Hong Kong and Macau - HK: 3 hotels in 4 days

Doing a short vacation-part mileage run to HK over Thanksgiving. Because of award availability/burning up certificates issues, we are staying at the JW Marriott the first night (Thursday night, when we arrive at 9 PM), the Conrad on Friday and Saturday nights, and the Sky Marriott on Sunday night before our 8AM flight back on Monday.

Just trying to figure out logistics issues to maximize our time. It seems since there are 3 of us, cabbing from the Airport to the Marriott will be time-effective, and we will plan to just walk thru the Pacific Plaza to the Conrad the next morning. Not sure about the best way to handle Sunday, likely just leave our bags at the Conrad in the morning and get back there at night, to taxi back to the Sky Marriott, where we will take the shuttle from the hotel to the terminal at around 5:30 AM Monday.

Hmmm...kind of a boring post, but wondering if the above makes sense, or if we should be doing something different (will checking in our bags on Sunday downtown be preferable for any logistic reason)? On a different note, is there something we definitely oughta be doing on Friday, weather permitting, rather than on the weekend to avoid crowds? We'd like to see one of the islands for half a day with minimum crowds if possible...thanks

We stayed in 2 different hotels Wednesday to Friday.
Thursday we checked out early morning around 9am and left our luggage with concierge. We picked them up at around 7pm, took a taxi and checked in at the other hotel. That way we had a whole day to visit HK without having to return to the hotel.
The first hotel was more central. The second hotel was nearer to airport and airport shuttle was cheaper.

There is a very efficient Airport express train that runs from ariport terminal into Kowloon and HK central. You can grab a taxi to any hotel at the stations.

www.mtr.com.hk for airport express information. There are special tourist return train tickets with/without local MTR(subway) add ons

Think about asking for late checkouts, especially at properties where you have status, so that you can go from a room directly to your next room after it's check in time.

Great choices, the JW Marriott and Conrad are among my favourites and I think they're seriously underrated as far as high-end HK hotels go. The most comfortable way would probably be taking the Airport Express to HK Station and then taking a cab to the JW Marriott from there. It'd be faster than taking a taxi all the way and pretty much similar price. You could also take the MTR to Admiralty since it's connected to Pacific Place.

Taxi is pretty cost-effective for 3 people going to the SkyCity Marriott.

With 3 of you I would take a taxi from the airport to the J.W. Marriott. There will be little difference in the overall cost

While the train is great there can on occasion be very large slow moving queues a the central station. Last think you want after a long flight.

Well, my daughter wound up getting a high fever the night before the trip, and we were not able to go. As the Delta Diamond Desk has been superb to me several times this year, including waiving our $250 ticket cancellation fee due to medical reasons for this instance, I am gonna do HK, SLC-DTW-HKG-DTW-SLC in two days, next weekend by my lonesome to keep my Diamond status for next year.

So, now my question to the suffering readers of this thread is: assuming flights are on time, how can I cheaply experience a little of the "spirit of the city" for just 1-2 hours on a Sunday night (of a 14-hour stay, arriving 8 PM and leaving 10:45 AM) based at the Sky City Marriott? I was thinking of just taking the airport express from the Expo station to Kowloon station, walking from there (I know it's a little out of the heart of Kowloon - is it safe at night?) to see the harbor and maybe to the night market, and then catching the airport express line back to the hotel a little after midnight.

Feasible? Ridiculous? Any thoughts welcome as I get ready for my first hardcore mileage run.

I was thinking of just taking the airport express from the Expo station to Kowloon station, walking from there (I know it's a little out of the heart of Kowloon - is it safe at night?) to see the harbor and maybe to the night market, and then catching the airport express line back to the hotel a little after midnight.


Unless you're staying at a Kowloon hotel, there is pretty much no point to go to Kowloon station. It's pretty much in the middle of nowhere, but it is a safe area. If you want to do a quick tour of the city, you can leave your stuff at the Marriott then either catch a bus or get a same-day return ticket on the Airport Express from AsiaWorld-Expo. If you want to see the harbour the fastest/easiest way would be to take the Airport Express to HK station then make the short walk through Central to the pier. This way you can catch the Star Ferry and get a full view of the legendary HK skyline from within the harbour itself. You can walk around TST a bit if you want then either take the MTR back to Central or go on the ferry again. From there you can take the Airport Express back to AsiaWorld-Expo.

Total time including Airport Express should be no more than 3 hours at a leisurely pace, plenty of time to catch one of the last trains out of the city and get a decent night of sleep before next morning's flight.