I had planned to start this trip report after we had returned from vacation, but perhaps it will be better to start from the beginning.
Back in April, ,my wife and I were discussing what to do for this year's 'big' vacation. We take semi-frequent quicky trips to WDW, but we also try to take longer 'once in a lifetime' vacations. Last year, we did the western Med cruise on the Magic, so the bar was set kinda high.
My wife and (mostly my wife) are pretty Disney crazed and we loved the previous cruise, so I checked what this year's 'special' cruises were: Mexican Riviera. Cathy wasn't interested. How about a Panama Canal repositioning cruise? We nearly took one of those a few years ago, but my surgery got in the way. She considered it, but we decided that the 7 at-sea days were just too much.
This basically ruled out cruising for our 'big trip', but I knew that Disney was still a winner. If I could only find a great Disney vacation, she'd go for it. We'd visited WDW tons of times and while we love going there, it just wouldn't be special enough. (We're still planning on making a long weekend out of this year's F&W and spending the week after Christmas at WDW.) We find ourselves in Southern California at least annually, so Disneyland isn't that special to build the big vacation around it. We spent our honeymoon in Europe (including DL Paris). That was great, but we had just gone to Europe the previous year, so that was out.
That only leaves a few Disney-related options: 'Adventures by Disney' was a real possibility. It only had a couple of problems. First, during last year's vacation, we were less than impressed with a couple of the tours. These tours were not operated by Disney, but still we were reluctant to do a completely tour-based vacation. The remaining options were the Tokyo and Hong Kong Disneyland parks. If we were going to fly half way around the world, you may as well visit both of these Disneylands and be able to say that we've been to all the parks, right? Right? (It's possible that this thought was where my insanity related to this vacation started.) As a bonus, the Olympics are in Beijing this summer. Expanding the trip to hit both Disneylands and see part of the Olympics would certainly make it a 'once in a lifetime' kind of vacation.
Money, money, money. It's going to cost lots of money, especially since Cathy all but refuses to fly coach internationally. A little research later found that it was spendy. Do we spend this kind of money on this vacation? On one hand, it's lots of money. On the other hand, we have the money to spend AND it's not like we're going to have the opportunity to take a trip like this again. (You see how my psychosis is working, right? I've built a huge trip and then convinced myself that I would never again be able to build a huge trip.)
I pitched it to Cathy and she gave it the green light. Naturally, I didn't talk numbers with her. (Come to think of it, that's exactly how she ended up green-lighting the purchase of my convertible last year. You'd think she'd learn.)
Next came scheduling. The Olympics were to take place from August 8 to August 24, so we will need to be in Asia some time around there. Cathy reminded me that she would have to be in Los Angeles from 8/4 to 8/8 for a conference. If we left from LA, we would save a bit on airfare (since her flight to and from LA would be paid for by someone else). That settled it.
She would go to her conference. I would fly to LAX on Friday 8/8. She'd meet me at the airport and we would fly together to Tokyo. A few days in Tokyo to do the Disneyland thing and then off to Beijing. We would catch an event, see the sights in Beijing, do some shopping, and hit the wall, the Great Wall. I really considered a side trip to see the terracotta warriors, but I could neither justify the expense or the additional time required to add it to the trip. (Now we have to go back!) We'd then fly to Hong Kong for a day or so to visit the small Hong Kong Disneyland park before flying back home.
Back in April, ,my wife and I were discussing what to do for this year's 'big' vacation. We take semi-frequent quicky trips to WDW, but we also try to take longer 'once in a lifetime' vacations. Last year, we did the western Med cruise on the Magic, so the bar was set kinda high.
My wife and (mostly my wife) are pretty Disney crazed and we loved the previous cruise, so I checked what this year's 'special' cruises were: Mexican Riviera. Cathy wasn't interested. How about a Panama Canal repositioning cruise? We nearly took one of those a few years ago, but my surgery got in the way. She considered it, but we decided that the 7 at-sea days were just too much.
This basically ruled out cruising for our 'big trip', but I knew that Disney was still a winner. If I could only find a great Disney vacation, she'd go for it. We'd visited WDW tons of times and while we love going there, it just wouldn't be special enough. (We're still planning on making a long weekend out of this year's F&W and spending the week after Christmas at WDW.) We find ourselves in Southern California at least annually, so Disneyland isn't that special to build the big vacation around it. We spent our honeymoon in Europe (including DL Paris). That was great, but we had just gone to Europe the previous year, so that was out.
That only leaves a few Disney-related options: 'Adventures by Disney' was a real possibility. It only had a couple of problems. First, during last year's vacation, we were less than impressed with a couple of the tours. These tours were not operated by Disney, but still we were reluctant to do a completely tour-based vacation. The remaining options were the Tokyo and Hong Kong Disneyland parks. If we were going to fly half way around the world, you may as well visit both of these Disneylands and be able to say that we've been to all the parks, right? Right? (It's possible that this thought was where my insanity related to this vacation started.) As a bonus, the Olympics are in Beijing this summer. Expanding the trip to hit both Disneylands and see part of the Olympics would certainly make it a 'once in a lifetime' kind of vacation.
Money, money, money. It's going to cost lots of money, especially since Cathy all but refuses to fly coach internationally. A little research later found that it was spendy. Do we spend this kind of money on this vacation? On one hand, it's lots of money. On the other hand, we have the money to spend AND it's not like we're going to have the opportunity to take a trip like this again. (You see how my psychosis is working, right? I've built a huge trip and then convinced myself that I would never again be able to build a huge trip.)
I pitched it to Cathy and she gave it the green light. Naturally, I didn't talk numbers with her. (Come to think of it, that's exactly how she ended up green-lighting the purchase of my convertible last year. You'd think she'd learn.)
Next came scheduling. The Olympics were to take place from August 8 to August 24, so we will need to be in Asia some time around there. Cathy reminded me that she would have to be in Los Angeles from 8/4 to 8/8 for a conference. If we left from LA, we would save a bit on airfare (since her flight to and from LA would be paid for by someone else). That settled it.
She would go to her conference. I would fly to LAX on Friday 8/8. She'd meet me at the airport and we would fly together to Tokyo. A few days in Tokyo to do the Disneyland thing and then off to Beijing. We would catch an event, see the sights in Beijing, do some shopping, and hit the wall, the Great Wall. I really considered a side trip to see the terracotta warriors, but I could neither justify the expense or the additional time required to add it to the trip. (Now we have to go back!) We'd then fly to Hong Kong for a day or so to visit the small Hong Kong Disneyland park before flying back home.
