frudd38

Thanks, I will look into purchasing beforehand a couple weeks out.

frudd38

Thanks, just checked that flight for my date(s) and it's ~$180. The bad schedule plus having to cross the border with a bunch of large luggage isn't as enticing. Hopefully it'll be nice to check out Wuhan for a night.

jiejie

If you have lots of large luggage, seems that schlepping about on any trains isn't going to be a pleasant venture and neither would a manual border crossing done without a private car transfer SZX-HK. Seems that you'd be better served to fly out of Yichang the same evening you arrive, spend night at that city, then fly nonstop to HKG the next morning. Can put big bags with airport Left Luggage overnight then pick them up before checking in for morning flight. I think there's an evening YIH-HGH (Hangzhou) flight that could work, ditto for morning HGH-HKG.

Wuhan's not that great to check out for a night. And if you do keep this routing, make darn sure your hotel is on the airport side of the river (Hankou) even if the better sights are on the other side of the river.

moondog

YIH-HGH is pretty much the same price as YIH-CAN/SZX, and requires an additional flight (7500 BA points, rather than 4500 BA points from WUH, no less) to get within striking distance of HK.

In short, I stand by my earlier pronouncement that the OP's plan is the best possible means to his objective. (I didn't believe it myself when I first saw it, so I challenged myself to craft something more sensible, but every other idea I could conceive of was some combination of more annoying/expensive/time consuming.)

ETA: Shipping the heavy luggage from the Chongqing hotel to the Wuhan hotel would solve the "luggage on train" problem, and would be quite cheap.

frudd38

I think I've overstated the luggage issue.. it won't be anything ridiculous (3 large check ins and 4 carry ons) for the 4 of us, although only 2 of us will probably be carrying the load.

It did take me awhile to come up with my proposed plan as well and since I'm new to anything outside PVG, wasn't sure if I was missing anything better. Almost considered upstream cruise to end in CKG instead, but didn't want to spend an extra night on the boat.

The SZX option would actually seem better if the flight times were better. How much would a private van transfer be into Kowloon? Anything special that needs to be done when crossing the border?

Since the Westin WUH dropped a Cat last week, where I was already planning on staying, it's making me lean towards WUH as well, as stupid of a reason that may sound.

frudd38

I forgot that I saw YIH-HKG on Sichuan Air before, but couldn't pull it up on any OTA and it seems the schedule ends 3/29. Anyone know anything about this route?

Never mind, it's Sat only.

frudd38

Anyone know if there are car services willing to drive from Yichang to Wuhan?

frudd38

Figured I'd update from this trip last year. After arriving from the river cruise in Yi Chang, we had a pre-booked taxi to take us to Yi Chang East train station, which we then took to Wuhan. The train was pleasant and quick at 2 hours. Spent the night and full next day in Wuhan before our evening flight to HKG, which turned out to be an excellent choice since it was a nice river city to explore.