Budget SE Asia trip, Summer 2016 Updated real-time - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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Budget SE Asia trip, Summer 2016 Updated real-time
I think it's time to start a PTR! I've started researching this trip in earnest, at least the parts that most interest me. (Disneyland Hong Kong!)
Who: Me 38, DS (will be 8 next summer), DH 51 What: Super-budget SE Asia tour. Current plan is to take train from Oregon to Vancouver, BC. Fly to Hong Kong. Overland into Laos to visit friends. Now have another contact in Malasia, so may be looking into that. Overland back to Hong Kong to fly home. When: ~June 20th-Aug 25th 2016 Why: I have summers off. DH and I want to see as much of the world as we can while we can. We've talked about Asia since way before DS was born. We love our family backpacker trips!
The trip is dependent on us really controlling our spending over the next 5 months. We'll be buying our plane tickets in Jan or Feb if the money is looking good enough. I have a thread going at The Office, kind of a savings challenge thread, if anyone is interested. Right now we already have enough saved to cover the train/plane trip there and back, so it's looking very good.
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The tickets were under 1000 out of vancouver, and we looked at historic prices and realized we were in the bottom 15% of prices or so...And we figured we could do our traditional agonizing, hemming, and hawing and pay a few hundred bucks more for the pleasure (as tix go up) or we could "decide now, suffer later", which we aim to be our decision making motto.
A couple quick searches on kayak, and we found an even better deal out of SF. SO, we are flying
SFO to HKG June 20th 1:50am
HKG to SFP Aug 25th (arrive in SFO 9:10 pm)
EEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!! I can't beleive it.
I've never flown Singapore airlines before. It gets good reviews, though we will be in the super economy seats, of course. They have a discount for kid seats, they were about 2/3 the adult price, I think that's why they were so much less than the next airline up. Our average per-seat price was 870 bucks.
Singapore Airlines
Flight 1 SFO
Mon 1:15am
San Francisco, United States
(terminal I)
HKG
Tue 6:35am
Hong Kong, Hong Kong
(terminal 1)
14h 20m Economy Boeing 777-300ER Thu, Aug 25, 2016 - Nonstop Total flight time: 12h 45m
Singapore Airlines
Flight 2 HKG
Thu 11:30pm
Hong Kong, Hong Kong
(terminal 1)
SFO
Thu 9:15pm
San Francisco, United States
(terminal I)
12h 45m Economy Boeing 777-300ER
__________________
Themed environment junkie
Last edited by KimmyAnn1147; 09-19-2015 at 12:50 PM..
For those who followed P-sha's big adventure, you might remember I'm really excited to visit the Tonga Room in SF. Since we have a nearly 2am flight monday morning, we will have lots of time in SF (Amtrak is supposed to get us there at 8am) to see this!
OK, I'm freaking out. I've been planning this trip for over 10 years, it feels like.
I'm excited for you! Having the flights set makes it a reality. I didn't know any airlines offered lower prices for children any more. Singapore Airlines has a very good reputation. And a day in SF to play!
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Wow!! This is going to be an amazing trip. It is fun to watch you save on the other thread and spend those savings on this one!! Can't wait to follow your planning
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I'm excited for you! Having the flights set makes it a reality. I didn't know any airlines offered lower prices for children any more. Singapore Airlines has a very good reputation. And a day in SF to play!
I know! It's been a long time since I've been on a flight with meal service included in the ticket. Even though it's 14 hrs to get there, I'm looking forward to that. It's got in-seat screens! So fun, it's like I'm going back to my old life when I traveled a lot!
When I did the kayak search, the tickets were quoted at about 890 per person, but when I saw the actual individual prices, that's when I noticed that the adult tix were more and the child tix were less. DH thinks that it's part of Singapore's push to increase their birthrate. I'll take it!
Very excited about SF too! I have a few things I'd really love to see there, but we'll have our luggage, so it could be tough.
I've heard nothing but good reviews about Singapore Airlines, so I'm sure you'll be fine with them.
Oh, we're "fine" with Ryan Air, Cheryl! But flying Singapore as the lowest carrier to our destination is a huge plus. The adult tickets were still very low compared to other carriers, but with the surprising child discount, we really made out great!
It is wonderful to have the tickets booked. I can stop thinking of this as a "maybe" trip. Now, worst case scenario is we don't have much money to move around. I'm fine with that! If I have to stay in a hostel on the outskirts of HK the whole time, that's fine. (Especially since the DLHK annual pass is so low! )
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It sounds like an amazing trip! 
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