Trip Reports - Memorial Day weekend Singapore MR and Tokyo DisneySea

Originally booked online at Delta.com for $736 using Delta ECVs:
EWR-ATL-DTW-HND NRT-SIN-NRT HND-DTW-ATL-EWR

Flying:
JFK-LAX-HND NRT-SIN-NRT HND-LAX-JFK

Hotel stays planned:
Narita Radisson
Intercontinental Tokyo Bay
Ambasssador Transit hotel Singapore

Entertainment:
DisneySea

I had 49,000 rollover MQMS from last year as I stopped short of Diamond and sitting at Platinum for 2012 at 110,000 MQMS, I decided to go for Diamond with this run.
When all is completed I will have earned:
22,582 MQMs
22,582 RDMs + 22,582 Platinum RDMs =45,164 miles
2 Diamond Choice benefits for 2012 and 2013 and selecting:
$200 Delta ECV for 2012
25,000 miles for 2012
$200 Delta ECV for 2013
25,000 miles for 2013
50,000 Club Carlson points for the Buy One night Get One night promo and 2000 Club Carlson points online booking bonus by staying at the Radisson Narita hotel at an advanced booking rate of Y6200

Saturday May 26,2012 DL 1163 JFK-LAX BusinessElite 2D
Booked the Newark Airport Express bus roundtrip $28-$5 coupon=$23.
Was already upgraded to First on the EWR-ATL and ATL-DTW flights 6 days out. I arrived, printed my boarding passes, security line was virtually empty, and relaxed at the SkyClub in terminal B before starting the run. When I arrived at the gate, the gate agents announced that there was a mechanical issue with the flaps and there would be a 2-3 hour delay, and the next scheduled flight to Atlanta was not until 5pm, so my mileage run was in jeopardy from the start. Back to the lounge and opened my itinerary online and had several rebooking options. I decided to rebook JFK-LAX-HND as there were 14 out of 16 business elite seats open for the JFK-LAX flight at the time, so my chances for an upgrade looked promising and I would not miss my international connection at LAX as there would be a 4 hour layover. The downside was arriving into Haneda at 4:45am on May 28th rather than 11:30pm on May 27th, so I had to cancel my overnight hotel award reservation at the Intercontinental Tokyo Bay and try my best to get some sleep on the flight to Japan instead. I sent in a TTU to Delta about the mechanical problem and the late arrival into Japan. I checked online later and it looks like they were able to resolve the mechanical and get the flight out to Atlanta after all and I would have been able to made my connections, but I did not know that at the time when I made my decision to switch flights.

I took the Newark Airport Express bus back to Manhattan, hopped on the E train and then the AirTrain from Jamaica to JFK. Printed my new boarding passes at the kiosks and I had arrived in time to enjoy the food and drink selections and newspapers in the Oasis lounge in terminal 4 before heading over to Terminal 3. I checked my upgrade status online and was #3 of 13 for 14 seats.
I was upgraded to 2D and they were selling the last upgrade seat at $250 at the gate. Not sure if anyone paid, but while onboard, the gate agent moved someone up from economy into the last Business Elite seat in 2C next to me.

It felt good to start my mileage run off with a comfortable seat and nice meal to Los Angeles. Arrived on time into and took a refreshing shower at the LAX SkyClub lounge.

Sunday May 27,2012 DL635 LAX-HND EconomyPlus 13C
The agent in the lounge informed me that there was a cancellation of the LAX-NRT flight earlier in the day and lots of folks were being booked on the LAX-HND flight. Checked the Delta online seat map and 14 Business Elite seats and 12 Economy seats were open, and Delta.com was not selling any Economy seats for this flight only BusinessElite, so I had my hopes for a possible OpUp as a Platinum. Watched the online seat map go to 8 open BusinessElite seats and 8 open Economy seats, but never got the OpUp. Onboard BusinessElite looked full, but saw a few seats open in Economy, so they were not overbooked that badly after all. The EconomyPlus aisle seat in 13C was bearable for a 12 hours flight. My new plans are to arrive into Haneda and take the 7:35am shuttle bus for Y810 to DisneySea, arriving just before 9am and enjoy the rides and attractions. They have storage lockers there so its quite convenient. Heading back on the 2:35pm bus to Narita for Y2410 and arriving shortly before 4pm for my flight to Singapore at 6:25pm.

UPCOMING:
Monday May 28,2012 HND-SIN EconomyPlus
I booked the Ambassador airport hotel to take a power nap upon arrival into Singapore at 12:35am before my return flight to Narita at 6:25am.

Arrival into Narita at 1:25pm and booked in to the Radisson Narita where they have an airport shuttle bus. Will get some swimming and a nice relaxing sleep, and head into the center of Tokyo for shopping later on the free Radisson shuttle van.

Will try and figure out the best time to check out and get back to Haneda for the 6:25am flight the next day.


To Be Continued

Look forward to you trip report from TDS, my favorite theme park in the world!

Look forward to you trip report from TDS, my favorite theme park in the world!

Same here! At night the view of Tokyo skyline from the Tower of Terror is really something else!

Monday May 28th DisneySea
The buses are conveniently located downstairs from the terminal at Bus Stop #5 and there is a kiosk there where you can purchase your ticket for Y810. It makes stops at Disneyland as well as DisneySea, Disney Ambassador Hotel and Hilton Tokyo Bay and takes less than an hour. There were storage lockers for Y600 right by the entrance where I could store my luggage while enjoying the park. Even arriving around 8:30am, there was already huge lines to get into the park prior to its 9am opening. The lines were very orderly and upon entering the queues for the popular attraction rides were already long. The key for me however is to bypass the long lines and go straight to the line entrance and tell them these magic words: “Single Rider”. They will open up a separate line for you to go straight to the attraction where a few other single riders are waiting and this helped me to get to do more with my short time at the park. The shows had the performers songs in English, but the speaking parts were in Japanese. I took the Airline Express bus back to Narita for Y2400 from Bust Stop #4. The buses are always on time and match the schedule so there is no need to worry about transportation. The bus made several stops to hotels in the Disneyland area before proceeding to Narita and the ride took approximately 1 hour 15 minutes.

Monday May 28,2012 DL 621 NRT-SIN EconomyPlus

I selected the Economy Comfort bulkhead 31G, and slept most of the flight, but the Inflight Moving map was displaying the flight over Alaska with 6:12 remaining inflight the entire time. There were however a total of 308 different movies to chose from on this flight, both old and new releases. For the past few years for some reason SlumDog Millionaire and Spiderman always seem to be one of the selections on flights to and from Asia. Upon arrival into Singapore and right after deplaning, I went straight to the Ambassador Transit hotel without having to clear customs and security.


I booked the Ambassador airport hotel to take a power nap upon arrival into Singapore at 12:35am before my return flight to Narita at 6:25am. I got a full 3 hours sleep, and there was no need to exit immigration upon arrival, as I had my boarding pass printed at the Transit desk along with an invitation to the SkyLounge. There was no questions asked about the quick turnaround back to Narita. The SkyLounge and Transit desk are all centrally located just a few steps away from Starbucks. Internet access is free, you just need to get a WiFi login and password from the Information desk. The SkyLounge had a nice selection of hot breakfast such as eggs, chicken sausage and pancakes to name a few, and had free WiFi access.


Tuesday May 29,2012 DL 622 SIN-NRT
Same plane and same seat as the previous flight, but this time the flight map was working correctly.
Arrival into Narita at 1:25pm and booked in to the Radisson Narita where they had an airport shuttle bus every 30 minutes. Sent a kind Twitter to Delta Assist and they were kind enough to rebook me HND-LAX-JFK instead of HND-DTW-ATL-EWR, getting me into NY several hours earlier than expected! They were able to do this without change fees as a result of the mechanical on the way over. I think this return routing also netted me an extra 195 MQMS as well. (11,291 MQMs vs 11,096)
Taking the shuttle bus from Narita to Haneda for Y3000 today

Just checked online and my upgrade LAX-JFK cleared already.

Wednesday May 30,2012 12:45am DL 636 NRT-LAX Economy Comfort

Arrived at Haneda airport by the Airport Limousine bus, and had to take a free shuttle bus to the International Departure area. Used the TIAT lounge which didn;t have too much in the way of food, but did have a comfortable shower prior to leaving the lounge for the flight.

I had a row of 4 seats to myself, but a passenger asked a FA and OKd to switch and took the end seat in my row just as the door closed. Still had an empty seat next to me, so it was a comfortable 9+ hour flight, and knowing that I had already secured a BusinessElite Upgrade from LAX-JFK was a comforting feeling.

Arrival into LAX required a bus to take us over to the International Arrivals Hall for Customs and Immigration. Pretty long lines at customs, but had enough time to make it over to the Delta terminal and check out the empty Alaska Board Room lounge prior to departure

Tuesday May 29,2012 9:30pm LAX-JFK BusinessElite 1A
Because of the time zone change, I left Japan on Wednesday and arrived in LAX on Tuesday. No monitors at gate to see how many folks were on the upgrade list. One BusinessElie seat was empty just prior to departure, but someone was moved up to fill the last seat.
This was the first time where I had the Delta hamburger meal and it was actually quite tasty. Other than that caught up on sleep and comfortable ride home.

Miles and hotel points have posted for this trip:

54,565 Club Carlson poinst posted for my one night stay
45,164 Delta miles posted including Platinum bonus miles
22,582 Delta MQMs which pushed me over Diamond for the year

Actually made Diamond upon arrival into LAX at 129,433, but the last flight LAX-JFK still posted as only a Platinum 100% bonus rather than the 125% Diamond bonus due to my status change to Diamond appearing after flight miles had already been posted.

Wish I booked more than just one of these trips :)