2014 25th Anniversary Trip Part 2: Start of the trip to Be Our Guest

Welcome to Part 2 of our great 25th Wedding Anniversary Adventure. 

Delta B757 at Atlanta

Our trip started Monday evening on March 10th. We had a Delta Flight leaving Portland Int'l Airport at 10:30pm. Richard and Ellen drove us to the Airport from home which saved on parking fees since we were going to be gone for just over 3 weeks!

We checked our bags without an issue. It is good to be Silver Elite and have the Delta AMEX card which allowed for free luggage check! I had paid for the both of us to get Economy Comfort seats on the non-stop from PDX to Atlanta. This way we would have more legroom to try to get some sleep on this red-eye flight. The flight was uneventful and landed at ATL around 6am.

Since we had a decent layover time, I was able to get a virtual Geocache located on the landside of the airport. It was nice to be TSA pre-check which expedited me getting back to Cyn who was eating a light breakfast at the gate.

Disney Magical Express

Our short hop flight from ATL to Orlando (MCO) was again uneventful and on-time. Upon arrival at MCO at 10:30am, we had to board one of the Airport trains to get to exit the terminal. Since we had put Disney Luggage Tags for the Magical Express on our checked bags, we did not need to pick up the bags. We went straight to the Magical Express Bus center to catch our bus to the Pop Century. Once we boarded the bus we had to wait about 10 minutes before we departed. 

Disney Pop Century Resort

The Bus's first stop was the Disney Pop Century, which was most fortunate. We were able to check-in with a "roving" cast member since we already had our Magic Bands. We also picked up Cyn's Rented scooter and went to our room. We were in room 3413. It was a quiet outside corner room facing Hourglass Lake on the 4th floor. The room was small but sufficient for our needs. Soon we got a call from Mickey Mouse welcoming us. We got lunch at the resort's cafeteria and waited for our luggage to arrive. Mark also picked up a Rental Car as the next day we were heading to Universal Studios. We also went down to the Concierge Desk to get

Be Our Guest

Anniversary Pins to wear. The Concierge even wrote 25 with mouse ears on the pins, and covered the writing with tape so it wouldn't smudge. We proudly wore them in all the Parks!

So it was time to head to the Magic Kingdom as we had hard to get dinner reservations for the Be Our Guest restaurant inside the Magic Kingdom. We drove to the TTC and boarded a Monorail to the MK. We did a couple of rides before our reservation time. Sadly the 7-dwarfs Mine Train was not open yet.

We enjoyed a great meal inside Be Our Guest. The theme was great and we even got our picture taken with The Beast. They also brought out a special Gray Stuff dessert for our anniversary. After Dinner we pretty much was exhausted and just went back to the hotel.

Part 3 will be Universal Studios!!

2014 25th Anniversary Trip Part 1: Trip Overview

In March 2014 it was the 25th Wedding Anniversary for Cyn and I. We decided to go big for this very special occasion with a 3 week long adventure.  About 15 months prior to our wedding anniversary I was looking up things to do. I was focusing on a doing a cruise for our anniversary. We had only done one cruise before to the eastern Caribbean. We both wanted to do another on. Finding cruises in mid-March is not the easiest due to weather and Spring Break. I gave Cyn some options. A cruise around the Mediterranean, around the Caribbean, or a unique one was one going through the Panama Canal. She surprised me by saying the Panama Canal was a bucket list item.

Then the planning started. I picked a 15 day cruise on Royal Caribbean from Ft. Lauderdale to San Diego such that our anniversary would be on-board the ship. Then it was hard to go to Florida without going to Walt Disney World, so we added that to the trip as well. Mark had started earning 4 weeks of vacation the year before, so decided to go big!

This multi-part blog post with cover what we did. Here is a brief itinerary we followed.

• March 10th: Depart Portland heading to Orlando via Atlanta on a Red Eye Flight
• March 11th: Check into Disney Pop Century Resort, have dinner at Be Our Guest Restaurant
• March 12th: Universal Studios Florida resort, both parks
• March 13th: Magic Kingdom
• March 14th: Behind the Scenes Train Tour at Magic Kingdom, then Epcot
• March 15th: Meet with Cyn's Sister for lunch, & Hollywood Studios
• March 16th: Animal Kingdom, Meet with Mark's Aunt & Uncle for Dinner, and drive to Ft. Lauderdale
• March 17th: Board the Legends of the Seas for a 15 day trip!
• March 18th: 25th Wedding Anniversary!! Ship is At Sea
• March 19th: Ship is at Sea
• March 20th: Cartagena, Columbia!
• March 21st: Colon, Panama
• March 22nd: Transit the Panama Canal
• March 23rd: At Sea
• March 24th: Puntarenas, Costa Rica
• March 25th: At Sea
• March 26th: Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala
• March 27th: At Sea
• March 28th: At Sea
• March 29th: Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
• March 30th: Cabo San Lucas, Mexico
• March 31st: At Sea
• April 1st: San Diego, California
• April 2nd: Fly home from San Diego to PDX via LAX.
• April 3rd: Return to work (sigh)

I will break up this trip into several, currently undetermined parts (Will edit this when it is done). Suffice it to say, this was a trip of a lifetime.

So be sure to put this blog on your watch list as I add more parts!!

Don't Ever Miss a Flight Out of Singapore

In August of 2013 I was sent on a business trip to Singapore for one week. I will detail this trip on a future Blog post. This post is to highlight a lesson learned about missing a flight out of Changi airport to head home.

I was scheduled on a Delta Flight out of Singapore that was scheduled to depart at 5:25am on a Saturday. I was staying at a hotel in downtown Singapore. However, I had checked out of that hotel Friday morning. I left my bags at the hotel and went to work for the day. I was able to get out of work a little early. I had picked up my bags at the hotel at around 3:30pm and took the MRT (Metro) to the airport. I had made reservations at the Crowne Plaza at the airport. The intent was to shorten my journey for the early morning flight.

I checked into the hotel around 4:15pm. They had upgraded me into a large one bedroom suite. Sadly it did not overlook the runways at the airport as some room had, but the room was great otherwise (with 1.5 bathrooms). I decided to head back into Singapore for dinner and see if I could get some gifts. So I took the MRT back into town to do just that.

I got back to the hotel around 9:30pm. I stopped for a beer at the lounge since the hotel had given me a free drink coupon due to my elite status. By 10:15pm I was back in my room. I had a couple of business calls to make, plus prep my packing for a quick exit in the morning. I was lights out by 11:00pm.

I just could not get my mind to shutdown to go to sleep. I must have woke up every 30 minutes or so. I had set my iPhone Alarm Clock app to go off at 3:00am. I had looked at my iPhone clock at 2:00pm, but tried to get some more sleep. I had been waking up at 3:00am every night previous, so thought it was low risk, plus the alarm. The next time I rolled over and looked at the clock, and it showed it was 4:02 am, with the display showing the alarm was going off, but no audio. I paniced.

I quickly got dressed, zipped up my bags and went down to checkout. Got to the airport terminal area just to find out that the internal train system to take me from Terminal 3 to Terminal 1 does not start running until 5am. I tried to figure out how to walk there, but it turns out there is no direct walkway from T3 to T1 on the land side. I ran back to the hotel to ask what to do. They stated there was a bus that I could take. I went to the bus stop just as a Taxi pulled up to drop someone off. I asked if he could take me to Terminal 1. He said hop in. I threw my suitcase in the trunk. 5 minutes later, and nearly $10 later we were in front of T1.

I ran inside to the Delta Ticket Counters which was just about empty. Time was 4:30am. The security check guy stated I may have a problem as the flight was closed. I went up to the ticket counter, and indeed, the flight was closed, and my seat had been given away. I nearly had a breakdown. It just got worse. I was informed that the next available Delta flight was Monday morning, two days from now. I had made arrangement for my wife to meet in Seattle for the weekend. She was schedueld to take a train and we had train tickets to return home, plus hotel reservations. I almost lost it. I apoligized to the ticket agents, as it wasn't their fault, I was mad at myself.

The ticket agents then started working on possibilities. They then made arrangements to put me on ANA to Tokyo (Narita) that evening, with a transfer to a Delta flight to Seattle from Tokyo (Haneda) with 18 hour ground time in Tokyo. It was better than staying until Monday. I had asked if they could route me directly to Portland, but that was not "allowed" on my ticket. I took the reservation with the flight schedule to fly out 12:30am about 20 hours from this point as it was 9around 5:15am now.

I got onto the airport wifi and purchased an Alaska Airline ticket from Seattle to Portland. I was able to cancel our train tickets, only losing $5, and cancelled the Seattle hotel with no fees. I was able to call my wife and let her in on the situation. She wasn't super upset about the Seattle trip (in some ways I think she was relieved), only concerned that I was exhausted and she was missing me.

But now what to do, it is 6am, and I didn't need to check into my flight until 9pm or so, and I was exhausted. I decided to go back to the Crowne Plaza hotel and see if they would give me my room back since I had paid for it until 11am checkout. The airport trains were running now, so getting back to the hotel was easy. I went to the front desk at the hotel, Not only did they allow me to check back in, but they allowed me stay until 4pm if I wanted to, with no fees.  So I went back to my old room, and tried to get some sleep.

By about 12:30pm I was unable to get anymore rest. I got some lunch then decided to check-out. I left my suitcase and large backpack at the hotel and just brought my small (geocaching) backback and headed back into Singapore. I did some more touring around town which will be covered in a seperate post. By 8pm I headed back to the airport to get my bags at the hotel and head to Terminal 2.

At 9pm I went up to the ANA counter to check-in. Now problem # 2 started. Delta had never confirmed my reservation, so I did not have a seat and the flight was full. They tried to contact Delta, but getting nowhere. They told me to come back at minight to see if a seat was available. I asked for a pass into the Transit area of the airport, but they refused. So I was stuck on the land side of the airport. I was pretty upset and getting very exhausted again. I pretty much hung around the airport got some dinner and pretty depressed.

By 10:30pm, I went back to the ticket counters. This time the agent handed me a boarding pass, Delta had come thru!! I was even able to enter my US-Airway FF # since ANA is part of Star Alliance not Skyteam (Delta). I went thru passport control and was on the air side of the airport in no time. The flight left on time at 12:30am Sunday morning.

We landed at Narita airport on time around 8am Sunday. My next flight was scheduled for 1:30am Monday out of Haneda Airport. So I went around Tokyo which will be covered in a seperate post. I arrived at Haneda airport at 9:30pm. Being hot and humid in Tokyo I was feeling pretty yucky. Luckily Haneda airport shower available for about $10 for 30 minutes. this was a godsend. I was able to take a shower and change clothes. My flight left on time at 1:30am Monday to Seattle. I arrived in Seattle at around 3pm on Sunday (yes backwards). I had to go to the land side of the airport to check in to my Alaska (Horizon) flight to Portland. I had about 2 hours to kill so had dinner. Got to Portland on-time and my wife picked me up at the curb to head home. What a long 48 hours....

Note to self, NEVER miss a flight out of Singapore again....

My First trip to Japan, Or How I Almost Missed My First Shinkansen Ride

My First trip to Japan; Or how I almost missed my first Shinkansen ride.

(First written in the late 1990's) 

I have been a long time Rapid Transit fan since I was a little boy growing up 10 block away from the Elevated F-Line in Brooklyn NY. I never thought at that time that I would ever see any transit system beyond my native Brooklyn. As a teenager I moved to the northern suburbs and experienced commuter trains. Somehow I got a job in the Semi-conductor industry and received a job transfer to Oregon as a Field Service Engineer. This job requires travel. With this job I have seen many different transit system of the US. So far my favorite place to visit is Japan. The intensity of rail service is a traction buffs dream come true!

 My first trip to Japan was in December 1990. I had to go to Oita Prefecture on Kyushu. It is here that I first experienced Japan’s rails for the first time. I had a Sunday off, so 2 of my American co-workers and I decided to fly from Oita to Hiroshima, then take the trains back. We had made arrangements for a taxi to pick us up at a local train station at a certain time to bring us back to our hotel (we were out in the boondocks, but a 10-yard walk to the ocean.

 We walked around Hiroshima. I would recommend everybody to stop at the war memorial and museum. It is very sobering, and would cause even the greatest warmonger to understand the importance of peace. Anyway, it was time to go to the train station so we could catch a Shinkansen to Kokura, from there we would transfer to a local train to our destination. We jumped on a streetcar to the train station. This was very brave because we did not have a clue if we were taking the right one or how much it cost. I have proven to myself that the Just Do It! Phrase does work. We arrived at Hiroshima Station without incident. The problem was the person who keep the time, mis-read the time of our train. We went up to the ticket window to purchase our tickets. The ticket clerk told us we had no time to purchase tickets; our train was scheduled to arrive in 2 minutes. He told us the track # and that we should RUN! Which we did. We ran through the wickets and down to the platform just as the train stopped. We jumped on board. The conductor told us to walk to the unreserved section, which we did and found seats for our journey south. I don’t remember much about the actual train ride except there were a lot of tunnels. When we arrived in Kokura we walked downstairs to the Fare Adjustment window to pay our fare from Hiroshima. We got on our local train and caught our taxi without incident!

 I had two nights to spend in Tokyo on my return. I found out about a train that went to Narita Airport. Back in 1990 the JR Narita Express did not exist, but the Keisei Skyliner did. I went to Shinjuku Train station for the first time (I had taken the subway the previous day, but not seen the craziness of the main station. I had to ask a wicket (the automated turnstiles were not in place), how much to Ueno Station and which track, he was most helpful and guided me correctly. I took the Yamanote Line to Ueno. I then had to figure out how to get to the Keisei Ueno Station. While looking I found the JR Shop, which I enjoyed looking through (But seems to be gone now). I found the station and took the Skyliner to Narita. However at this time the station under the airport did not exist. The train stopped outside the airport (I think this is called Higashi-Narita now). We had to go through Security checkpoint in a CRAMPED and CROWDED building before being shoved in a bus for the short trip to the terminal.

 I am glad now the Narita Airport stations now exist. I have since been on both the Narita Express and the Skyliner. Skyliner is much cheaper and less crowded then the Narita Express. True the Narita Express doe go into Tokyo and Shinjuku. I usually take the Narita Express into town and the Skyliner out of town. Or if I have a lot of time, and am feeling well I’ll take one of the Limited Expresses for a really cheap ride.

This article is only the first of a series I plan on writing on my trips to Japan. I have been to Japan on 10 different occasions over the past 9 years, and to Korea once. I have done some crazy weekend trips to ride a streetcar line or my favorite subways. I try to take photographs of my trips, but I tend to be a little timid in taking photos, so I don’t have as many as I should. However, I have posted photos of Japan’s trains on my website along with trains/transit from the US and now Europe.