First Honeymoon

"Honeymoon? I thought you got married in 14th April 2007?". Well, yes... but the honeymoon got postphoned and before it hits 3rd year, I better make sure that my wife is not deprived of a proper honeymoon. Ever since we have purchased the Marriott Vacation Club International (MVCI) membership, we have not utilised it for a proper holiday yet, so that is one reason why we make sure that the trip is a really good one. After much deliberation, we decided to head to Hong Kong since it is nearer plus we could communicate better in their local language and the reputation of HK as a food haven also makes it more enticing to go there. I undertook the task to make reservation for the air-tickets and for the hotel.

The hotels available to the MVCI members are as follow:

MVCI Asia Pacific Club Connection Resort
Hong Kong SkyCity Marriott Hotel

Courtyard Hong Kong

Renaissance Harbour View Hotel
Renaissance Kowloon Hotel
JW Marriott Hong Kong

Among all the rest, JW Marriot is reputed the best not only due to the 5-star rating, but also the fact that it is located in a very convenient location i.e. on top of the Pacific Plaza and beside the Admiralty MTR. Buses, taxis and trams are also very easily accessible. After weighing all the options, naturally I proceeded to make a reservation to stay at the JW Marriott Hong Kong hotel from the 7th to 14th Dec 2008, a total of 8D7N.

The next thing is of course, the air ticket. Since MVCI membership also allows us to redeem Krisflyer points, we have opted to fly Singapore Airlines to Hong Kong. I have made the reservation 1 month+ in advance for the economy class tickets (51,000 Krisflyer points) to ensure that we could get the best timing for tickets and lo-and-behold, the morning flight redemption slot is fully booked on the 7th Dec. The available timing on the same day is 3pm onwards, which we are not really keen as that will only means reaching Hong Kong by 730pm, which will in effect cause wastage (Sit pun - hokkien) in the Hotel timing. So, I opt to be waitlisted (Bad choice!) and wait we did until nearing the 3rd week of November, I panicked as even the 3pm ticket was no longer available!

So now the option was to fly to Hong Kong a day early/later... sux! Anyway, I called the customer service and they propose something that I never thought of i.e. opt to fly one-way business class to Hong Kong and back in Economy! Before I blurted "What?!?" the customer service officer said that I only need to top up 30,000 Krisflyer points so that will cost me a total of 81,000 for this option. This option seems viable and I got bolder to even think of flying both ways in business class and guess what? The total Krisflyer points cost for return business class tickets only totalled 85,000 points! So what heck, just additional 4,000 points more and I could fly both ways in class and style. I have never flown anywhere further than 3 hours from Singapore and this is the first and to fly in Business class, I'm truly elated! Business class, here I come! (Thanks MVCI!).

7th December 2008The service rendered to the business class customers are truly magnificent (Forgive my suaku-ness as it is my virgin voyage)!

My wife and I are given the priority check-in, 30Kgs per passenger limit and access to the executivelounge, which has a huge classy waiting area and it serves food and beverages and all these for free.

Well, I know that most of you will say that we have paid for it while purchasing the tickets but think of it this way, our flight tickets are obtained via redemption! Too bad we had lunch before heading to the airport, otherwise, could save back a few bucks hehehe.

We are allowed to board the plane ahead of the other passengers and I am really excited to see that the seats are very spacious and comfy (I heard later from a colleague that rarely but surely, SQ does fly corpses in their business class area...eerie!). Oh, we could also chose our seats online so that we are certain of which seats we are taking PLUS we get to select the meals on flight! I have ordered a well done beef steak with smashed potatoes and ordered an oriental seafood meal for my wifey.

I used to hear that inflight food sux but somehow, I enjoy the food served on this trip and the fact that I have a great scenery outside the window helps me enjoy it even better.

One thing flying business class is also that the flight attendant kept serving you foods! after the appetizer came the main course and after the main course came the dessert. One would usually think that that's the end right? Wrong! They kept coming by serving us fruits and cheese and breads and tit-bits! I tell you, by the time I reached Hong Kong I was so full I couldn't eat even one curry fish ball!

The memorable part at the start of this trip apart from the great SQ flight is that we left our camera in the plane... yikes! Before leaving the plane, my wife did asked me to check whether I remember to take all my personal stuffs and I replied a resounding "Yeap!". After checking out and stuffs from the immigration, my wife suggested to take a photo and to my horror and more so to my wife's horror (and I meant HORRORRRR!), we could not find our camera! Panicked rushed through our veins as we search every inch and corner of our hand carrier only to find it in vain. We hurried to the SQ reception in the Hong Kong International airport to seek the help of the local officers. The lady officer in charge mentioned to us that the plane was about to prepare for take off and without any further delay sent an instruction via her walkie to the onboard crew to search for the missing item. She asked us to give the crew 30 minutes to conduct the search and asked us to return to the counter later. Well, that 30 minutes probably is one of those agonizing moments in life. Upon our return after 30 minutes, the officer in charge gladly hands the camera to us. Thank you God! Thank you SQ! Thank you thank you thank you!

We proceeded to the hotel and checked in about 9pm+. Wandered outside the hotel for awhile to breathe in the cold air (8+ degree celsius) and head back to our room to rest in anticipation of the tomorrow.

**Note: All rights reserved. If you would like to use the photos in this blog, please seek permission by e-mailing me.

For more posting, please click the below:

Hong Kong Day 02