had stayed upright. Having food on demand also helped, but you can get cup noodles in economy so that mostly washed out.

I’d say the second benefit came from the attentive service. Since we had a much better flight attendant to passenger ratio, they helped out a big deal. Remember, on Cathay J, they expect you to ring the call button when you need something so don’t be afraid to do that. I’m always impressed by the quality of Cathay’s flight attendants and these flights were no exception.

Finally, and this sounds dumb, but the fact that there were so many buttons to push really helped to keep H occupied. Toddlers are silly, just give them stuff to push and they can stay happy for quite awhile!

Amenities are nice, but a longhaul flight is about survival

Despite the nice amenities of being in business class, we mostly arrived at both our destinations wrecked. A fifteen hour flight with two kids feels like a long war of attrition. It’s nice to lie fully down, but you can never fully rest because you keep one ear open for your kids.

We had no major meltdowns (greater than 5 minutes), but we had a couple minor ones to deal with. Come to think of it, we probably dealt with the same number as we’d deal with in a regular 15 hour day so that wasn’t too bad. No dirty looks either!

Cathay gave H an “amenity kit” with a couple of diapers and Mustela – nice stuff! I actually needed a new small bag for our passports so I’m using it now. I’m guessing they do this in economy too but I don’t know for sure. A nice little baby amenity. In terms of being lap infant friendly, Cathay was great.

The toughest part of flying with a lap infant on Cathay

To me the hardest part was using a seatbelt on H when taking off, landing, or in turbulence. In the States, on most carriers you just literally hold the lap infant in your lap. On Cathay and many other foreign carriers, they give you a seat belt to loop with your own. You then need to buckle that around the kid.

Both my kids unequivocably hate that thing. They don’t mind wearing a seat belt sitting alone, but they hate the lap + seat combination. So the most stressful time of the flight? Sitting in turbulence with a freaking out H on my (or Jess’) lap. Luckily our flights were pretty smooth so we didn’t need to worry about it too much!

Final Thoughts

I recognize plenty of our friends fly to Asia with their young kids in coach so I know how lucky we were to fly up front. I’m glad we got to do it, the whole purpose of this trip was to get H back before he turns two. Unfortunately, that meant we could only stay a week, but thankfully we had the miles to fly in J. That really helped minimize jet lag – though that still was pretty rough (to be continued).

Overall, Cathay Pacific J is a wonderful way to fly to Asia, if you’ve got the miles it’s a worthy redemption. A hefty redemption at 420,000 miles to be sure, but that’s why we play the game. Remember you can use AA or Alaska miles, the latter much cheaper! Stay tuned to read about my jetlag wars with H – fun times were had by none!

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Mar 28 2017

Six reasons to take a toddler on a Disney Cruise

It’s been a little over six weeks since DisneySMMC ended and if I’m being honest I’m still thinking about our Disney Cruise. While we experienced many memorable moments, the Disney Wonder stands tall above the rest. Since I brought my young four year old daughter, I thought I’d tackle a question I had myself before the cruise: should you take a young child on a Disney Cruise?

Have you ever wondered whether you should take your young child on a Disney Cruise? Here are six reasons to sail with your child and Disney! — The Disney Wonder at Castaway Cay, Disney’s private island (Todd Anderson, photographer | dclnews.com)

The reasons people might give to skip a Disney cruise with a young child often will be pretty similar to reasons to avoid traveling with young children at all. It can be stressful, they won’t remember it (though I’m on record saying that’s not important to me personally), it’s not worth the cost, etc.

Although you’ll definitely pay the Disney premium for a Disney Cruise, I’d argue that if you’re hesitant to travel with your kids a Disney Cruise is a great place to try some travel at an early age. So in honor of the six weeks I’ve been thinking about our cruise, I present six reasons to take a young child on a Disney Cruise.

1. Disney handles (almost) everything

Parents naturally get stressed out traveling with young kids because of the many logistics. Disney Cruise Line takes a lot of that stress off your hands.

First, getting to and from the ship, for a fee you can book round trip travel from MCO airport or a Disney resort. What really makes life easy is the onboard check-in. For certain airlines, you can check in on the cruise ship. Your bags magically get transported from your stateroom the night before all the way to your home airport’s baggage claim! This worked seamlessly for us even though our flight got delayed for over a day.

On the ship, you pretty much don’t have to worry about anything. You can do as much (or as little) as you want. Every day you will receive your personal navigator, a list of all the ship’s events. You don’t even have to show up to dinner on time if you want, you can go eat at any of the on demand eateries on the ship!

The great thing about young kids on Disney cruise ships (all cruise ships, really) is you everything is contained. You can find pretty much anything and everything you need, you don’t need to negotiate through unfamiliar languages or cultures (I guess the argument can be made about a cruise ship having it’s own culture), you don’t really have to worry about paying for anything extra if you don’t want to, etc. It’s simple and clean, something you paid for up front. As an aside, I think cruises are great for group trips for that very reason – everyone can do their own thing or can hang out together as much as they like.

2. Your young kids will probably love the Oceaneer Club

I won’t say that all kids will love the Oceaneer Club, Disney’s childcare for potty trained 3+ year olds, but I’d venture that most will. There are playgrounds, character meet and greets, arts and crafts, games, group games, iPad games, hula hoops – it’s basically a daycare on steroids. The good kind! (Just kidding don’t use drugs, kids).

I’ll give one example. On the Disney Wonder, kids got the chance to make boxcar racers. After about an hour or so of this craft, Mickey comes out to help the kids race their cars! If that’s not fun for a young child, it certainly would be a bunch of fun for me.

You can also leave the kids in the club for dinner while you spend some quiet time with adults. Or drop them off after dinner and spend some time walking the decks on your own. The hours of the club are generous and you’ll get a message if your kid needs you, so I personally felt very comfortable leaving my daughter there.

3. Castaway Cay is an island paradise for both young and old

One exception to the whole “you don’t have to navigate new and confusing environments” thing from #1 would be port visits. Now personally, I love visiting new places and locales. I don’t love not being sure which tours operate on the up and up or stressing about which souvenirs present the best value.

Castaway Cay was a lot of sun and a lot of funCastaway Cay, Disney’s private island, solves that problem. The island basically serves as an extension of the cruise ship: the beach is free, food is free, souvenirs are…definitely not free. But you know that everyone working on the island works for Disney thus you can relax a little bit in terms of worrying about getting scammed or the like. Yes, you will get scammed for $10 sand toys (bring your own, seriously), but you know who’s selling them to you. Quality Disney sand toys! (That’s a joke, they definitely sell the same toys you can get everywhere, bring them from home. Or bring some shovels and grab some big soda cups from the airport.)

Expensive sand toys aside, Castaway Cay rules. The beach is beautiful and picturesque, there is an amazing water slide, there’s a private beach for adults only, you can bike, you can hike, you can do water sports: there’s a reason “double dip” itineraries that visit Castaway Cay are so expensive. The port of call is simply spectacular.

4. The entertainment caters to both young and old

One thing that surprised me about the Disney Wonder? The quality of the entertainment. I had serious reservations about my daughter sitting through an hour long Broadway styled show. But Disney knows its target audience incredibly well. Each of the Disney cruise ship has a unique show, while some shows feature on multiple ships.

I first took my daughter to Disney Dreams, which basically hits some classic numbers from a variety of well known Disney movies. That gave me the confidence to bring her to the Disney Wonder’s unique show: Frozen, a Musical Spectacular. That show was a truly impressive rendition of a story whose plot I find questionable but whose music I find unquestionably excellent (don’t @ me. Horrible parenting. Obviously I support the strong female lead and sisterly love stuff).

Anyway, the Frozen show combined great acting and singing with some pretty cool technical feats. I won’t spoil them here but they were well worth the hour and my daughter loved every minute of it. It didn’t hurt that it was her first ever viewing of Frozen, either. The Disney Dream will have a new Beauty and the Beast show starting this fall so that should be pretty amazing.

Besides the shows, you have your normal cruise staple: the pool. To be honest the pools are designed for kids in mind, so young kids on a Disney Cruise will have a blast at the pool. To be fair, most young kids have a blast at any pool, but the theming is fun :).

5. Unlimited chicken fingers (and great dining experiences)

Let’s not bury the lede here: unlimited chicken fingers. The very fact that I can go order chicken fingers and fries almost anytime I want makes cruising a magical experience. OK, the quality of the chicken fingers is only average, but still! Chicken fingers!

Joking aside, the dining on the Disney Wonder was great for young kids. The pace of the meal moves quickly, but more importantly, Disney took great care considering how to keep kids entertained during meals. Each dinner restaurant (you are scheduled on an eating rotation) has its own unique menu and coloring page, so that occupies the kids for awhile right there.

Since you have the same servers every night, they get to know what your kids’ enjoy. Even by the end of a three night cruise our server already was able to pretty much predict and get anything M needed (broccoli).

Finally, the entertainment at Tiana’s Place and Animator’s Palate blew me away. Live music always keeps my daughter happy and dancing, and the New Orleans inspired music at Tiana’s Place didn’t disappoint. I got the chance to see two different shows/experiences at Animator’s Palate; both were a ton of fun. Basically, dinner becomes more than just a meal on a Disney Cruise, it’s an experience unto itself, and that’s great for young kids.

Plus, chicken fingers.

6. That Disney magic

Young children love magic the most. Yes, they can be whiny, but older kids are whiny too. But the great thing about young kids is the sense of wonder they have when “magical” Disney moments occur. Unplanned, unscripted, these moments happen from time to time on Disney properties.

Now, if you’re a cynic, you won’t appreciate this stuff at all. But that’s the thing: young kids aren’t cynics. So a young kid on a Disney cruise will love magical moments that happen that you might not even think twice about. For starters, they will get to meet Mickey dressed up in his captain’s outfit, which is pretty great.

But the moment that stood out for me was one night when M and I decided to take a walk through the ship. We were just standing around in a very quiet part of the ship, just the two of us. Suddenly, Mickey, dressed in full Fantasia garb, just sidled on in. He obviously had something very important to do, but he stopped for just that split second to say hello. That’s a cool moment for a 36 year old. That’s a mind-blowingly magical moment for a four year old. You’re not gonna get that on any other cruise line.

Final Thoughts

DisneySMMC gave me the great opportunity to see how my four year old enjoyed both the Disney Parks and a Disney Cruise. And, surprisingly to me, she enjoyed the Disney Cruise more! Perhaps it’s because she had to find other things to do in the parks because of her fear of the rides. I can’t say for sure, but ultimately, she preferred the cruise.

Disney makes their cruises so easy, I wouldn’t be surprised if your young child on a Disney cruise had a great time as well. Think I’m loco and Disney-brainwashed? You’re probably right, but have at me in the comments!

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