HighFlyers Great Escapade Review - Long
Posted: 26 Jul 2005, 18:07I wanted to out a bit of info up about my Great Escapade for anyone interested or for those with questions, so I hope this helps some of you. If you want to know anything, please feel free to ask me.
I went with my partner, and we booked just under a year in advance with Travelbag. We paid £3300 each plus tax for a round the world Business class ticket (i believe fares have gone up now)
The routing we chose for the GE was:
London --> Hong Kong --> Singapore --> Bangkok --> (overland to) Kuala Lumpur --> Singapore --> Sydney --> Auckland --> Los Angeles --> (overland to) San Francisco --> London
This routing was our second choice, originally we chose to stop over in the Tonga area in the South Pacific but Air New Zealand changed their flight times to ones that meant we couldn’t connect in the way we wanted to so we decided to omit that part of the trip.
In addition, we purchased internal flights within Australia from Sydney to Ayers Rock, then Cairns and back to Sydney with Qantas. Qantas have a monopoly (now lessening due to Virgin Blue) and their flights were quite expensive. Be prepared that all these extras add up!
(Similarly, all the tours we did at all these places have cost the earth, work that into your budget!! We didn’t!! Obviously you have to see and do all the things at each place, such as visiting a tower or a temple or a bridge, but it really adds up)
One thing I would advise is to keep checking the flight times. Several of our flight times changed - fortunately without causing any inconvenience, but one flight changed and we had no idea as we hadn’t checked the times recently.
We were away for a month, purely as that was the maximum time that we could get off work.
We stayed no more than 5 days at any one destination, purely to fit in as much as we could. Id rather see a bit of a place than not at all, although we found 3 or 4 days to be perfect for most places, enough to see the main sights and tourist attractions and get a taste for the place – places we liked we will go back to, others we are glad to have seen but wouldn’t go back.
(I’ll break it down for anyone interested … )
Hong Kong --> 3 nights --> The Peninsula
Singapore --> 2 nights --> Raffles
Bangkok --> 4 Nights --> Shangri-la
Kuala Lumpur --> 4 Nights --> Mandarin Oriental
Sydney --> 4 Nights --> Shangri-la
Ayers Rock --> 1 Night --> Desert Gardens Hotel
Cairns --> 3 Nights --> Sheraton Mirage
Los Angeles --> 2 Nights (was 3) --> Regent Beverly Wiltshire
San Francisco --> 3 Nights (was 2) --> Mandarin Oriental
We loved (and will return to) Hong Kong, Sydney and San Fran. I would recommend these places to anybody.
Singapore was a bit dull to be honest as it doesn’t have a main attraction (SYD had the Opera House, KUL the Petronas Towers etc) something the city is famous for, we had a Singapore Sling and went to the Singapore Zoo, which was very good, other than that, Singapore didn’t hold a lot of interest of us. (Travelbag told us 2 nights would be enough, and im glad I followed their advice)
Bangkok was great for all the temples, although it had a real tourist feel. We were taken to ‘Gemstone’ factories by our guides on several occasions (though we learnt this one quickly!!) and even the floating market is purely a tourist trap, no locals shop there any more. The people are the friendliest I have met, and I would definitely go back to Thailand but I would choose one of the beach resorts such as Phuket or Krabi instead.
KL surprised me in its great Muslim population. My Nan was/is Malaysian and it was interesting to see how the city had changed. A lot of money has gone into KL through the oil and we saw lots of Saudi’s on holiday there. Most surprisingly, we saw lots (I mean I saw like 30-40) Saudi women wearing the full head to toe black covering (with just their eyes showing). I never expected that in Malaysia but apparently KL is the #1 Saudi holiday spot. KL is a lovely city though, very clean with a lovely park that was nice to walk around in the evenings. They have lots of shopping malls too – but really for the tourists! Of course, the Petronas towers is the must do attraction.
Ayers Rock was fantastic, one night is enough to see the rock, you may want to stay longer if you want to see the Olgas or Kings Canyon. I did a base walk and saw sunrise and sunset and that was enough.
We only went to Cairns to get to the Barrier Reef to do some diving (which we did and was excellent) and i have it on video!! LOL
LA we didn’t really enjoy. We did the tourist things (Hollywood sign, Chinese Theatre etc) and had an afternoon at Universal as I had always wanted to do the backlot tour, but then we ran out of things to do as LA is so big. We stayed just off Rodeo Drive and in the evenings there wasn’t a lot to do. We found that LA lacked the character of other places we had been to (plus we didn’t like our hotel) so we decided to get out – and go to San Fran a day early (and had to pay to change our tickets!) Fortunately we had a great time in SFO and ended the trip on a high!! We just loved it there, SFO has real character with its Cable Cars, colony of Sealions, and just a general good feel. Sadly, we didn’t realize that there is a lot of fog there in the summer, plus the majority of Sealions leave Pier 39. We couldn’t see the Golden Gate bridge most afternoons due to the fog, and only saw about 9 Sealions. We still had a fab time, but next time we go will be Fall or Spring because of these factors. Again, it all comes down to doing your research and knowing this beforehand.
If you are planning a RTW trip I would advise doing all your research and establishing where you do and don’t fancy going before you get near a travel agent. We did lots and lots of research and still it wasn’t enough. There are so many small things you want or need to know about your destinations that its hard to assimilate it all. For example, I wanted to go to Six Flags when we were in L.A. but didn’t actually appreciate that it would take about 2 hours to drive there from our hotel, needless to say we didn’t go, but if I had done a bit more investigating I would have known that and been able to plan accordingly or at least arrange another activity.
Luggage
My other half put his foot down, deciding that we would take one suitcase each. Being away for a month this was a nightmare (especially being of the fairer sex) but in reality it’s a good idea. When you have to take 8 or 10 or 15 flights you don’t want to be lugging cases all the time. Reduced luggage space also meant a reduced amount of space for souvenirs too, and restricted what we could buy – probably a good thing! You will also need to check the luggage allowance for the airlines you use, Virgin in UC have a great allowance, but then if you are getting onboard an economy internal flight a few days later (like I did) you probably will have trouble checking all your luggage.
We also mixed our clothes up between both cases, I would greatly advise this just incase you lose a case for a few days. Imagine eating at the Peninsula hotel in yesterday’s clothes you flew an overnighter in!!
Amazingly, we didn’t lose any luggage or miss any flights. I honestly thought we would have one issue at least, but not a sausage! My faith in baggage handlers has gone sky high! (it must be my nifty V-Flyer luggage tags that do it??)
We also needed to avail ourselves of the hotel laundry system. We sussed out that the Mandarin Oriental in KL offered 5 free pieces of laundry per night in their room rate for Horizon Club rooms (so we had that!) and the package we had at the Sydney Shangri-la offered free laundry for the duration of our stay. I think they were gutted when we sent £200 of laundry to them – although they wrecked some of my clothes (which I’ll tell you about in a hotel trip report). One area of concern was having clean underwear, I didn’t have enough smalls to last the whole trip – and sending them off to Hotel laundry is a strange experience – and a rather personal one at that! (Although I preferred that than washing them myself in the sink!
Money
We decided to take a small amount of each currency for each country we visited. We got £100 in each country’s currency and used that mainly for the first few days and for tipping and stuff (when we landed in Hong Kong we had to tip the driver, the bellboy and the airport assistant) We set up an account with Nationwide and put some cash in there. Nationwide don’t charge you for international withdrawals so its well worth doing – and we just topped up our cash as needed that way.
We spent a lot of time waiting at airports too, and a lot of time trying to amuse ourselves on planes. Most of the flights I took showed the same movies and so the trips soon lost their novelty factor. I highly advise a good lightweight book and an iPod for flying!
What have I learned from this trip?
That I want to do another! LOL! But seriously, the world is smaller to me now than it was before, I feel like a pro at the airport, and I have a great looking passport!! This isnt just a big holiday, its almost a life changing experience, i feel i have grown as a person through some of the amazing things i have done, such as washing elephants in a river, watching Humpback whales in Sydney, touching Ayers Rock, diving the Great Barrier Reef, etc etc.
Was it worth the money? (bearing in mind I can barely afford a take-away at present as I spent all my savings on my half of the trip)
Yes, damn right it was worth it. I have done some amazing things, have great memories and gotten a kind of 'education of the world' from going to different places. When we were in KL we asked our taxi driver to drop us off at the Bird & Butterfly Gardens, he dropped us off in the middle of nowhere (unknown to us) and i found a Malay man and desperately tried to communicate to him to find out which way to go - but to no avail as he didnt speak English. Next thing we knew, he came after us on a motorbike with a friend (English speaking) who told us we were miles away from the park - and they offered us a lift on the back of their motorbikes! They had never met us but were happy to help us out, i had this flowing skirt on and my handbag with me - on the back of a Malay motorbike (no helmet) racing along the roads with the other half behind me. You can’t buy those sort of memories.
Any questions on my trip or RTW in general, feel free to ask … otherwise, get your RTW brochure today and get saving!!
:D:D
I went with my partner, and we booked just under a year in advance with Travelbag. We paid £3300 each plus tax for a round the world Business class ticket (i believe fares have gone up now)
The routing we chose for the GE was:
London --> Hong Kong --> Singapore --> Bangkok --> (overland to) Kuala Lumpur --> Singapore --> Sydney --> Auckland --> Los Angeles --> (overland to) San Francisco --> London
This routing was our second choice, originally we chose to stop over in the Tonga area in the South Pacific but Air New Zealand changed their flight times to ones that meant we couldn’t connect in the way we wanted to so we decided to omit that part of the trip.
In addition, we purchased internal flights within Australia from Sydney to Ayers Rock, then Cairns and back to Sydney with Qantas. Qantas have a monopoly (now lessening due to Virgin Blue) and their flights were quite expensive. Be prepared that all these extras add up!
(Similarly, all the tours we did at all these places have cost the earth, work that into your budget!! We didn’t!! Obviously you have to see and do all the things at each place, such as visiting a tower or a temple or a bridge, but it really adds up)
One thing I would advise is to keep checking the flight times. Several of our flight times changed - fortunately without causing any inconvenience, but one flight changed and we had no idea as we hadn’t checked the times recently.
We were away for a month, purely as that was the maximum time that we could get off work.
We stayed no more than 5 days at any one destination, purely to fit in as much as we could. Id rather see a bit of a place than not at all, although we found 3 or 4 days to be perfect for most places, enough to see the main sights and tourist attractions and get a taste for the place – places we liked we will go back to, others we are glad to have seen but wouldn’t go back.
(I’ll break it down for anyone interested … )
Hong Kong --> 3 nights --> The Peninsula
Singapore --> 2 nights --> Raffles
Bangkok --> 4 Nights --> Shangri-la
Kuala Lumpur --> 4 Nights --> Mandarin Oriental
Sydney --> 4 Nights --> Shangri-la
Ayers Rock --> 1 Night --> Desert Gardens Hotel
Cairns --> 3 Nights --> Sheraton Mirage
Los Angeles --> 2 Nights (was 3) --> Regent Beverly Wiltshire
San Francisco --> 3 Nights (was 2) --> Mandarin Oriental
We loved (and will return to) Hong Kong, Sydney and San Fran. I would recommend these places to anybody.
Singapore was a bit dull to be honest as it doesn’t have a main attraction (SYD had the Opera House, KUL the Petronas Towers etc) something the city is famous for, we had a Singapore Sling and went to the Singapore Zoo, which was very good, other than that, Singapore didn’t hold a lot of interest of us. (Travelbag told us 2 nights would be enough, and im glad I followed their advice)
Bangkok was great for all the temples, although it had a real tourist feel. We were taken to ‘Gemstone’ factories by our guides on several occasions (though we learnt this one quickly!!) and even the floating market is purely a tourist trap, no locals shop there any more. The people are the friendliest I have met, and I would definitely go back to Thailand but I would choose one of the beach resorts such as Phuket or Krabi instead.
KL surprised me in its great Muslim population. My Nan was/is Malaysian and it was interesting to see how the city had changed. A lot of money has gone into KL through the oil and we saw lots of Saudi’s on holiday there. Most surprisingly, we saw lots (I mean I saw like 30-40) Saudi women wearing the full head to toe black covering (with just their eyes showing). I never expected that in Malaysia but apparently KL is the #1 Saudi holiday spot. KL is a lovely city though, very clean with a lovely park that was nice to walk around in the evenings. They have lots of shopping malls too – but really for the tourists! Of course, the Petronas towers is the must do attraction.
Ayers Rock was fantastic, one night is enough to see the rock, you may want to stay longer if you want to see the Olgas or Kings Canyon. I did a base walk and saw sunrise and sunset and that was enough.
We only went to Cairns to get to the Barrier Reef to do some diving (which we did and was excellent) and i have it on video!! LOL
LA we didn’t really enjoy. We did the tourist things (Hollywood sign, Chinese Theatre etc) and had an afternoon at Universal as I had always wanted to do the backlot tour, but then we ran out of things to do as LA is so big. We stayed just off Rodeo Drive and in the evenings there wasn’t a lot to do. We found that LA lacked the character of other places we had been to (plus we didn’t like our hotel) so we decided to get out – and go to San Fran a day early (and had to pay to change our tickets!) Fortunately we had a great time in SFO and ended the trip on a high!! We just loved it there, SFO has real character with its Cable Cars, colony of Sealions, and just a general good feel. Sadly, we didn’t realize that there is a lot of fog there in the summer, plus the majority of Sealions leave Pier 39. We couldn’t see the Golden Gate bridge most afternoons due to the fog, and only saw about 9 Sealions. We still had a fab time, but next time we go will be Fall or Spring because of these factors. Again, it all comes down to doing your research and knowing this beforehand.
If you are planning a RTW trip I would advise doing all your research and establishing where you do and don’t fancy going before you get near a travel agent. We did lots and lots of research and still it wasn’t enough. There are so many small things you want or need to know about your destinations that its hard to assimilate it all. For example, I wanted to go to Six Flags when we were in L.A. but didn’t actually appreciate that it would take about 2 hours to drive there from our hotel, needless to say we didn’t go, but if I had done a bit more investigating I would have known that and been able to plan accordingly or at least arrange another activity.
Luggage
My other half put his foot down, deciding that we would take one suitcase each. Being away for a month this was a nightmare (especially being of the fairer sex) but in reality it’s a good idea. When you have to take 8 or 10 or 15 flights you don’t want to be lugging cases all the time. Reduced luggage space also meant a reduced amount of space for souvenirs too, and restricted what we could buy – probably a good thing! You will also need to check the luggage allowance for the airlines you use, Virgin in UC have a great allowance, but then if you are getting onboard an economy internal flight a few days later (like I did) you probably will have trouble checking all your luggage.
We also mixed our clothes up between both cases, I would greatly advise this just incase you lose a case for a few days. Imagine eating at the Peninsula hotel in yesterday’s clothes you flew an overnighter in!!
Amazingly, we didn’t lose any luggage or miss any flights. I honestly thought we would have one issue at least, but not a sausage! My faith in baggage handlers has gone sky high! (it must be my nifty V-Flyer luggage tags that do it??)
We also needed to avail ourselves of the hotel laundry system. We sussed out that the Mandarin Oriental in KL offered 5 free pieces of laundry per night in their room rate for Horizon Club rooms (so we had that!) and the package we had at the Sydney Shangri-la offered free laundry for the duration of our stay. I think they were gutted when we sent £200 of laundry to them – although they wrecked some of my clothes (which I’ll tell you about in a hotel trip report). One area of concern was having clean underwear, I didn’t have enough smalls to last the whole trip – and sending them off to Hotel laundry is a strange experience – and a rather personal one at that! (Although I preferred that than washing them myself in the sink!
Money
We decided to take a small amount of each currency for each country we visited. We got £100 in each country’s currency and used that mainly for the first few days and for tipping and stuff (when we landed in Hong Kong we had to tip the driver, the bellboy and the airport assistant) We set up an account with Nationwide and put some cash in there. Nationwide don’t charge you for international withdrawals so its well worth doing – and we just topped up our cash as needed that way.
We spent a lot of time waiting at airports too, and a lot of time trying to amuse ourselves on planes. Most of the flights I took showed the same movies and so the trips soon lost their novelty factor. I highly advise a good lightweight book and an iPod for flying!
What have I learned from this trip?
That I want to do another! LOL! But seriously, the world is smaller to me now than it was before, I feel like a pro at the airport, and I have a great looking passport!! This isnt just a big holiday, its almost a life changing experience, i feel i have grown as a person through some of the amazing things i have done, such as washing elephants in a river, watching Humpback whales in Sydney, touching Ayers Rock, diving the Great Barrier Reef, etc etc.
Was it worth the money? (bearing in mind I can barely afford a take-away at present as I spent all my savings on my half of the trip)
Yes, damn right it was worth it. I have done some amazing things, have great memories and gotten a kind of 'education of the world' from going to different places. When we were in KL we asked our taxi driver to drop us off at the Bird & Butterfly Gardens, he dropped us off in the middle of nowhere (unknown to us) and i found a Malay man and desperately tried to communicate to him to find out which way to go - but to no avail as he didnt speak English. Next thing we knew, he came after us on a motorbike with a friend (English speaking) who told us we were miles away from the park - and they offered us a lift on the back of their motorbikes! They had never met us but were happy to help us out, i had this flowing skirt on and my handbag with me - on the back of a Malay motorbike (no helmet) racing along the roads with the other half behind me. You can’t buy those sort of memories.
Any questions on my trip or RTW in general, feel free to ask … otherwise, get your RTW brochure today and get saving!!
:D:D
