What fun we had!!! My family of 4 (husband, me, 2 daughters ages 9 and 12) travelled to HK, Macao, and Phuket from March 18-31. It was their first time to Asia. I was born in HK but had never been to Macao and Phuket. Here are some highlights.
March 18: We took the Cathay 3am flight from YVR to HKG. Checked in at midnight. Got upgraded to Business Class -- all 4 of us!!! We were given access to the Lounge. What a wonderful start to our vacation! Business class seats were those new pods. We were laying down the entire trip. Sat up only for 3 meals we were given. And for airline food, it was good. 13 hours just flew by on Business class.
March 19: Landed in HKG. Took the MPV minivan to the Grand Hyatt. It%26#39;s the hotel%26#39;s car service that we rented for $980 HKD. A bit pricey but a nice treat for our first trip to HKG as a family. It included porter service. Check-in at the Grand Hyatt was very easy. We were whisked straight to our room with a front desk person, who personally guided us to our hotel room and checked us in inside our room. Our luggage was just behind us and arrived within minutes. This hotel was all about providing guests with superior service, and it showed. We asked for a King bed with a rollaway and received it without problem. I took a look at a room with 2 twins, and noted that it was not the conventional North American twin bed size. In size, it was between a double bed and twin bed, able to fit 1 adult and 1 child. I decided to request that room configuration when we returned to the hotel on March 24 and March 28-30. Our first day was spent having lunch in Causeway at the World Trade building eating Vietnamese food. It was delicious. We spent the afternoon wandering the shops at Causeway Bay. It was OK shopping. Things were a bit pricey and nothing that I was particularly interested in. We went back to hotel for dinner in their lobby restaurant and had an early night as we were all a bit jet lagged.
March 20: Had breakfast in the hotel. We took the Star Ferry from Wanchai to Tsim Sha Tsui. Then we walked from the ferry terminal to Ladies Market and Fa Yuen (Sneaker Street). We all had a great time at Ladies Market wandering the stalls. Daughters bought their Converse sneakers for $15 (for 12-year-old%26#39;s bigger feet) and $10 (for 9-year-old). We bargained and get prices we wanted. Loved those street markets!!! We met up with my first cousin, his wife, my uncle and aunt for dinner but first went to uncle%26#39;s home on Magazine Gap Rd. for tea and cake. Lovely veiw from his apartment. They then took us to the Chinese restaurant at the Renaissance Hotel for dinner. Excellent food. Convenient for us, as the restaurant was next door to our hotel, and our 9-year-old was about to do a face plant into her food. Poor little girls was jet lagged in a bad way. After dinner, we called it a night and carried the poor tired child back to our room.
March 21: My husband%26#39;s old friend from university (who now lives in HKG with his wife and 2 small children) had a day off and they spent it with us. We went to Stanley. We had lunch at the Bayside Cafe. Loved their pad thai dish. We then shopped for just a few hours there. The time just flew by as this is the kind of shopping we were all looking forward to. There was something for everyone. We then went to the Admiralty Marine Club (AMC) to meet up with mutual friends. The kids played hard in their ball room, foam room. We then had dinner in their Thai restaurant.
March 22: We checked out of the Grand Hyatt, and asked the hotel to hold 3 out of our 4 suitcases for us, and then took the Cotai ferry in the morning with our friends to go to Macao. Our friends had a 3 bedroom condo in Macao, close to the Venetian. We spent the day touring the Venetian (much bigger than the one in Vegas). We ate lunch at a noodle house in the Venetian. We then spent the time touring around Macao in our friend%26#39;s car. We looked at some old churches and drove through some old cobbled stoned streets. In the evening, I forgot where we had dinner, but after dinner, we adults left our kiddies with the nanny and went to the Grand Spa for couples massages. I had a fabulous massage given by a Chinese masseuse. My husband and I paid $150 USD for the 2 of us for a 2-hour massage. That was sooo inexpensive.
March 23: We had Easter Sunday brunch at the Crown Hotel. It was amazing food! They even served foie gras. They also had lobster, raw oysters, etc. We spent the day touring around Macao and ended at the Fountains, a shopping area. We found some deals. We played some games in the arcade at Fisherman%26#39;s Wharf, and had dinner at the Sichuan restaurant there.
March 24: We left Macao on the Cotai ferry first thing in the morning. Arrived back at the Grand Hyatt to check in for 1 night. (We were originally supposed to stay at the HK Disneyland Hotel. However, due to luggage issues and our Macao and Phuket side trips, we decided it would be easier to stay at the Grand Hyatt throughout and have them store our luggage as required.) We spent some hours organizing our luggage and packing for Phuket as we were leaving the next morning. We met up with 2 of my first cousins for lunch at Stanley. We ate at the Vietnamese restaurant, Saigon. Good food, though very slow. If we were in a hurry, we would have been frustrated by their pace. Luckily for us, we had the whole afternoon ahead of us to SHOP!!! After lunch, we said good-bye to my cousins and shopped for the next 6 hours (!!!). My daughter and I found a gorgeous oil painting of HKG that will look gorgeous over our fireplace in the family room. Bought it for $20 USD. A great deal and something for us to remember HKG by. We found many many bargains that day. We left Stanley by taxi and went to pick up our laundry (which we had dropped off in the morning) at British dry cleaning on Jaffe St., near our hotel. We had dinner at our hotel and had an early night as our flight for Phuket in the morning was an early one.
March 25-28: We took Thai Air to go to Phuket. We stayed in a 6-bedroom villa with a driver, housekeeper, and cook. The villa had an infinity pool. Gorgeous home owned by our friends%26#39; friend. Had a lovely time there and must comment that Thai service is friendly and impeccable. We will return again.
March 28: Arrived back into HKG late at night. Checked back into the Grand Hyatt. Service again was impressive.
March 29: We spent the morning having breakfast with our friends at Delifrance at the Peak. Took the 1-hour walk at the Peak. It was absolutely a beautiful day to do the walk -- not foggy at all in the late morning and just after noon time. We had lunch at the dim sum restaurant there (Ti Yuen??). Then we took the tram back down the peak. We spent the late afternoon in Central at Li Yuen Street East/West in the markets. Loved that kind of shopping the best! We toured Shelley Street up the escalator. Visited SOHO and Hollywood St. area. Wore out the kids. Took them back to the hotel to have dinner. After dinner, my husband and I had a nice stroll down Hennessy Rd and visited the shopping areas and experienced the hustle-bustle in that area on a Saturday evening. Went back to the hotel to begin a bit of packing as we had to check out the next morning.
March 30: We got up late in the morning. Finished our packing, and checked out. We asked bell services to again store our luggage. Our flight home was 12:05 March 31. We confirmed our Grand Hyatt MPV van to take us to the airport at 8:30pm. Then we wandered to Fook Lam Moon on Johnston Rd. to meet my relatives for dim sum lunch, our final meal before we left. It was good food. We then were driven by my first cousin to the cemetary in Kowloon to pay respects to my grandfather and other relatives. Then my cousin kindly dropped us off at Ladies Market so we could do some final damage to our wallet. We bought many last-minute T-shirts (Billabong) and I bought some Victoria Beckham jeans for myself ($25 USD!!!). Got back to the Grand Hyatt via Star Ferry. Went to the 11th floor (the Spa) to have a shower and freshed up before our long-haul flight back home. Our driver was waiting for us and we claimed our luggage from bell services. Arrived at the airport and again had the Grand Hyatt porter service. We checked in at the Cathay counter -- no upgrade this time. The economy seat was really uncomfortable. My legs were cramped, so little room. And that%26#39;s saying a lot, since I%26#39;m a petite woman. How do tall people manage these seats anyways??? Uneventful flight home. Arrived half an hour earlier than scheduled.
Overall, a most enjoyable trip filled with friends and family. We may not have done too much sight-seeing. But we did cram in a great amount of shopping, which really was our goal as well as visiting friends and family whom we don%26#39;t see often enough.
HIGHLIGHTS:
- Star Ferry rides
- Grand Hyatt service
- Shopping at Stanley and Ladies Market
- Walk at the Peak
LOWLIGHTS:
- Crowds
- Pollution
- Smog
Also, THANK YOU to the Tripadvisor Hong Kong Forum experts and posters for all your help and tips that allowed me and my family to experience HKG in the best way possible.
Trip Report
Wow, that is the type of relaxed yet enjoyable visit I want! You did not try to cram to much in but you seemed to do enough? I just want to take it slow,take in the sites and enjoy myself as you all did. Thanks for this post.
Can you tell me what the walk from the ferry terminal to Ladies Market and Fa Yuen (Sneaker Street) was like? I would like to do that with my family!! Do you think it would be manegable with young kids?(how long/far)
Also, can you tell me just a little more about Stanley? Is it on hong kong island side, what kind of shopping is there?
Sorry for all the questions, hope you can find some time for them!
Thanks
Trip Report
just wondering, what made you decide to skip disneyland, ocean park and maybe even the giant buddha?
were you concentrated on doing a shopping trip?
is the 980HKD van service just for 1 day? it%26#39;s pretty expensive.
@angie
it%26#39;s quite a long walk (along nathan im guessing) from tsim sha tsui to mongkok but since there%26#39;s just so many things to see, you%26#39;ll hardly notice to distance.
RichmondCA, thanks for your trip report. It%26#39;s good for your daughters to meet relatives in HK. Your visit to cemetery where your grandparents are remind me of my relatives from the US who do the same when visiting the Philippines.
Angie, with small kids in tow, I suggest you take the taxi going to Fa Yuen or Ladies%26#39;Market. You will still enjoy the sights going there. I have yet to try walking from star ferry to Ladies%26#39; Market myself!LOL But with my dislike of crowds, I doubt it.
Hi Angie: Yes, it was just the trip we wanted. It was all about relaxing, visiting family who are now older and don%26#39;t want to do the long-haul flight to Canada, and visiting friends who are working such long hours that they don%26#39;t have time to come visit us in Canada. We had no intention of planning an action-packed vacation that required us to have a vacation afterwards to recover :-)
Greenarcher is correct. The walk from Tsim Sha Tsui to Ladies Market and Fa Yuen St. is long. About an hour%26#39;s walk, possibly slower with children. We actually stopped in at the Eagle Hotel for a washroom break and quick bite to eat. We managed the walk because both my kids are very athletic and have huge endurance, and my husband and I are very fit. It is a good walk to take, especially after all that eating in HKG :-)
Hi Greenarcher: No need for Disneyland for us. Our kids go to Anaheim Disneyland or Orlando DisneyWorld annually. They actually had no interest to do Disney in HKG. Afterall, why walk down Mainstreet USA in HKG??? And why go on Dumbo, Jungle Cruise, or the Pooh Bear ride when the kids are used to Splash Mtn, Matterhorn, Big Thunder Mountain Train ride, Grizzly River Rapids, Indiana Jones and the California Screamin%26#39; rollercoaster?? They were more interested in seeing the sights of HKG. And also, as girls, they wanted to shop. Ocean Park also isn%26#39;t an interest as we go to Southern California every year. Been to Sea World, Birch-Scripps Aquarium and the Aquarium of the Pacific, as well as the San Diego Zoo. As for visiting the Giant Buddha, it didn%26#39;t fit in with our plans and where we were going each day. Because it wasn%26#39;t high on our list of priorities, we made no effort to go see it.
Yes, $980 HKD for the van service was pricey. We didn%26#39;t mind the cost, because we had many pieces of luggage that we wouldn%26#39;t have been able to fit into a cab (would probably need 2 cabs). Also, we liked the reliability of the Grand Hyatt%26#39;s car service. I tried to book the car services that were listed in previous posts on this forum. However, none of those car services returned my e-mail!!! That in itself showed me how (un)reliable they could potentially be. I paid for peace of mind, reliability, timeliness of service, their awesome porter service, and their friendly service. Also, after the exchange rate, it is not bad at all and kind of what I%26#39;d expect to pay anyways.
3cia: The cemetary was quite the experience. I was so happy to bring my girls to see my grandfather. I also showed them where my grandfather used to live, and retraced the steps down Shelley Street where I used to go into Central with my grandmother or mother.
Gosh, I understand what you mean by the crowds. Navigating through Nathan Road was quite something. It was nice to escape to quiet Phuket and enjoy the villa. Having that break in between really helped us cope with the crowds in HKG.
Hi Richmond!
I loved reading your trip report! What an amazing vacation you had and you told about it in such an interesting and detailed way. Glad you found the Victoria Beckham jeans for 25 dollars in the markets. I think you asked me about them a few weeks ago. Wasn%26#39;t shopping there the best! Thanks for sharing and how cool that you all got upgraded to Business Class.
Thanks all! It may be best to take a cab in my case?
What about Stanley? anyone have any info in that place...
RichmondCA- You have me thinking twice about the time I will spend at disney...hahaha.. we too just went to Anahiem in July and plan on going to orlando. I just cant get over the price in Hong kong though! It is less then a third of what we paid to stay at the disneyland hotel. I guess two of my kids are younger the yours and that may be a good reason to go....and I am such a kid at heart...I think it is really for me...lol
Hi Sleep! Thank you for telling me about the shopping and informing me about the jeans and Converse sneakers! With the info you gave me, I knew where to start my bargaining.
Angie: Disney was not for us. But with younger kids, it may be the thing to do. With our family, we just found it odd to go to a Disney theme park when we should be soaking up HKG%26#39;s culture, its street scene, and everything else that makes HKG such an interesting, special place.
you can always head to the city even if you%26#39;re staying in disney (i strongly suggest this) though the trips might be quite long.
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