Hi Jen. We leave next week too and must be on your trip. I am finally getting on the board to get some info. What are you planning to do for restaurants? My kids both have birthdays while on the tour and we want to plan some special meals for those days. Appreciate any advice you have based on your prep. At this rate I am not sure I am going to catch up with all of the old postings.
Robin
Hi Robin! So happy to meet another family in our group! My husband I are traveling with our 9 year old daughter. How old are your children? The concierges at the hotels have been extremely helpful in booking dining reservations for us, and I highly recommend emailing them! Not sure I would have been able to book reservations otherwise. The Open Table app was helpful in HK and the Chope app is ok for mainland, dining, but ultimately we had the concierge book everything for us!
We leave Wednesday and arrive Thursday night for a couple pre-nights in Hong Kong. We have several things booked in HK. For dinners, we've booked Ming Court and Nobu. We've also booked a "Junk Boat" Harbor Cruise on the AquaLuna
http://aqualuna.com.hk/ and we are planning an excursion to see the Big Buddah at Lantau. Here is a link to some of the information:
http://www.discoverhongkong.com/us/see-do/great-outdoors/outlying-islands/lantau-island/index.jsp
The Cable Car just reopened last week after maintenance, so we are still finalizing details for that. Ultimately, we decided not to book any additional time at HK Disney and just stick with the group visit. Everything we've booked in HK is cancellable in case the jet lag shatters us and we just need to rest! LOL
In Beijing, we are doing the highly recommended "Capital M" for one dinner
http://www.m-restaurantgroup.com/capitalm/ Also in Beijing, we are eating at some place called the Jing-a Taproom. I'm not entirely sure why, its very random, but I think we read this article about the Mala Chicken and dove in! LOL
https://www.eater.com/maps/best-beijing-restaurants . We have no additional tour plans in Beijing/Chengdu/Tian/Guilan since the days seem pretty packed as they are! LOL
In Chengdu, we are eating at Li Xuan in the hotel, which cam well-recommended. We wanted to eat at "Flair" in the hotel, but the concierge said it might not be right for our 9-year old and recommended something else. I'm sure Flair would be fine, but decided to not press! LOL! May change when we get there.
In Shanghai, we are celebrating out anniversary, so we have quite a few plans. We are eating at Hakkasan
http://hakkasan.com/ and at Mr. and Mrs. Bund
http://mmbund.com/ . We are doing several post days in Shanghai, so we don't leave until Sunday. We have booked a Tongli Water Town Tour with MIKI (based on recommendations from this board)
https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g308272-d2522351-r479937268-Miki_Tours-Shanghai.html. We've also booked an extra day at Shanghai
Disneyland and a reservation at the Royal Banquet Hall inside the park. We called Shanghai Disney and booked everything (tickets included) directly, and had good luck on the phone.
My favorite part of this whole trip is that we really haven't spent much time planning anything for the bulk of the trip and we're able to focus on the pre and post days!
Looking forward to meeting soon!
Jen
