China - Final 'tweaking' of our itinerary

Because of fixed, "FF" flights, John's work obligations, and his aversion to flying, some of the trip's 'bones' are not terribly mutable. *I* will, however, have Tues-Thurs in Beijing on my own, and we've made no particular arrangements for the shore excursion periods from the cruise. Anyone with thoughts, particularly (in Beijing) on hutong walks, markets for shopping, 'must-do/see-but-not-in-the-guidebooks' sort? How about during the rather lengthy dock times on the cruise? Huangshan mountain activities, great markets, etc? What we have now, as you'll see, is hotel and transport, not much more!

thanks
THU APR 19
JFK-LAX DL 1025 JFK-LAX 0700-11032 - SQ 11 LAX-NRT 14:35-18:0011H25M
FRI APR 20 ",-NRT" ARR NRT 1800 NRT-SIN 19:10-01:15 Overnight Singapore SIN Transit hotel

SAT APR 21 SIN-PEK SQ802 SIN-PEK 0850-1450
JING BIN HOTEL /DR. JIANG
SUN APR 22 Beijing Great Wall
MON APR 23 Beijing Forbidden city, Tiananmen MOVE TO TRADER’S THIS EVENING
John has welcome reception
TUE APR 24 Beijing John conference begins Li Family restaurant???

WED APR 25 Beijing conf
THU APR 26 Beijing conf ends1PM
FRI APR 27 Beijing "Downtown, shopping"
Beijing-Xian O/N TO XIAN
www.seat61.com/China.htm#Beijing%20-%20Xian Beijing (west) depart 20:28
SAT APR 28 XIAN Train number: Z19 * Xian arrive 7:58
Ancient Warriors
SOFITEL Xi’an

SUN APR 29 XIAN,
Sightsee mosque, etc
O/N TO CHONGQING
. Xian 16:58
arrive Chongqing 07:31

MON APR 30 pickup at Station
VICTORIA PRINCE LEAVES 11AM

TUE MAY1 SHIP 4 HOURS LESSER GORGES

WED MAY2 SHIP 2 HOURS 3 GORGES

THU MAY3 SHIP 8 HOURS WUHAN

FRI MAY4 SHIP 9 HOURS HUANGSHAN MT

SAT MAY5 SHIP 12 HOURS NANJING

sUN MAY6 SHIP, ARRIVE SHANGHAI 10AM
No. 9 Hotel Shanghai

MON MAY7 SHG-SIN
SQ 825 PVG-SIN1430-1945
Parkroyal Hotel Singapore
Chinatown, Mustafa, Arab quarter

TUE MAY 8
SQ12 SIN-NRT 9:45-17:35
SQ12 NRT-LAX 1845-1250
DL 472 LAX-JFK1540-1157

Any thoughts, feedback welcome!

Any thoughts, feedback welcome!

Well,.... you mentioned that you wanted to keep the flying to a minimum, yet you are transiting in SIN and apparently not spending any time there. It looks like your total outbound travel time, including the stopover, is in the neighborhood of 40+ hours. By contrast, CO and CA can both get the job done in ~13 hours. For the sake of reference, NRT-SIN-PEK alone requires 13 hours in the air, more than a transcon mileage run. Can you at least shave off the SIN stops (i.e. transit in NRT)? This would save 8-9 hours flying time.

Other than that, everything looks good.

The itinerary is 'not our own". We are flying the whole trip (except SIN-PEK and SHA-SIN) for free in FC and Raffles on SQ... otherwise about $25K for the two of us... hence the absurd route.

Would have loved JFk-PEK nonstop, but not in the cards (or at least, in the FF award inventory!)

Steve