ABD China 2018 meets thread

calypso726

Escaping reality one Disney vacation at a time
Joined
Dec 11, 2006
We are booked for the May 20, 2018 ABD. I didn't see a thread created so I figured I'd post one for those who have also booked China for 2018.

We are planning on coming into Hong Kong the day before and hopefully hit the park and adding a one day post stay in Shanghai to spend more time at the park. From there, we will head to Tokyo and visit Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo Disney Sea. We are calling it our Asia Disney Parks Trifecta trip!
 
We are booked for the May 20, 2018 ABD. I didn't see a thread created so I figured I'd post one for those who have also booked China for 2018.

We are planning on coming into Hong Kong the day before and hopefully hit the park and adding a one day post stay in Shanghai to spend more time at the park. From there, we will head to Tokyo and visit Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo Disney Sea. We are calling it our Asia Disney Parks Trifecta trip!

I'm so jealous. Make sure to try some of the crazy popcorn flavors at Disney Sea. I'm still kicking myself for not doing that.
 
All of our flights are booked! :banana: WOO HOO! We were able to get everything we wanted in terms of award flights with miles. So excited and hope to see others on the China ABD next year chime in.
 
I've got two of our three flights on hold. Just waiting for the rest of our points to come through ... but you already knew that. :D
 


Have an awesome time on your trip!! My soon-to-be DH and myself are trying to get onto the October trip for our Honeymoon!
 
All of our flights are booked! :banana: WOO HOO! We were able to get everything we wanted in terms of award flights with miles. So excited and hope to see others on the China ABD next year chime in.
Calypso,

We are planning for Summer 2019! Would love to know your flight routes, etc. I am getting together a savings plan now.
 
Calypso,

We are planning for Summer 2019! Would love to know your flight routes, etc. I am getting together a savings plan now.

You got it! I will share but bear in mind I travel hack all my flights and did a seriously aspirational one for this trip. Using miles to get the flight experience I wanted required some positioning flights and going a little out of the way.

We are flying out of FLL on Delta to position ourselves at JFK in order to fly Singapore Airlines in the Suites class. We didn't know when or if we'd get a chance to try this so we are going out of our way just to do it. The Singapore airlines flight is from JFK-FRA-SIN-HKG. When else would I get a chance to fly like this?

Singapor suites 2.jpg

For my fellow travel hackers - We used a combination of SPG points, MR points, UR points and TY points to book the Singapore Suites. Taxes and fees were about $57 each. Krisflyer points required per person are 135k saver or 250k standard.

We will be heading for Japan after the ABD to visit Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo Disney Sea. So we booked a flight on Japan Air from PVG-NRT in business using British Airways Avios miles since it is a distance based mileage program and would work out better than fixed in this case. It was 15,000 Avios per person and about $22 in taxes and fees.

Lastly, we booked Japan Air to come back home. I needed the flight that would get us back in the least amount of time since we both need to be at work the next day. I used Google Flights to figure out what would work best. Japan Air would be our best option but we had to position with a connection in ORD. We used 80,000 American Airlines miles and about $200 each for flights on the JAL first class suite flying from NRT-ORD. It's not as cool as Singapore's suite but I'm not complaining :D

We are on a separate ticket from ORD-FLL because American Airlines wanted way too many miles (45,000) to tack on a 3 hour domestic flight in a business class seat. Uhm, no. So we paid for that one and will earn some butt in seat miles instead.

Between Momondo and Google flights I was able to determine which airlines I should focus on. Hope this helps.
 


@calypso726 That just looks so cool. Does Singapore have a shower on board as well? I saw a review of that on Emirates. How crazy would that be to be able to take a shower before landing. We're doing business to HK via Eva and from Shanghai via ANA this Fall. Got some good super saver mileage deals on those, although I'm certainly no hacker. I was hoping to get to fly the Hello Kitty Eva plane or one of the Star Wars ANA planes, but sadly no exciting planes fly in and out of Houston.
 
@calypso726 That just looks so cool. Does Singapore have a shower on board as well? I saw a review of that on Emirates. How crazy would that be to be able to take a shower before landing. We're doing business to HK via Eva and from Shanghai via ANA this Fall. Got some good super saver mileage deals on those, although I'm certainly no hacker. I was hoping to get to fly the Hello Kitty Eva plane or one of the Star Wars ANA planes, but sadly no exciting planes fly in and out of Houston.

No, Emirates and Etihad both have Singapore beat in terms of shower. That would be so cool to do though. Emirates is on our list of A380 planes to fly. I have seen reviews of the shower experience and lounge and bar in the sky from some of the the travel hacker bloggers that I follow. These types of experiences weren't initially on our radar since we really just want a more spacious lie flat seat and lounge access and pay as little as possible out of pocket for it. Then DH said to me one day, "When are we going to fly Emirates or Etihad?" :confused: He must have come across one of those reviews which is odd because I'm the on that does all the reading, planning, research and bookings of award travel. He gets the credit cards I tell him to get, uses the right one for the right category and takes advantage of shopping portals. I had to explain that none of our future plans would have us flying those airlines in any reasonable manner. When we booked the China trip, I saw an opportunity to position ourselves to fly this one, albeit a bit out of the way, and let him know. YOLO

I"ve read good things about EVA. One of the regular posters in the "I love credit cards" thread on Budget Board here on the DIS flies that airline fairly regularly. Those look like fun planes! I'm sure our travels will eventually take us to Asia again. Hopefully ABD will come up with a Japan trip (hint hint to the ABD corporate peeps if you guys are reading this) or one of the Disney Cruise ships will start doing sailings in the region.
 
You got it! I will share but bear in mind I travel hack all my flights and did a seriously aspirational one for this trip. Using miles to get the flight experience I wanted required some positioning flights and going a little out of the way.

We are flying out of FLL on Delta to position ourselves at JFK in order to fly Singapore Airlines in the Suites class. We didn't know when or if we'd get a chance to try this so we are going out of our way just to do it. The Singapore airlines flight is from JFK-FRA-SIN-HKG. When else would I get a chance to fly like this?

View attachment 252840

For my fellow travel hackers - We used a combination of SPG points, MR points, UR points and TY points to book the Singapore Suites. Taxes and fees were about $57 each. Krisflyer points required per person are 135k saver or 250k standard.

We will be heading for Japan after the ABD to visit Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo Disney Sea. So we booked a flight on Japan Air from PVG-NRT in business using British Airways Avios miles since it is a distance based mileage program and would work out better than fixed in this case. It was 15,000 Avios per person and about $22 in taxes and fees.

Lastly, we booked Japan Air to come back home. I needed the flight that would get us back in the least amount of time since we both need to be at work the next day. I used Google Flights to figure out what would work best. Japan Air would be our best option but we had to position with a connection in ORD. We used 80,000 American Airlines miles and about $200 each for flights on the JAL first class suite flying from NRT-ORD. It's not as cool as Singapore's suite but I'm not complaining :D

We are on a separate ticket from ORD-FLL because American Airlines wanted way too many miles (45,000) to tack on a 3 hour domestic flight in a business class seat. Uhm, no. So we paid for that one and will earn some butt in seat miles instead.

Between Momondo and Google flights I was able to determine which airlines I should focus on. Hope this helps.
You are amazing! I have managed to go "free" to Alaska and Australia (mostly) but with 3 of us I can't swing the premium class. However, these are great routes and airlines to look at! Great job! You really should start a business/service!
 
You are amazing! I have managed to go "free" to Alaska and Australia (mostly) but with 3 of us I can't swing the premium class. However, these are great routes and airlines to look at! Great job! You really should start a business/service!

Thanks! Oh for sure, it is definitely harder with 3 or more and way more miles and points. I also looked at Cathay Pacific flying out of JFK or LAX using AA miles but if you have Alaska miles, they partner with Cathay Pacific too. We also looked at the possibility of flying Korean Air to HKG via JFK, LAX and SFO.

Oh gosh I couldn't do this stuff for others as a business. Heck, I still barely know what I'm doing :laughing: I follow and read articles by other travel hackers that have been doing this forever and turned it into a business with their blogs and award booking services. When I need to get somewhere, I will just copy what they did, more or less. That's the best part about this hobby. I'm not stuck figuring it out on my own. Pretty much any place I want to visit, several of the bloggers have already done it and wrote about it. Well, so far they have. I guess I'll find out if any of them have travel hacked their way to Antarctica soon enough.
 
Thanks! Oh for sure, it is definitely harder with 3 or more and way more miles and points. I also looked at Cathay Pacific flying out of JFK or LAX using AA miles but if you have Alaska miles, they partner with Cathay Pacific too. We also looked at the possibility of flying Korean Air to HKG via JFK, LAX and SFO.

Oh gosh I couldn't do this stuff for others as a business. Heck, I still barely know what I'm doing :laughing: I follow and read articles by other travel hackers that have been doing this forever and turned it into a business with their blogs and award booking services. When I need to get somewhere, I will just copy what they did, more or less. That's the best part about this hobby. I'm not stuck figuring it out on my own. Pretty much any place I want to visit, several of the bloggers have already done it and wrote about it. Well, so far they have. I guess I'll find out if any of them have travel hacked their way to Antarctica soon enough.
How many days are you staying in Tokyo? ANA flies direct from Houston there. That's what we flew to Vietnam and it was a great, easy flight. I'd love to stop in Tokyo but woul 2-3 days be enough?
 
How many days are you staying in Tokyo? ANA flies direct from Houston there. That's what we flew to Vietnam and it was a great, easy flight. I'd love to stop in Tokyo but woul 2-3 days be enough?

Our ABD ends on May 31st and we are staying an extra day in Shanghai to spend more time at Disneyland. June 1st we check out, fly to Tokyo so it's like a travel day pretty much. We have 3 full days in Tokyo and then leave on the 5th. We are only planning to visit the parks while we are there. From what I've read it's crazy busy on the weekends, which of course is when we are there. We are going to make the most of it. I don't know when else we would be close enough to give it a try. I'd rather go for a couple days and do what we can, than not go and have regrets.
 
Update on planning our China ABD trip. Our post trip planning to Tokyo is underway. We are doing a split stay and have the first two nights at the Tokyo Disneyland Hotel with a Park View room. We also managed to book two nights at the MiraCosta in a Harbor View room. Thank goodness for the Disboards or we never would have snagged Harbor view rooms at MiraCosta! Really getting excited about this trip!
 
Update on planning our China ABD trip. Our post trip planning to Tokyo is underway. We are doing a split stay and have the first two nights at the Tokyo Disneyland Hotel with a Park View room. We also managed to book two nights at the MiraCosta in a Harbor View room. Thank goodness for the Disboards or we never would have snagged Harbor view rooms at MiraCosta! Really getting excited about this trip!

You're doing it right! It was a slog taking multiple subway trains there and back. It would have been so nice to wake up and head into the park!
 
About to book the October trip. Beyond excited. Will add 1 or 2 days on each end and stay at the Resort Hotels. Flying out of Jordan with Emirates (or Qatar).
I'm a solo traveller and this will be my second trip with ABD.
 
Just booked the July 29 China ABD. We are a family of 4 and this will be our 2nd ABD trip. We did the Danube last summer with the Prague extension and I am now sold on ABD. We are so excited!
 

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