Our HK Trip: Day -1

Ever since we had Ian, we had stopped making overseas trip (except for a short weekend drive to KL for a colleague's wedding).  On the 2nd last week of February, Hubby suddenly suggested a short overseas trip to HK, because he could foresee that for the rest of the year it would be hard for him to take another long leave once his new project started.

Hence, I started planning for the trip, checking rates and etc.  We had planned to go in late March. Hubby proceeded to apply for his leave, but unfortunately, it was not approved.  Hence, he reached an agreement with his manager to go in early March.  That left us with only 1 week to prepare.

Monday, 22 Feb - Once his leave was approved, I quickly attempted to making a booking for the flight with SIA.  Unfortunately, during the booking process, I realised that Hubby's passport had expired, whereas mine was left with less than 6 months of validity. That night, Hubby and I spent some time to take our own photos for the passports.

Tuesday, 23 Feb - Early in the morning, all 3 of us rushed down to ICA to get our passports made.  We also made a new one for Ian, simply because his face changed a lot from his passport.  We were informed that we could proceed to book our air tickets with the NRIC number.  Hence, when I reached home, I quickly proceeded with the bookings.  Another little hiccup - the SIA flight that I had wanted to book the previous day was no longer available.  And the total price had increased!  Thus, I had to look for an alternative, and I found it at Zuji.  There were many Cathay flights available and it was cheaper, even though we had to pay $200+ more for Ian's infant seat.  I had wanted to buy a child seat for him because it was only a topup of $33, but Zuji's website simply did not allow me to do that.  Sigh, sigh, sigh...

That night, we proceeded to book our hotel room at Prudential hotel, which was directly on top of the Jordan MTR.  Being a last minute planner saved us about 50% off the normal rates of this hotel.  Cool...

Wednesday, 24 Feb - This morning, I made a long distance call to Disneyland to check on their room rates.  Because it was less than 14 days to my check-in date, I could not enjoy any of their packages.  However, I was advised to get their annual pass, which allowed me to enjoy 35% off their room rates.  In the end, it was cheaper to get the annual pass than to take up their other packages.  Hence, the hotel for the last 2 days of the trip was settled too.  We were left with the planning of the itinerary.

Thursday, 25 Feb - Completed a rough guideline to our itinerary.  Started to pack our luggage.  Also called up the HK tourism board to ask for brochures.

Friday, 26 Feb - Made an online booking for our one-trip Airport Express tickets.  It consisted of a single trip to Kowloon on the Airport Express train, and 3 days of unlimited use on the MTR.  The brochures from HKTB reached us.  They were really efficient!

Saturday, 27 Feb - After attending a friend's housewarming party in the evening, we returned home to wrap up our packing.  Half the luggage consisted of Ian's diapers, clothes, and other barang barang!  We had an early night so that we could wake up earlier the next day for the morning flight.