Travel Plans: Reading and Links

Part of being a frequent traveler is knowing that sometimes plans will change. We found this out last week as we had to reschedule a six week trip to the US due to the Vagabondboy being sick and in hospital. After multiple phone calls, many hours online and multiple switches (and switch backs) we were able to salvage a portion of the trip. No, this is not a normal reschedule, much of the trip this summer was on miles and points so we were at the mercy of the airlines. BUT... what I did start thinking about was how to fill a portion of that time. We are not able to leave Singapore until July 7th, so we have gone ahead and done another quick trip to Kuala Lumpur to visit some of our favorite hot spots. The kids are disappointed, it means only one day at Disney this trip, but we get to go home to the States (although Jeff and I call it home, the kids think of Singapore as home) and Disney and Legoland are still on the agenda.

So, while we are not currently on the road this week, we are planning our next trip. We love to dig out old guidebooks and read through old magazines for places we want to get to next. The other "downtime" activity that I have been trying to catch up on is my blogs. I love reading about some of the other traveling parents out there, the places they go, the things they do. For me it is better than a guide book. While I do love reading guidebooks and they are a good jumping off point, I love the real life-real advice you get from blogs and twitter.

Guidebooks tend to be so general, are not really family oriented and tend to be out of date before you even buy them. But I find that blogs are imperfect, spelling errors, blurry pictures, frustrations and rants. You know, real people and real places, real recomendations. I love being on Twitter (you can follow me here)

So, without further adieu... I have a blog list for you. Not fancy, no super graphics. Just my favorite go to websites for for dreaming about the next trip to take. The list is far from complete and is still growing so if you want to be listed, just let me know! Oh and I am also building a fan page on Facebook (which you can "like") here... I will be doing a give away over there soon, so join the page now!

Air Travel with Kids: 16 Hours The Long Haul with kids

Note, I am pulling some of my better posts from an old blog I started about travel with kids and adding them here. This post was written in July 2008 but still holds true today.

So, as we prepare for a 16 hour non-stop flight with our kids I thought I would draft out a few tips that we find helpful for keeping a 5 and 6 year old entertained on the flight.

1. Portable DVD players are a god send. These are a must if you don't have the ability to have your own in seat movies.

2. If possible fly airlines that have in seat entertainment. Singapore Airlines has this on all flights, I can confirm that Northwest also has it on its PDX to Tokyo flights (and according to Seat Guru all of the Airbus planes that NW flys have personal TVs).

3. Order the kids meals early. Often if you order the kids meals the staff will prepare goodie bags to give the kids on the flight. Sometimes they will even let the kids talk to the pilot. Rare now days, but it still happens!

4. Check in via internet, skip the long lines at the airport and go directly to a cafe/snack location and let the kids have a snack and burn off some energy.

5. Give the kids there own carry-on roller bags. Let them take books, colors and small toys to play with on the flight.

6. Just be prepared for a long flight. No matter what you do, it is not easy, but it is possible. Entertain the kids with stories of where we are going and what we are going to do when we get there.

7. Pack gum or other things to help get ears to pop. My daughter has allergies and is often stuffed up. This causes her lots of pain when we fly, but gum helps. If you can't get gum (like us because we live in Singapore) chewy candy like gummy bears will work too. Talking your kid through the process of popping their ears is touch and go, but with kids a bit older (like Kiera is now) it works too.

A few trips re cross pacific flights (heading east). Try to get the kids to sleep in order to be on the same schedule as they will be in the US. For this trip, we will arrive in LA in the evening. We leave at 4pm. We have already told the kids that we should get on the plane, eat dinner and go to sleep. I will have my blackberry with me and will let the kids sleep for about 7 hours. (we have 16 hours in air). I am then going to try to wake them, give them a snack, Singapore Airline is good about giving snacks on demand on international flights, even in coach. The goal will be to get to LA, get our rental car, check into the hotel and head for dinner at Downtown Disney before trying to hit the sack around 9:30pm. I will let you know if the plan works.

Anaheim California Trip Plans and Review

Repost from July 2008

One of the most important things about traveling with kids is being able to adjust and go with the flow. I know I struggle with this, I have certain expectations and things that I want to do, but I think Jeff has even more trouble with it. What we learned on this trip is while planning is great, and frankly made our trip more do-able, you need to be able to adjust when necessary.

I like to be a seat of the pants traveler, to go where the winds blow and be able to move around when I want. I have learned, from the school of hard knocks, that doesn’t work when you have kids. Without certain plans in place kids get grumpy, they don’t deal well with transitions and while I may be able to run an extra hour without dinner, the kids are much more difficult to keep going. My Spouse on the other hand does a fair amount of logistics planning, but forgets to plan for the little things. So before we left Singapore (in fact months before because we knew it was peak season) we booked our hotel. We were able to book through Hotel Travel.com and got a fair rate on a hotel right across the street from Disneyland. Jeff also was able to book our car from Alamo, on line. From that perspective we were set.

I set our schedule, in terms of who we would meet and when, where we would go and who we would stay with while we were in Oregon. This is crucial as managing greater family obligations is probably harder than your own direct family expectations. But the best planning and expectation management we did was to use the advice from The Unofficial Guide to Disneyland and that was….” Plan your day in the park before you get there!” While we didn’t follow the touring plans offered in the book… we did plan our day (see my upcoming post on Disneyland in a day).

So, when we got to LA, things went rather smoothly, all things considered, we didn’t sleep well on the plane, but the kids did. I am sure that without advance planning on our part, even as to our estimated dinner plans, we would have been a mess. When we landed, we got our rental car and drove to the hotel. Originally we had hoped to be at the Hotel by 7 and be able to walk over to Downtown Disney for dinner, but again, adjustment was the key. Things took longer at the rental car place and we were all super tired, so before stopping at the hotel we decided Pizza at the California Pizza kitchen just down the street from the hotel was our choice for dinner. Well, frankly, I knew the food wasn’t the best in the world, but I didn’t expect the huge line. I knew Bubba Gump’s next door would be packed and we wanted to grab something and head back to the hotel and other options were too fancy or required us eating at the restaurant. So, we thought Pizza was the answer.

I DO NOT RECOMMEND CALIFORNIA PIZZA KITCHEN FOR YOUNG CHILDREN. The pizza, billed as gourmet, was too expensive, the types of pizza were not young kid friendly (and our kids are great eaters) and the wait was pretty long, even for take out. Note to self: Next time, just head to the hotel and call for Domino’s. The price will be better and the food can’t be worse.

Eating a late dinner after a 16 hour direct flight and the stress involved of getting and renting cars, facing rush hour traffic and having two tired kids tends to make adults crazy and cranky as well, but all told, tempers were kept in check and after a brief mumble or two, a few slices of crappy pizza we showered and got into bed. Sleeping was easy, it was the 3am wake up that was hard. Declan woke up at 3 and fussed and fidgeted. All of us sharing one room meant that we all woke up as well. After about an hour the kids went back to sleep, but I don’t think Jeff or I did. This made our planned wake up call at 6:30 a no-go, but I let everyone rest/sleep until 7. We got up, got dressed and went to breakfast in the hotel. We were eating by 7:15 and out the door on our way to the park to get our tickets before 8am. A few notes of advice, either try to get your tickets early or get them at the hotel if possible, many hotels offer this service and it saves you lots of time and is one less line to wait in. All and all, having made plans and being willing to adjust our schedule

So, more about the day at Disney later, but as always a picture.
Notes and recommendations:

Hotel: Anaheim Plaza Hotel- 1700 Harbor Blvd.
Price- Inexpensive (we were able to book online for 115 a night)
Room 2 stars
Service 3.5 stars
Breakfast 3.5

My Notes: It was ranked 2 stars in the Unofficial Guide to Disneyland, and frankly I would have given it a bump simply because the service was pretty good. The hotel caters to big tour buses but the staff was all friendly and gave Park information as soon as you check in. While I think if given a chance we would have stayed somewhere nicer, for the price and location it was a good deal. Plus, the kids loved the breakfast buffet (which actually wasn’t bad… I have had much worse in Asia) and the hot chocolate had whip cream on top!

Rental Car: Alamo- 3.5 stars
I have rented multiple times from National (right upstairs from Alamo) and found the check in at National to be much easier. We stood in line for a long while, only to find out we could have used the computer kiosk. The plus though was the huge play structure in the Almo section which kept the kids happy.