Flyin Around the World

We'll have a group of about 15-20, mostly high school kids from California. Any input is appreciated. Thanks.
April 1
After clearing customs, we will take the Airport Express train from the airport to The Hotel Royal Plaza (www.royalplaza.com.hk/) which will be our home for the next two nights. After checking in and freshening up we will be ready to explore the wonders of Hong Kong. Day 1 begins with a trip to Victoria Peak, (www.thepeak.com.hk/en/5_5_1.asp) . We will take the tram up the 1,810 foot mountain and get our exercise by walking down one of the many paths of the mountain. After reaching the bottom of the mountain we will explore the many sights, smells and sounds of Central Hong Kong, finding a traditional Chinese lunch along the way. After lunch we will board the Star Ferry (www.starferry.com.hk/index.php) which will take us from Central across Victoria Harbor to Kowloon (which is where our hotel is located). A possible quick afternoon swim in the hotel pool (www.royalplaza.com.hk/service.do) or maybe some shopping in the adjoining mall will fill our afternoons before we head to Nathan Road which is “a feast for the senses like few other streets in the world”. We will have a team dinner before proceeding back to Victoria Harbor for the 8pm Symphony of Lights, name as the "World's Largest Permanent Light and Sound Show" (http://www.discoverhongkong.com/eng/...ight-show.html) . At the culmination of the show we will make our way back to our hotel, thoroughly exhausted but ready for another exciting day tomorrow.

April 2
The morning begins with a subway ride to Lantau Island where we will board the Ngong Ping 360 (www.np360.com.hk/) which is 25-minute, 5.7 km long cable car ride which showcases the beauty of Lantau Island. Upon reaching Ngong Ping, we will climb the 268 steps to reach the Tian Tan Buddha or Giant Buddha (http://www.discoverhongkong.com/eng/...nt-buddha.html) which is the world’s tallest outdoor seated Buddha. We will then re-board the cable car and return to our bus and travel to Tai O, which is a traditional Chinese fishing village where the homes are all on stilts. After a delicious lunch we will head back toward Central Hong Kong where we will board the bus to Stanley (http://www.12hk.com/area/SouthIsland...eyMarket.shtml) . The double-decker bus ride to Stanley will be one of the most exhilarating trips of your life as the bus winds its way along one of the most scenic roads in the world. Once in Stanley we will explore the open air market and natural beauty which makes this one of Hong Kong’s most expensive real estate destinations. After a full afternoon of sightseeing, we will return to our hotel to prepare for our basketball game that evening.

April 3
Our last day in Hong Kong will be spent exploring the city life in Central Hong Kong. We will take a tour on the ‘Ding-Ding’ Hong Kong Tram, (www.discoverhongkong.com/tramguide/eng/index.jsp) with stops being made throughout the journey. Today is the day to explore “authentic” Hong Kong. After our final Chinese meal, we will return to the hotel to collect our baggage and head for the airport for our 13 hour and 10 minute flight to Johannesburg which departs at 11:45pm on Cathay Pacific Flight #749.

christep

A couple of observations

1) for the Symphony of Lights show you can see from the page you linked that the commentary broadcast on the speakers on the waterfront in Tsim Sha Tsui is in English on Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays. April 1 2010 will be a Thursday, which means that the commentary will be in Putonghua (Mandarin Chinese).

2) On 2 April that's an ambitious itinerary - Tai O and Stanley are about as far apart as two places in Hong Kong could possibly be, and I'm not sure you've got the transport worked out correctly. I can't see why you would take the cable car back down from the Buddha to Tung Chung in order to get a bus to Tai O. The Buddha is nearer to Tai O than it is to Tung Chung. You would save a lot of time (at least an hour) by simply taking the bus from Ngong Ping to Tai O. I assume you are then going to take a bus from Tai O to Tung Chung, then the MTR (subway) to Hong Kong Station, then transfer to the #6 bus to Stanley (that being the route you describe). The total time for that journey, even if all the connections work perfectly and you know exactly where you are going to, for example, get from HK MTR station to the start of the #6 bus in Exchange Square bus station is going to be at least 2.5 hours. Putting some approximate timings to this assuming you get the first cable car (which on a Friday is at 10am):

08:40 Leave Royal Plaza Hotel; walk to Prince Edward MTR.

09:00 MTR from Prince Edward, change at Lai King, to Tung Chung

09:35 Arrive Tung Chung MTR. Transfer by foot (5-7 minutes) to the Ngong Ping 360, get tickets etc.

10:00 Cable car

10:30 Arrive Ngong Ping. Explore Big Buddha, Temple, etc

Buses to Tai O go at 11:20 and 12:20. I really don't see you getting the 11:20, so...

12:20 Bus to Tai O.

(The alternative of getting the Cable Car back down to Tung Chung and then the much longer bus ride from Tung Chung to Tai O isn't going to get you to Tai O any sooner)

12:45 (approx) Arrive Tai O. Wander up to the stilt houses (by no means all the houses are like that by the way), find a restaurant, have lunch.

14:15 Bus from Tai O to Tung Chung

15:15 MTR from Tung Chung to HK Station; transfer on foot to Exchange Square Bus Station

16:00 #6 bus to Stanley

16:45 Arrive Stanley.
By the way, the market in Stanley isn't really open air these days. I'm really not sure it's worth going all that way to get there probably just before the market closes up. And it really isn't all that special as a market. Much better would be to do your market/souvenir shopping in Temple Street night market which is much closer to your hotel and could be done after the light show on the first day.

17:45 Leave Stanley (hardly worth it for that time)

I'm not sure how you are planning to get back to your hotel, but something like...

18:20 Get off the bus at Admiralty. MTR to Prince Edward. Walk to the hotel

18:45 Arrive back at the hotel.

Now that schedule assumes everything goes right, you know where you are going,no kids get lost from the group, and they all know how to use their Octopus cards.

Even with that, you get about 90 minutes to explore the whole Ngong Ping site, 90 minutes for lunch and exploring Tai O, 60 minutes in Stanley, and a heck of a lot of travelling.

Far too ambitious in my opinion.

I'd drop Stanley. If the #6 bus is really "one of the most exhilarating trips of your life" then they need a bit more exhilaration! It's just a normal bus on high quality first world roads (albeit winding around a bit and with good views in places if you're lucky with the air quality that day).

Pickles

Another piece of advice: If you plan to find a "traditional Chinese lunch along the way" on Day 1 (or other days), forget about it. The chances of being able to seat 20 people in short order anywhere in Central without advance planning is very low. I would scout out where you'd want to eat and make reservations in advance.

christep

Yes - and there are probably only a handful of places in Tai O that could deal with that big a group at no notice, particularly if you want everything to happen quickly. And how is your Cantonese? Ordering for 20 would be quite "interesting" in some of the local places too if you don't speak the language.

Flyin Around the World

thanks for the information...
sounds like we'll skip stanley on this quick trip
I appreciate the insight.

christep

You could fit Stanley in better on your third day if you really wanted to - I'm not sure wandering up and down the tram line is going to keep a bunch of teenagers amused for a whole day...

If you skip Stanley then on Day 2 rather than get the bus from Tai O to Tung Chung and then the MTR (again), I would recommend getting the bus from Tai O to Mui Wo (say the 14:30 bus), and then taking a slow ("ordinary") ferry (ordinary means open decks so you can walk around and take the air rather than being in an air-conditioned cocoon on the fast ferry) from Mui Wo back into Central; the 14:30 bus from Tai O connects well to the 15:30 slow ferry from Mui Wo. If it's a nice day then the slow ferry is a great way to enter HK.

You'd then get back to Central Ferry Piers at about 16:25; take the Star Ferry across the harbour from the adjacent pier, and then bus/MTR/walk back to your hotel to prepare for your evening's basketball.

Flyin Around the World

I should have found you before I started putting this itinerary together!!!

I like your recommendations on the ferry, and maybe doing Stanley on Day #3.

One other question...
Upon arrival, how much $$ should we get put on each Octopus card? I know that they have the airport express + 3-day MTR tourist card, but it seems the octopus is much more flexible and probably better for our group?

christep

Yes, if you're going to do buses, ferries & trams then you need full Octopus cards. I'd just work out how much when you've nailed down the itinerary. Bear in mind that you can't buy Octopus cards using credit cards, so you're going to need quite a lot of cash at the airport in order to get 20 of them loaded up for a 3 day rush around (including the airport express). Roughly at this point I guess you're looking at $250-300 of credit each which means $300-350 per card which is probably over $5000 (US$650 or so). You can always get any excess back at the end (again in cash) when you trade the cards in (unless the kids want to keep them as souvenirs). Having said that, you get a much better deal on the Airport Express by buying group tickets so you might want to do that. Or even, frankly, to arrange a private coach just to take you all to & from the hotel - I'd have thought that for 20 of you the hotel would be able to arrange something at a very reasonable price.

If you were going to do Stanley on Day 3, then my recommendation would be to go there for lunch (albeit that would be more international than local). You could take the "exhilarating" #6 over from Central in the morning, then do lunch and the market and get a #14 bus back from Stanley to Shaukeiwan and pick up the tram from that end. The idea would be to be on the tram through dusk so that by the time you come back through Wanchai and Central you have all the lights on.

I assume you'll check out of the hotel in the morning then go back simply to pick up bags before departing for the airport around 9:15pm. Again, a private coach might be the easiest way. So you have enough time to jump off and on the tram ($2 each time) a couple of times on the way along the island.

christep

An alternative to Stanley (because if you've already done the Temple Street Night Market on the evening of day 1 then Stanley isn't going to add much) would be to get an organised tour at one of the museums - perhaps the Museum of Coastal Defence (probably works better if you've got more boys than girls!) which is pretty good, and is not far from the end of the tram line, so could easily be fitted in to day 3.

Clipper801

Just a reminder that the Airport Express offers "group discount" for parties of 2, 3 or 4 travelling together. So you should organise your party into groups of 4 (for maximum discount) and there is a complimentary shuttle bus (#K5) from the Kowloon Station to the Royal Plaza. However, this shuttle bus only operates every 20 minutes. Alternatively, you may wish to consider taking the SkyeXpress for convenient "door-to-door" from the airport direct to the hotel. I don't know if they offer a group rate but there's no harm to enquire.

On your departure, check in facility is available at the Airport Express Kowloon Station.

rkkwan

One of the other two official hotel shuttle services - Trans-Island is quoting HK$1,100 for a one-way bus:

http://www.trans-island.com.hk/local...ng(July08).pdf

I'd think SkyeXpress and Parklane will be about the same.

That is about the same price (HK$55 each) as taking the Airport Express for 20 people. But it's door-to-door service.

thursday

get yourself a tour bus for Lantau. Much, much more convenient.

Get the cable car up, have the tour bus meet you at the NP360 for the ride to Tai O. THen bus back to Tung Chung.

The Tung Chung Road is very convenient now, no more single file traffic.

Do your kids like shrimp paste? or salted fish? Could be a good game of dare you eat it.

Pickles

You could have an XO sauce eating contest. Winner does NOT have to eat the fishhead.

christep

Are private tour buses allowed on Lantau? I see lots of NLB buses full of tour groups when I am out hiking, but I don't recall seeing private tour buses. Moreover, I still say that the ordinary ferry back into Hong Kong is a much better way than the MTR. Even better if you can do it at dusk (the 17:30 departure weekdays in the winter) but their schedule doesn't allow that.

thursday

Love XO sauce. All over my shrimp mein. Actually, the salted fish is good. See who can eat the whole fish before puking for want of water.