Trip Reports - 2 friends around the world in Y !!

So here is the background.

I love to travel, love to be in airports...
my friend: Loves soccer, and always has problems trying to understand:
WHY I love traveling so much, as he had never flown before.

So when i told him my travelplans for the summer, i was more than SHOCKED to hear he wanted to come.

So i opted to take full advantage ( ok, I'll admit perhaps a little bit of revenge of me always being dragged in the the world of Soccer) and suggested an around the world. Not ever thinking we would actually go through with it...

Yet here we are, 2 weeks before our first flight out, excited to see and experience what the world has to offer.

Our flight schedule is the following:

Ams-Lax on KL
Lax-Yvr on UA
Yvr-Nrt on AS/KE
Hnd-Hkg on NH
Hkg-bkk on EK
Bkk-Usm-Bkk on PD
Bkk-ams - on KL

all booked in Y, as we are 2 students and can only dream of flying Business or First.
So that means: LOTS OF PICS IN Y ! to come for your enjoyment ;)

We took advantage of a few really awesome deals, thanks to flyertalk. For example the NWA Yvr/Nrt deal: 200 euro !!! on As/KE

If you are interested i can also add the Hotels we will be staying in.

Ok thats it for now,
Updates to follow as we travel
Will be back next week for a final pre departure report !

Hey Y class is nothing to be sneered at. Don't let all these snooty J and F class fellas intimidate you :P

Exciting stuff that itinerary. Sure you will have a blast.

In AMS myself and planning a trip like that coming months. If I may, how did you put together that itinerary, booked o/w's? and how much did all budget out to?

Exciting stuff that itinerary. Sure you will have a blast.

In AMS myself and planning a trip like that coming months. If I may, how did you put together that itinerary, booked o/w's? and how much did all budget out to?

Well first we wanted to go from LA, and then we wanted an island somewhere ( so hawaii came to mind)
Yet when then the NWA NRT deal came up ( japan = island:p) , we just found ourselves to be in Japan :D, yet the offer forced us to go to vancouver ( but thats not a biig problem ;)

from there we thought ok: Indonesia? or should we go elsewhere?

Also pricewise for us, hongkong came up and as we really just wanted to go there: Why not?

And from there we just decided for Koh Samui.

So it was more of a: let see where it takes us,
and i gues now we have: Usa,Canada,Japan,Hongkong,Thailand

I am sure you could doo much better, yet for us its exactly what we wanted: Big city life mixed with culture/nature as we explore the cities and surroundings. And in thailand hopefully still some sunny days on a beach.
We are on holidays, not businees or anything else. We really just went for: What do we want to see, as in: What CAN be seen in Asia ( thats for next time)




Pricewise it obviousely isnt ticketed as 1 around the world, and we bought return tickets most times, just cause due to airlines refenue management its just soo much cheaper to buy return then one way. We still managed to pay less then an average around the world ticket !!

and i just checked it went up a little but still for 259 euro incl all ( bv @ worldticketcenter.nl of vliegwinkel) u can still booked your yvr lax nrt return , with a dep in june ! ( moet je alleen wel naar vancouver komen he? --- i assume u speak dutch )

I am looking forward to hearing all about your journey.

How long are you spending in Japan? It is one of my favourite places to visit. Although I am not sure Tokyo in mid-summer would be my first choice of time to go. ;)

LOTS OF PICS

Already looking forward to the report, there can never be enough trip report pics on this forum! :D

^ love to do an around the world tour, but Mrs sl00001 thinks its stupid:p
Especially now it will be difficult with sl00001 junior in the world. So I have told Mrs (and junior) that I will take him for an around the world when he's a bit older:D


I almost bought the cheap J fares on CX flying from Korea to Europe just for the sake of flying....Anyway guys, enjoy your trip, looking forward to the report and pics!

Look forward to the pics!

Long live Y! As a fellow Y-only flier, I greatly anticipate your report.

Long live Y! As a fellow Y-only flier, I greatly anticipate your report.

As do I--but I won't admit to being a Y-only flyer! :D

Long live Y! As a fellow Y-only flier, I greatly anticipate your report.

I not a Y ONLY flyer.....there was that upgrade to J in 2006 :p

Looking forward to your adventures.

haha, no I/we are just fine to fly Y.
You cant miss, what you never had !!...

Just the KLM flights, kinda bummed klm would use such old (?) planes ( meaning: No personal entertainment screen) As i flew KL last year to the Phillipines on their 777-300, and that was a looong yet good flight.

but oh well, i am not complaining,
I do have a good book i am trying to finish since january !

Love how you just philandered together your itinerary.

And ye, banging the old rant, but from AMS one never gets any MR deals like they do from the US out. I love getting on planes like you say, though my friends, wait for this, rather sit 4 hours in the train then fly for 1!.. People be people aye..

Myself, well Im thinking of departing somewhere September.. might not be round the world per se, maybe map half the globe keep the budget 1500 and id be content with moi. Right now its something like AMS-LHR-AUH-BKK/HKG/KUL-SYD and back.. Just a case of putting oz on my map with a stop in the sand pit.

en ja, spreek ik wel wat beetje vreemd nederlands! :) .. All I could pick up after my years in the country..

Hows the packing coming along.. Be watching this thread for the trip reports to come. And do take lots of pics indeed.. get the crew to join in even :) .. And hey thanks so much for going into the detail you covered.. appreciate it.

Aah you are doing the Ethidad sale thing?
had a very very good deal from lhr to syd via auh ! i checked that out as well. But didnt wanted to go to Australia.

Packing, well to be honest i have a suitcase always standard in my room.
The only thing is that we are juggeling between Piece/weightconcept, but i guess that cause we are not tickets on 1 PNR.
So max is 20 kg, which isnt alot, considering we are NOT backpacking.

Yeah Ams is expensive airport, mostly fly out of dus. Its closer to me and cheaper most times. I look sometimes, but never get a real MR out of those airports, well unless you want to do a Swiss Business run through europe.

-----------
So I am happy to see some people are interested in our upcomming trip.

first stop will be Los Angeles where we will be there for 5 days

I will come back a few days before we leave for some sort of pre-departure post

untill then

Aufwiedersehen and tot de volgende keer ! ( googletranslate it !)

If you are interested i can also add the Hotels we will be staying in.


Wish I could make a trip like this, waiting to read more. Please include your hotels as well as local attractions/places you visit.

Aah you are doing the Ethidad sale thing?
had a very very good deal from lhr to syd via auh ! i checked that out as well. But didnt wanted to go to Australia.

Packing, well to be honest i have a suitcase always standard in my room.
The only thing is that we are juggeling between Piece/weightconcept, but i guess that cause we are not tickets on 1 PNR.
So max is 20 kg, which isnt alot, considering we are NOT backpacking.

Yeah Ams is expensive airport, mostly fly out of dus. Its closer to me and cheaper most times. I look sometimes, but never get a real MR out of those airports, well unless you want to do a Swiss Business run through europe.

-----------
So I am happy to see some people are interested in our upcomming trip.

first stop will be Los Angeles where we will be there for 5 days

I will come back a few days before we leave for some sort of pre-departure post

untill then

Aufwiedersehen and tot de volgende keer ! ( googletranslate it !)

Well actually the Etihad sale i couldnt use as it was a 3 month max stay and my dates span half a month longer, plus i couldnt get the dates to work up the sale fares.. So had to let that be.

Swiss business run through europe? well wouldnt have a good enough place to put the miles onto.. I m currently only flying Emirates and then United crediting to Skywards as most of my travel is to the middle east from yes, Dusseldorf. When o when would Emirates start Amsterdam.

Hope your travel prep coming on just fab. Good luck and keep updating this thread.

Ok,
So Sunday is when we leave, and these last few days seem to go by slow, while the last few week just passed by asif it was nothing.

So lets start with some imporant info:

Change in plans !!

We looked at the weather the last few weeks in Koh Samui : not all that great
Yes I know we could have known this in advanced, but we had good hopes things might
change a little, ( my direct work collegues lived on koh samui for 2 years, but i guess he was wrong :D)

So we went back to our plan B: Bali !

So new flight schedule is:

HKG - KUL
KUL- DPS
DPS-KUL
KUL- BKK
BKK- AMS

on Air Asia ( yes i know, i know, but we are students, and this was the cheapest option getting around

I contact my travel agency about canceling our HKG-BKK-USM
yet it ( what we thought) was a non ref ticket, so air asia it is !


Yesterday we did the Esta thing, so no problems there, the only question we might have is that we ofcourse
enterd the info that we wouldbe entering on KL601
yet we are then leaving USA and then from YVR we enter the usa again to fly via LAX to NRT ( transit only)
So i take it we have to then re-edit our esta info to the new flight details?


I will add the Hotel details as well as we go along:

Some of our hotels will be:
Lax: Sheraton LAX ( and then we are hosted by some friends in LA surroudings)
Tokyo: ANA Intercontinental
Bali: The laguna resort and Spa

and other hotels, but more to come as we go along



If i may, I would like some advice regards to transport at narita airport
I contacteed one of those Airport transfers companies, and the cost for a transfer is around 130 euro pp ( pickup narita , dropoff Haneda) which is kinda of high
So we looked at the Airport Limousine bus, which is ofcourse ALOT cheaper, but I am just not sure, as the info is not all that clear, about Does it drop us off at the hotel or at a bus station and then we take a cab?? ( help anyone?)




So we are excited !
Sunday cant come soon enough !

Those are some pretty ritzy hotels for 2 struggling students in Y :)

Fancy hotels indeed for todays student budgets! :) .. Well done Sido. ^

haha well we also do have a 20 euro a night hotel in KUL ( its just a layover/transit hotel )
and we stay at a comfort inn in vancouver :D for like cad 60

so its a good mix :D

The airport limo bus from Narita drops you off at the hotels listed for that route. They run different routes that handle the hotels in a particular area.

Beware these journeys can take some time though. Be prepared to spend up to 120 minutes on the bus, if not more.

http://www.limousinebus.co.jp/en/timetable/narita/akasaka_h.html


Looks like you will need to call then to arrange a pickup to go to Haneda

http://www.limousinebus.co.jp/en/timetable/haneda/akasaka_h.html

When are you going to be in Tokyo? My buddy and I are also slumming it at the IC ANA in Tokyo in early July.

the town of narita is often overlooked by people on a brief japan stopover because of the attractions of tokyo.
i'm not sure how long you are planning to be in japan and where you're planning to go there, but while you're staying at the ANA near the airport, and especially if you've planned to take in only tokyo, take at least an hour or two to wander the old shopping street between the narita (town, not airport) train station and the large old narita buddhist temple there.
is your itinerary isn't allowing any time for excursions to nikko or kyoto or any countryside explorations in japan, the little town of narita is a great and convenient way to immerse yourself in some 'traditional' japanese surroundings - sights, sounds, smells, tastes that are much harder to come across in the vast 30-million megalopolis of tokyo.
enjoy!