Grand Hyatt Hong Kong

Hotel Stay Details 
Hotel: Grand Hyatt Hong Kong
Dates: March 6-8, 2014
Rate Paid: 22,000 Hyatt Points/night
Regular Room Rate: $542/night 
Total $ Benefit: $1,084 
Point Redemption Value: 2.5 cents/pt

I don't know how to read, but I'm pretty sure the sign says Grand Hyatt, but it might as well also say, SUPER Kid Friendly Hotel.

We arrived pretty late around 11PM Thursday night. Fortunately, my father informed the hotel in advance with the time when we'd be arriving so that they knew to expect us later in the evening. When our taxi pulled up, we were pleasantly reminded how much great service exists in Asian hotels when the doorman ran to our taxi to open our door and take our luggage from the trunk.

They welcomed us to the Grand Hyatt and directed us to the front desk in a massively spacious lobby. Amidst the flowing water from the fountains and the live classic jazz being played up on the mezzanine terrace, we waited to check in. While not a true luxury hotel (like Park Hyatt or St Regis), the Grand Hyatt Hong Kong was definitely a beautiful high end business hotel.

Unfortunately, my father's 2013 Hyatt Diamond Status ended just 1 week before we arrived, so we were back down to Hyatt Platinum status, which was meaningfully less beneficial. Instead of an upgrade to a suite, a welcome gift and free breakfast, we were thanked for being Hyatt Platinum members and offered a 2PM late checkout. Of course, my annoying father feigned ignorance about his status downgrade and acted shocked that he wasn't a Diamond anymore, but the Front Desk seemed very hip to that scam.

But any disappointment was soon eliminated when we reached our corner room 2906 which was prepared for our arrival. When my father had contacted the hotel in advance, he mentioned that my parents were celebrating their 5th wedding anniversary, which is technically in July if you wanted to be all legalistic about it. But to appreciate our patronage, the Grand Hyatt offered us a complimentary bottle of sparking white wine and some fruit with a nice card welcoming us to the hotel. What a nice gesture!

The rest of the room was the pre-renovation style, but still very clean and sleek. The stylish bleached wood cabinets were custom designed to function as wall art as well as storage. Whatever we lacked in space, we made up for in comfort and utility.

 

 

We had a view of the city (facing south) instead of the Victoria Harbor, but we didn't mind. From our 29th floor view, we saw the rooftop pool as well as a kid's playground.

 

The bathroom was very gold. Probably something that stereotypical Chinese people would enjoy, but it wasn't my personal favorite. My mother on the other hand was inspired to have a bathroom like this when we buy a house one day.

 

But what made our stay at Grand Hyatt so awesome was all the features they provided for kids. First and foremost, I received not one but TWO stuffed panda bears.

Second, they had my pack and play all set up with a baby sized pillow and sheets.

And, then they had a nice kid's bath amenity kit, which I obviously used right away. Nothing like a nice hot bubble bath after a long 16 hour flight!

 

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

So after our action packed 16 hour flight, we secured us some spending money from the ATM, we made our way to the Airport Express Train that would get us to downtown Hong Kong in less than 30 minutes.

We purchased a pair of one way tickets for HK$160 (about $21 USD) to capitalize on a special they were having for "groups." Normal prices for a single one way ticket is HK$100 and a single round trip ticket was HK$180. As my father said, "Another great reason to be married!"

So we walked through the corridor, swiped our ticket on the reader and walked right to the train platform, which was completely indoors. Luckily, my father remembered that we needed to keep our tickets (a semi-rigid plastic card) to exit the train at our final destination.

As the train approached, people started lining up. Unlike the chaos we're usually used to on the NYC subways, the Hong Kong system was very orderly and even had places noted on the floor where the passengers should stand to board the train. Before we knew it, the train arrived and we took our seats.

The express train only makes a few stops. One in Tsing Yi, then another in Kowloon and the final stop in Hong Kong Central Station. Before we knew it, we had arrived in Central Station and got off the train. We swiped our ticket to exit the area and walked over to the taxi stand areas that were organized into four separate indoor lines.


The pace of taxi cabs pulling up, loading their passengers and taking off was amazingly efficient. We hopped into the spacious back seat of the red and black Hong Kong taxi and we were on our way to the Grand Hyatt, a close 5 minute drive from Central Station.

You might have thought we could walk, but the roads in Hong Kong aren't really suited for pedestrians they way Manhattan is. Most of the roads are semi-highways with narrow sidewalks and guard rails. Plus, it was 10:30PM at night and drizzling rain, so probably worth the $4 USD to splurge on a taxi.

Cash Money

Believe it or not, folks, most foreign countries will not accept the almighty US Dollar. True story! I know this is my 12th foreign country, but we didn't really talk about our ATM process yet when we travel abroad.

Now while we ALWAYS try to use our credit cards to pay for everything (cash doesn't earn you free miles/points!), there are often scenarios where using paper over plastic makes sense, such as (a) when they don't take credit cards or (b) there's an extra % surcharge for using credit cards.

Depending on where you're traveling to, you'll run into these situations, especially for taxis and smaller local stores/restaurants. So we always make sure we have cheap access to local currency as soon as we land at the airport, just to be safe. I thought I'd share some of our best practices in case it helps others.

1. Use an ATM 
Well first and foremost, we always use an ATM from a respectable bank (or as close to one as we can find).

In our particular case, we landed in Hong Kong Airport around 10PM local time and found an ATM from HSBC (HongKong Singapore Banking Corporation) which is pretty well known in the US, well NYC anyway. The first one we saw as we cleared Hong Kong customs had a pretty long line, so we opted to exit to the public waiting area where there were more options and fewer people waiting in line.

Some people will prefer to use Travelex or some other Currency Exchange place. We NEVER use these places because the FX rates they use are usually so off "market" that we end up losing out. The few exceptions are however (a) Argentina where the Blue Dollar FX rate is significantly better for US dollar holders than the official FX rate and (b) when you still have some local currency leftover at the end of your trip. Trust me, no store in America will take a Brazilian Real or a Korean Won.

But aside from those special situations, using an ATM is most likely your best bet. The FX rates that banks offer you will closely approximate the official exchange rate. Plus the ATM fees can be avoided if you use an ATM that is part of your bank at home, or if you have a Charles Schwab checking account which will waive any ATM fees charged to your account.

Before we had a Schwab account, we'd always try to have 1 large ATM withdrawal for each trip to minimize the per transaction ATM fees (both from the local ATM machine as well as our bank for using a foreign non-bank ATM, which could total up to $7 USD per transaction).

While this strategy worked sometimes, we often ended up having to take out a large amount of foreign currency, which usually meant we'd have a lot leftover at the end of our trip. So we'd be forced to pay a hefty Travelex fee at the end anyway to convert the rest back to US dollars. Now with Schwab's ATM fee reimbursement, I can pull out $20-200 at a time and not worry about getting a $5 ATM fee charged each time.

2. Withdraw Odd Amounts
If your parents have ever let you use a domestic ATM before, you'll realize that they almost always spit out $20 bills. After all, $20 is an easy denomination to count and use at merchants in America. However at International ATM machines, they oftentimes give you much larger denominations to be efficient with space inside the actual machine.

Why is this a problem? Well, just imagine if your Chase ATM spit out $100 bills instead of $20. Try taking a $8.50 cab ride cross town and giving him a Benjamin Franklin. Good luck with that.

The exact same thing happens all over the world. One time back in 2008, my father was in Peru and had nothing but 100 Peruvian soles bills and literally couldn't find a way back to his hostel from the bars, because literally no one took credit cards or would break a 100 soles bill - which was actually only $35 USD.

So what do you do when confronted with an ATM that wants to give you high denomination currency? Pick a random number. Instead of pushing the preset button for HK$1000 (which is about $128 USD), my father entered in his own amount of HK$900. That way, instead of getting two HK$500 bills, he would get one HK$500 and four HK$100 bills.

In an ideal world, he would have picked HK$999 so he'd also get a HK$50 bill, a few coins for HK$10, HK$2 and HK$1, but those weren't options from the HSBC ATM.

3. Break Your Large Bills ASAP
Similar to the tip above, you don't really want any large bills. So as soon as you find somewhere that will take the HK$500 bill, use it. In our case, we found a 7-11 that took it for our purchase of a small juice and snack (HK$10). The cashier didn't even flinch and just ran the HK$500 bill under a UV light to check it was legitimate and gave us HK$490 back in change. But trust me, it usually won't be that easy all the time, especially when we're in less developed countries than Hong Kong.

4. When Using Plastic, Use a No FX Fee Card
So for the situations where you can keep your cash in your pocket, you should make sure you're using credit cards that do not charge any foreign transaction fees. For example, if you used your Starwood Amex card in Canada, you'd get charged an additional 2.7% as a FX fee by Amex. Clearly, the value of your SPG points earned from that transaction would be completely negated by the additional 2.7% fee.

Fortunately, there are several credit cards that do offer to waive FX fees, including the Platinum American Express, the Chase Sapphire Preferred, the Chase Hyatt Visa, the Chase British Airways Visa, the Citi Hilton Reserve just to name a few. So whenever we travel abroad, we keep the other cards at home, even if it means losing out on a category bonus (like 2x on dining or 5x on groceries).

5. Get Charged in Local Currency
There's a feature in many foreign countries that will "help" international travelers know what they're spending. It's called Dynamic Currency Conversion. Here's how it works:

Say you go buy some contact lens solution at a local pharmacy in Kowloon. The official price would be HK$41.40. After using our no FX fee Chase credit card, we were given the option of being charged either HK$41.40 or $5.57 USD by the merchant. While you may think that these two options are equivalent, don't be fooled. They're likely giving you an unfavorable FX rate.

Chase (and any other bank) will automatically convert a foreign charge into USD using their FX rate. Almost every single time I've ever made a foreign purchase, the rate that my credit card bank uses is significantly better than the FX rate used by the foreign merchant who is incentivized to use an FX rate that's more favorable to them (ie, more USD) so they end up with more when their bank converts back into their local currency.

While this particular pharmacy example didn't seem like it was a big deal, when you think about how much you might spend on a dinner or even a hotel, the small % differences really add up to a lot of $.

6. Use Leftover Foreign Currency to Paydown Your Hotel Bill

My nerd father likes to play this mental game with himself by trying to get to 0 local currency at the end of every international trip. Now, this doesn't mean that he goes to the airport gift store to buy a bunch of useless junk to "get rid of his foreign currency." You should know by now, he's way too frugal to waste money. Instead, he tries to strategize his ATM withdrawal amount and spending patterns to hit the elusive Zero.

He does this in two primary ways. Chances are that the last two payments people will make on an international trip will be (a) paying their final hotel bill when they check out and (b) paying for transportation to the airport.

When my family is in a situation where they took out too much foreign currency and have leftovers, they figure out what transportation back to the airport will cost and how they'll pay for it. If they can purchase a train/bus ticket using a credit card, then great. But sometimes, the only reasonable way to get to the airport is to take a taxi, which often only accepts cash. So at the beginning of the trip, my father will put aside that amount as "Taxi money" and keep it unused during the trip.

If he still have leftover foreign currency even after accounting for the return trip, then he'll just give the hotel all his excess local cash and it will pay down the hotel bill. Then whatever remaining balance can easily be put on his credit card of choice.

So perhaps you already knew some of these tips, but perhaps you learned something new that you can use. Travel well!

Now if only I could figure out this Hong Kong metro map.

Long Eventful Flight!

Our flight from Newark to Hong Kong on Wednesday afternoon actually got off to a fine start.

We arrived at EWR a little before 1PM, plenty of time for our 3:35PM departure time from Terminal C. After clearing a pretty empty security line, we decided to have a proper sit down lunch at one of the airport restaurants to start off our trip.

After paying for an overpriced meal at Gallagher's Steakhouse (review summary: even with managed expectations, we were not impressed), we went over to the United Club Lounge's Family Room to relax a bit before our boarding started at 2:45PM.

Fortunately, for us, we were the only ones in the Family Room and had some privacy for an hour as we prepared for the long flight ahead of us. In particular, my father packed a few cheap plastic bags (the kind you get from CVS). These would become invaluable later on.

So at 2:45PM, we head over to Gate 123 as our boarding passes suggested. We were in Group 2 boarding, and everyone seemed to already be lining up in their appropriate Group boarding lanes. Unfortunately, they announced that we'd end up having to wait at least 30 minutes before we could start boarding. Nevertheless, I managed to occupy my time spinning around in circles and running around the terminal area as my father chased me around.

Finally, we started boarding a bit after 3:30PM and got into our Economy Plus seats and set up shop (iPad, pillow and headphones). My mother wanted to take the middle seat to be closer to me, so my father took the aisle seat while the plane continued to fuel up. Despite getting everyone boarded and seated, we didn't end up taking off until 4:48PM, well over an hour after our original departure time. That gave me a lot of time to watch my Sheriff Callie's Wild West show on the iPad.

While many domestic flights have removed the rule where you have to turn off any electronics for take off / landing, apparently international flights still had it in place. So you can imagine my 2 year old toddler's frustration as my mother had to turn off my show to comply with FAA regulations. Let's just say that the nearby passengers seated around us explicitly knew there was a toddler on board after that...and they continued to know it for a good 20-25 minutes. But eventually, I settled down, despite the constant stares back from the 30 yr old hipster sitting across from us in between taking his selfie photos.

Around 6PM, they started their dinner service. My family all ordered the BBQ chicken meal with rice and steamed veggies. Surprisingly, I ate all my food. About an hour later, they brought down the drink cart where my mother asked if they had any milk for me. Now, I know I'm past the age of needing to drink milk, but I love the stuff. Can't get enough, especially before I go to bed. We thought we hit the jackpot since most flights we took didn't have any milk, except for coffee creamers.

Fast forward a few hours when the cabin lights were dimmed for passengers to sleep, and we started to regret our earlier "good fortune." A few months ago, I leaned the phrase, "My stomach hurts," and used it regularly to communicate the pain to my parents, especially when it was bedtime and I didn't want to go to sleep. Well, I used it again this time, though with a different outcome than usual.

For the 2nd time in my entire life, I threw up my dinner and milk from hours earlier. My father was completely oblivious as his headphones were on and he was fully entrenched in watching a Justin Timberlake movie called Runner Runner. My mother started hitting him on the shoulder to help as she freaked out a bit. Clearly the sight of her only child getting sick was enough to put her into emotional distress.

So as she quickly mobilized to remove my soiled clothes and comfort me at the same time, my father used the United blanket to wipe off my mother's lap that had unfortunately become collateral damage. We used the complimentary sick bags in our front seat pocket to collect the dozens of baby wipes we used to clean up the spill and then used our handy CVS plastic bags to collect the larger clothing and blanket.

Despite the panic of my mother, I kept my cool. I hear that other kids start crying when they get sick, but I just kept saying, "It's dirty. Eww, it's dirty" as I was being cleaned off. My father was quite impressed to say the least, especially since none of the nearby passengers had any idea all of this was going on.

My stomach seemed to feel better and I eventually fell back asleep laying across my seat with my head on my mother's lap. Then fast forward another few hours while my father was watching Clear & Present Danger, they started the next meal service.

While it would have been breakfast time in New York, they were getting us acclimated to Hong Kong time, so we were served another dinner. This time, my parents chose Asian noodles, which I loved. Like before, I ate my entire meal and watched my Disney Junior cartoons. But then, as time passed, I told my mother, "My stomach hurts."

She looked at my face and intuitively knew that I was going to get sick again. She immediately pulled out the sick bag that she already had ready and waiting. As soon as it was opened in front of me, I used it. A lot. But again, no crying or screaming. Just more "Eww, it's dirty."

Soon after that, I sat on my mothers lap as she rubbed my back. I soon fell asleep and when I awoke a few hours later, it was time to descend into Hong Kong airspace. On the positive side, I seemed to have broken my jet lag quickly my first night here, sleeping through the night until 6AM the next morning (which is 5PM New York time).

Lesson Learned: No more milk on flights! I've realized that the milk cartons probably don't turnover that frequently, and it's unclear how well they're kept refrigerated. I mean, it's not as if my father's can of Diet Coke comes icy cold from the drink cart either.

Checking Plugs

If you do any international traveling, you realize that things are different outside the United States. One difference is how they plug into the electrical outlets.

I've been studying this for the past week since my Asian father was giving me quizzes and memory tests about various international plugs. I told him that there were dozens of websites online (such as The Global Electric Directory) that could easily just tell us the answer, so I didn't need to memorize it. But Tiger Dad wouldn't hear of it.

Type I Adapter

So for our trip to Hong Kong, you might have thought that we needed a China/Australia adapter (Type I, as seen here). Well, you'd be wrong.

Type G Adapter

Apparently, as my father taught me, Hong Kong was a longtime territory of Great Britain. That's why they speak English and have so many white people everywhere. As far as electrical plugs go, they also use the Great Britain plug (Type G) which looks like this. So luckily, I checked online here to confirm the Hong Kong adapter type so that we packed appropriately.

But with all the electronic gadgets people travel with these days (cell phones, tablets, readers, etc), we realized that having so many adapters didn't make sense. Instead we purchased a Monster Power Outlet To Go for just $10 on Amazon.

With the Monster Power Outlet, we can charge 3 devices at the same time, as well as a fourth if it has a USB connector. So now we only need 1 adapter to connect into the wall in Hong Kong.

All this may be a moot point, however, since many international hotels know that foreign travelers are in need of adapters, so they have them readily available at the front desk.

Avoiding Jet Lag

Flight #80 - United Airlines 117 
Newark (EWR) – Hong Kong (HKG)
Wednesday, March 5, 2014
Depart: 3:35PM / Arrive: 8:35PM
Duration: 16hr 00min 
Aircraft: Boeing 777
Seat: 17A, 17B and 17C (Economy) 
Earned: 8,060 miles 
Lifetime Miles: 152,059 miles

As I mentioned earlier this week, we were able to score an amazing deal to Hong Kong (nonstop on United Airlines). Of course, my father is super excited about visiting Hong Kong again. My mother, on the other hand, could probably do without being stuck on a plane for 16 hours. I'm not entirely sure what to expect myself either, because this trip will be the longest flight I've ever taken. The previous longest flights have been:

• Newark-Tokyo (14 hours)
• San Francisco-Seoul (13 hours)
• Tel Aviv-Newark (12 hours)
• Rio de Janiero-New York (10 hours)

My father's made this trip a few times before when he was traveling solo back in 2008, but this will be his first time with an adorable 2 year old.

Fortunately, we're seated in Economy Plus, where we'll have some extra 4" of leg room. And because my father knows to check Seatguru.com, he picked window seats in Row 17 (as close to the front of the plane as possible without being in the bulkhead Row 16). That way, we'll be able to get off the plane right after BusinessFirst class passengers AND I'll be contained in our row by the window.

As I mentioned before, my family actually doesn't like the bulkhead row, because:

(a) it has no floor storage for take off & landings;
(b) the armrests don't move because the tray tables are in them; and
(c) there's way too much space for an active 2 year toddler to move around.

So as far as economy seat assignments go, we're in the best seats possible. The problem, however, is that our flight is scheduled for an odd time.

Our 3:35PM departure time is right in the middle of the afternoon in New York, way before any normal person would want to fall asleep for the night. But if we are trying to adjust to Hong Kong time as soon as we step on the plane, then we should treat it as if it were 4:35AM, clearly when you'd normally be sleeping. And while my father can fall asleep at a moment's notice at any hour of the day, my mother and I have yet to master that "skill."

So unfortunately, she and I are likely to stay awake watching movies and playing iPad games until 11:30PM New York time (which would be 12:30PM Hong Kong time). Then falling asleep for 6+ hours would mean we'd be waking up "early" at 5:30AM New York time, but that would be 6:30PM Hong Kong time.

By the time we land, get through Hong Kong customs, get on the metro to downtown and make our way to our hotel room at around 10PM Hong Kong time, we're probably not going to be that tired since it will be 9AM New York time. I'm not a sleep expert, but I'm almost certain that will cause a serious case of jet lag our first few days.

We're almost certain that there's no fool proof way to avoid jet lag unless we wanted to stay up the entire 16 hours. I suppose that would make us exhausted and ready to pass out by the time we got into our hotel room.

Since that's not really a viable option, we decided to stay up super late the night before, then wake up normally at 7AM, skip my afternoon nap and then board the plane ridiculously tired at 3PM.

Hopefully that will allow us to fall asleep earlier (perhaps 7:30PM after watching Iron Man 3 on demand). Then after about 6+ hours of sleep, we'll be ready to stay up and watch another 3-4 movies on the plane before we land.

Of course, no matter what my parents plan to do, it will all depend on what I will do. And if I'm not tired, you can bet that they won't be able to sleep either!

Car Seat?

So far since I've turned 2 years old, we've tried out a few different strategies for how I fly. Up until a few months ago, I had been perfectly content sitting on my parents' laps with the occasional flight where there would be an empty seat in our row for me to use.

Now that I have to pay for my own seat, my family has tried (a) bringing a child car seat onboard, (b) hoping I sit still without a car seat, as well as (c) continuing to sit on my father's lap the entire flight. I'm still not 100% convinced there's a way that I prefer over the others, but sometimes logistics dictate more than personal preferences.

For example, our flight down to Austin a few months ago, we had to make a tight connection in Charlotte, so checking our car seat would have been taking the risk that it didn't show up in Austin's baggage carousel when we absolutely needed it to drive an hour to San Antonio. So in that case, we lugged the car seat through the airport and brought it on board to secure to my window seat. On that same Texas trip, but on another flight, we called an audible since I didn't want to be strapped down. Instead of losing our 3rd seat to an unused car seat, we went to the flight attendant and asked to gate check it at the last minute before the boarding door closed.

And now, tomorrow we're flying trans-Pacific non-stop to Hong Kong. While it might be nice to have a car seat with us on board to alleviate my parents from having to hold/watch me the entire 16 hour flight, we really have no need for the car seat at all while we're in Hong Kong given the abundance of efficient and cheap public transportation. And if I again decide I don't want to sit in a car seat on the plane, then we'd just lose the use of that 3rd seat because there's no where else to store a car seat once we've taken off. Of course, not having me strapped down while my parents sleep for 5-7 hours could be problematic also, as I've been known to try to get out of my seat and wander down the aisles when they're not looking. Of course, that's in addition to the off chance of strong turbulence thrusting me out of my parent's arms and helplessly into the air.

So what should we do? I know most of my readers usually look to me for child travel advice, but I'm open to any ideas or suggestions.