Categorytrip reports
Hello everyone! I’m probably 3 years behind on reviewing things but I really wanted to get this one done asap before I forget any details since there are probably people out there who are trying to decide between W Maldives and St. Regis Maldives and I hope this post will help. Prior to my stay, I couldn’t find very many thorough reviews on the W Maldives, which made it very difficult to choose between them for my stay during the small window of opportunity in August 2018 when overwater villas at both properties were booking at 340k points for 5 nights. Due to booking a ton of travel packages, I was just shy of being able to book both to decide later. I booked W Maldives first and unfortunately the opportunity passed before I had enough points to book St. Regis also. I wish I had booked both back to back and stayed at both. 😉
Aloha from the Big Island of Hawai’i, which is now easily my second favorite island (after Oahu)! I’m wrapping up a 7 night stay at the Marriott Waikoloa Resort, reviewed at the bottom of this post. But first, I wanted to share many hours of research for anyone who is planning their own trip to the Big Island. I found one particular website to be most helpful – Love Big Island. Definitely go to that site and browse like, every page. They keep it nicely updated and unbiased.
Before heading to the restaurant, I thought: “it’d be great if someone could earn Hilton points off this lunch!” As a Hilton Diamond member, I volunteered as I would get a 100% bonus on any points earned.
I asked our host about this, and he said I could add my HHonors number to the final invoice afterwards. We proceeded to have a very nice underwater lunch. Afterwards, we were brought to the hotel reception to settle our bill. I asked about adding my HHonors number to the bill, but unfortunately was told that we needed to have been staying at the resort to earn points. But wait! With a restaurant bill of $6100 for a 15 person lunch, I would earn 61,000 base points + 100% bonus, making it 122,000 points total. I quickly checked how much it would cost to book a room for the night, and surprisingly, low level award availability was still available. The Conrad Maldives Rangali is a top category Hilton hotel, which makes the lowest standard award redemption 95,000 points. For some reason recently, the overwater villas have been available for the same price as a standard beach villa (h/t OMAAT.) There were no additional service charges or taxes since the room rate was paid in points. So I asked the reception, what if I booked a room right now? They hesitantly said yes, that would work.
So I booked a points stay for a water villa on the spot and gave the confirmation number to the reception. They had us email 2 of our passports to the hotel. However, it took around 40 minutes for them to find the reservation and make a room available for us. Initially they thought I was in a beachfront villa as they couldn’t see the confirmation. Eventually, they had me email the confirmation to them to get the check in process rolling.
We took a small dhoni over to the other island where the overwater villas were. Unfortunately, the hotel was being unusually strict about guests even just visiting the room, saying that only 1 additional person could visit the room at a time beyond the 2 registered guests even though they knew we’d only be there for a few hours.
So a few of us went to check out the villa, and swim around while the rest of us hung around the island. The villa was quite nice, with a very large bedroom and bathroom, and a back deck leading straight into a shallow part of the ocean that we could swim in. As a Diamond guest, we also received a welcome gift of sparkling wine and chocolates, along with a selection of fruits that came with the room. After they left us alone though, everyone came over to hang out and have a party! 🙂
Overall, it was a nice resort visit, though customer service was somewhat slow. Plus, we got a free overwater villa with lunch and access to the rest of the resort!
Following up on the points, I waited 2 weeks for the stay to credit to my account, but it never did. After filing a missing stay request with Hilton, after 4 days, the stay credited, but only 1000 Diamond bonus points and 2000 points from the Points Unlimited bonus offer. Something wasn’t right here. I speculate that they messed up my check in, which I why it took so long. So I called up Hilton customer service, and they were able to pull up the bill and credit the stay… by adding another stay to my account with another 1000 Diamond bonus and 2000 points bonus! So a total of 6000 bonus points on top of the base points, and 1 extra stay credit for no reason.
We booked a late lunch for 3pm, but as the Conrad is 1 hour ahead of normal Maldivian time, this was more like 2pm in our time. After two early morning dives, our yacht headed towards the Conrad, where we took a speedboat and got off on the Conrad’s jetty. We were welcomed by a host, who provided us with cool moistened towels, then another member of the staff who offered a welcome fruit drink, before we were ushered towards the restaurant. The host warned that because of the size of our party, it might get a little hot inside, so they had preemptively set up a number of fans.
The first floor of the restaurant was a nice lobby with couches, a table, restrooms, and a small prep kitchen. The main kitchen was at the outdoor restaurant back across the walkway. It was quite nice and comfortable up here, and I frequently came back to hang out to escape the heat during our meal.
We took the staircase down to the dining area, and WOW, what an amazing sight. We were seated promptly and offered a cold towel. I wish they didn’t take away our towel so quickly though!
The menu for lunch was a 4 course tasting menu, with the option to upgrade the main from a sous vide chicken to a Maldivian reef lobster. I took the lobster upgrade. We were given the wine list and wow, everything was super expensive. We ended up with 3 bottles of white, a Riesling, a Chardonnay, and a Chablis for our party of 15.
Overall, all the courses were very tasty and presented very well. Service was very attentive. It was awesome to see fish swimming right over you while eating. The only downside was that as warned, the restaurant started to get extremely hot during the meal, to the point that the butter completely melted! I can’t imagine how hot it would be during noon time! I frequently would go hang out at the upstairs lounge between courses, and people took to sitting directly on top of the air conditioning vents while not eating. Our negotiated price to book out the entire restaurant at $344 a head plus service charge, not including drinks. So while very tasting, as compared to several other fine dining options that I’ve been to, you are definitely paying for the view and less so the food.
After the meal concluded, we were lead back to the reception to pay for the bill, which will tie into my next post.
The pictures of the meal follow:
NH 8 NRT-SFO on March 16, 2018
Booking
This was the return flight for a roundtrip booking I made via Virgin Atlantic where we flew the first flight in May 2017. The points were transferred from Membership Rewards with the 30% bonus, and cost a total of 110k Virgin Atlantic miles plus $170 for the roundtrip. Divided equally between the two legs, that makes this flight 55k miles and $85. The value of the flight at time of booking was $9,920 for a cpm of 15.62. Since it is unrealistic to actually pay nearly $10k for a flight, the cheapest non-stop economy flight was $736.50 for a “real” cpm of 1.16. Prices for roundtrips are probably cheaper but let’s keep things simple for now…
I should also note that I upgraded my husband’s NRT-SFO flight because he was originally booked in business class and flew the first leg SFO-NRT in business class (it wasn’t a big deal, we were basically one row apart and the menus/experience were very similar). When I saw F space open up, I called Virgin Atlantic and upgraded for 10k miles and a change fee of $50. I am glad this worked out, as you’ll see later.
Getting to the airport
We stayed at Hyatt Centric Ginza in Tokyo, so we took the Asakusa line from Shimbashi station all the way to Terminal 1 of NRT (it turns into Sky Access at some point). The walk to the station from the hotel took about 8-10 min and the train ride took about 1 hour and cost around 1300 yen. I do wish Google Maps was a little more descriptive on how to get to the platform for the train bound for the airport, but fortunately there were signs that mentioned the airport train. The timing of this train was approximately every 30 min, and we arrived at the platform out-of-breath with about 30 seconds to spare. I would recommend checking the schedule ahead of time and giving yourself enough time to look for the platform while dragging your luggage…
A couple other options are the Keisei Skyliner or airport limousine (the 1000 yen one shown on Google Maps).
Food court tsukemen detour
Against my husband’s strong protests of cutting into our lounge time and free food stomach space, I dragged us to the Terminal 1 food court on the 4th floor between the two Departure Halls (landside) to eat tsukemen at the famous ramen shop Tomita (the original shop is #1 on RamenDB) that my friend Forrest tipped me off to as a relatively new and convenient addition to the NRT food court. I would highly recommend making a pit stop here if you are not flying premium class, or if you are but don’t care for lounge food. For us, good free lounge food such as that offered by JAL and ANA trumps the ramen, but I would not hesitate to drop by if I had been flying economy.
ANA Suite check-in
ANA first class has a private check-in suite in the airport that is large and spacious. We didn’t know about it at first, so we went to the ANA portion of the Departure Hall where an agent told us to print baggage tags from a kiosk. We did so, only to find out later it was a waste of time. Then another agent told us to go to the business class line, and when we got there, another agent directed us to the first class check-in suite. Once there, I handed over our printed baggage tags to the agent, and they gave me wet towels and offered me hard candy (cough drops). I thought that was a nice touch. The check-in suite was simple but the little extra touches did make it feel calm and nice compared to the zoo outside in the Departure Hall with long lines and having to dodge tons of tourists rolling their giant bags into you.
Security and Immigration/Customs
From the private check-in, the agent leads you to the back of the check-in suite to a private security screening. I liked this because there is nobody in front of you, nobody behind you. No need to rush and nobody getting all up in your space. Relatively minor detail for most people, but I appreciated it.
The security led us right into Immigration/Customs, for which there were no lines for the Foreigners. Sweet! We stopped by the TTP booth to ask about our status, since we applied for the e-gate program more than 3 months ago, but they said that we’re still in preliminary processing and it could take another 3 months before secondary.
Lounge
We went to the ANA Lounge, which has a business class and first class (Suite Lounge) side. We checked out both and honestly, they were fairly similar in terms of spaciousness, crowdedness, food options, noodle bar and hot entrée options, and style. The first class side had a higher quality tea and Haagen Dazs ice cream, which I did not notice on the business class side. The bathrooms have Shiseido products you can use.
The food options were pretty good, but unfortunately I was already half full from the tuskemen earlier, so all I could eat was a curry udon, which was yummy. I also had a bite of the burger that my husband ordered, which was okay, but I chastised him for ordering American food when it’s our last few hours in Japan. 😛 I am a huge fan of gyudon (the beef bowl in the menu below – thinly sliced, marinated beef brisket over rice) and would’ve also liked to order the chicken curry, ramen, and sashimi over rice (chirashi bowl). But another thing I liked about this lounge is the number of small packaged snacks, etc. You catch my drift? 😉
Last-minute shopping
I usually don’t do any airport duty-free shopping, but this is Japan and I had so many Japanese snacks I wanted! I left my things in the lounge (fyi there are no lockers) and went out to the terminal to shop at Fa-So-La and the other shops. I realized I loved shopping in Japanese airports because:
I’m leaving Vietnam today and from my initial enthusiasm from 2 days in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) in November, I now have more mixed feelings that I want to flesh out here. You may or may not agree, I’m just sharing how I felt personally. A lot of this is coming from the privileged position of being an Asian-American, but I’ll try to keep it real and maybe it’ll resonate with some people.
Cleanliness
This is a third world country, so I realize that it sounds very entitled and judgmental to call Vietnam “dirty” and rundown. I mean, what do you expect? However, I think it’s worth addressing because I have many friends who are clean freaks and germophobes and even the slightest trash on the ground and rust and dirt on the walls would disgust them. Let’s not even mention the rats you see darting between stalls at the market.
I spent several years of my life in Taiwan (also many considerably “dirty” cities) and sitting on little plastic stools on the pavement eating pho out of bowls washed in questionable water doesn’t really bother me, and neither does drinking a raw egg coffee sitting on stools in a rundown, dirty hole-in-the-wall where the floor is littered with empty sunflower seed shells. But I figured I should mention this so that readers who know that such experiences would bother them will know how to manage. My thoughts? A few germs and dirt can only make you stronger. I try to look past the big picture and dirtiness and not be so judgmental.
Crossing the Street
Everyone knows Vietnam has crazy streets filled with cars, motorcycles, scooters, bicycles, and trucks that often drive within 1 inch of each other, drive the wrong way on a street into oncoming traffic, and make turns into rapidly oncoming traffic. You’ll be hard-pressed to find traffic lights, and even if you do, a popular T-shirt print says it all:
So how do you cross the street? This is a common problem in Asia (pedestrians do not have the right of way), so I usually follow the same tip as I do while in China. Look for a local that is about to cross the street too, and stand right next to them and cross exactly when they cross, staying within inches of them. The drivers adjust their speed and swerve to avoid you based on their prediction of where you will be next, and they usually assume that you are going to keep walking, so try not to stop.
Another tip I learned from Deal Mommy was to just take Uber (or Grab) everywhere if you feel overwhelmed, even if it’s a totally walkable distance. Besides, if you take Uber, you can earn Ibotta cash and SYWR too (maybe triple dip with Acorns too). 😀 Uber is cheaper and safer than local taxis too.
I am usually a walker, but when we arrived in Hanoi and found an utter lack of sidewalks in Old Quarter and Westlake (interestingly, this was not a problem in the other cities we visited), we found ourselves constantly being forced into the street and getting honked at and nearly swiped by vehicles, so we took Uber the rest of the day. If you do walk where there are no sidewalks, stay to the side as much as possible, watch your step because there are a lot of obstacles, potholes, trash, and puddles of dirty washing water, and clutch your bag so that they can’t be grabbed by motorists speeding by.
Costs
I love the cheap food and shopping – if you know where to go and what to expect. It always pays to do your research in advance so you know how much things cost and not just how much you’re willing to pay for it. A common scam is that vendors will purposely give you incorrect change back and hope you don’t notice or get confused. This happened to me literally every single transaction in Hoi An…
Don’t get the 10,000 dong and 100,000 dong bills mixed up. Make sure bills aren’t sticking together; take your time to separate and count the money carefully. Clarify prices in advance, and if you’re shopping, they do expect you to bargain (I’ve heard you should start with 50%).
A good rule of thumb for quick currency conversions in your head is to remove 4 zeroes (move the decimal over 4 places) and divide the remaining number by 2.
For example: 10000 dong, remove 4 zeroes = 1, divided by 2 = approx $0.50 USD. It’s actually slightly less, but this is good for making quick estimates.
Vendors often quote prices in USD and in VND, so be sure to clarify which one they mean. “Five” could be either 5000 dong ($0.25) or $5 USD.
For budgeting purposes, I spent less than $30 USD of cash for 2 people over 9 days. My hotels, flights, scuba diving course, and cruise were pre-paid by credit card, I used Uber for rides, and credit card at one sit-down restaurant in Hoi An. The cash was mainly for small restaurants and street food, and I didn’t do any shopping. Tips are often appreciated in service-type places like the cruise. Things like the cruise and luxury hotels will often have American prices or higher at the property for food and beverage and services.
Cities Visited
I have now been to Saigon, Hoi An, Da Nang, Hanoi, and Halong Bay. Here are my thoughts on each:
Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) – slightly more modern feel, great cheap shopping, relatively clean compared to the other cities. I really liked it except for the hot weather. (P.S. Le Meridien is really nice, I recommend it!)
Hoi An – small town, tailors galore, best seen at night with the lanterns and bridges, small night market, fairly pedestrian-friendly streets, very touristy. Pretty dirty streets and buildings are falling apart, but it has character. Kinda like the Kyoto of Vietnam.
Da Nang – definitely our favorite; impressive resorts (we stayed at Hyatt Regency Danang, which is now in my Top 5 favorite hotels in the world) with stunning CLEAN, powdery white sand beaches, good weather, lots of fun stuff to do between eating such as Marble Mountains (highly recommend, will try to do a separate post on this), Ba Na Hills, Hai Van Pass, Son Tra Peninsula, and day trips to nearby sights. Nice bridges, great night viewing. Relatively clean. Great for ex-pats and partiers apparently, too.
Hanoi – we did not really enjoy this city much at all. Many streets in the “interesting” parts of town lack sidewalks, making it very pedestrian-unfriendly in many parts. It wasn’t hot, but the air pollution was pretty bad. Good food options, but not many interesting things to do otherwise, and my stomach could only handle so much back-to-back-to-back food and coffee. The common touristy sights were pretty unimpressive. I particularly do not recommend Westlake, the lake is big but smelly and dirty and mosquito-infested, the streets adjacent to it have no sidewalks so you can’t just wander around and explore unless you stay right by the lakeside, and there isn’t much to do. The shopping in Hanoi (Old Quarter) is decent but I honestly enjoyed it more in Saigon. The hotels are pretty old here (we stayed at Intercontinental Hanoi Westlake and Hilton Hanoi Opera).
Halong Bay – see my post on choosing a cruise. I will write a new dedicated post to the experience, but in general I would sum it up as: your experience will greatly vary depending on how much you pay/how nice the boat is. If you’re someone that prefers a cleaner environment, I strongly suggest that you pay a little more for a nice boat like Azalea Cruises that takes the Lan Ha Bay/Bai Tu Long Bay route (significantly cleaner, clearer waters). With that said, it was a beautiful experience that I would recommend. On the other hand, my husband wouldn’t recommend it, so take my word with a grain of salt. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Another interesting thing I noticed about the tourist demographic is that it is overrun with Korean tourists. I was surprised because in other Asia cities I often see a lot of mainland Chinese tourists, but not in Vietnam. We often heard Korean more than even Vietnamese in the touristy areas and hotels. Quite a few French tourists too, and not many American tourists.
We did not go to some other popular sites like Hue, My Son, Sapa, Phu Quoc, Nha Truong, etc, but I would’ve liked to. They are on my future travel list for sure! My husband is very much over Vietnam so I’ll need a new travel buddy for the next time. 🙂
Have you ever played Mariokart? Do you like gokarting and driving fast? This awesome this-would-only-happen-in-Japan activity called Maricar might be for you. Maricar was first recommended to me by my friend Tim, and since then, many of my other friends have done the tour and highly recommended it. However, out of maybe 10 of my friends, only one was not very impressed. It’s not for everyone, so hopefully I can help you decide if you’ll enjoy it.
Summary
Maricar is a gokart tour operated in various cities in Japan, where you dress up as a character of your choice (not limited to Nintendo characters!) and drive a high quality custom gokart, following an experienced tour guide throughout the city with a small group of people.
How to Book
- First, you need to get an International Driving Permit (IDP). Read this page carefully: http://maricar.com/license/#en
- I opted to get my IDP at AAA for $20 per person. I printed and completed the PDF application, attached a passport photo, and brought it to my nearest branch. I had to wait in line, but the it took the agent only maybe 5 minutes to make the booklet and collect my payment.
- Japan only accepts International Driving Permits issued under the 1949 Geneva Convention. Permits issued under the 1968 Vienna Convention are not accepted in Japan. Please ask for details if you are not sure about your license.
Make a reservation through their Facebook page by sending them a message. They will send you a template message back asking for the following information:
- Which shop (Tokyo – Akihabara or Shinagawa, Mt. Fuji, Osaka, Okinawa)
- Which tour course (I’ll paste a copy of the message at the end of this post so you can get an idea, since the ones on the website are out of date now)
- Date and time
- How many karts/people
- Type of driver’s license and IDP
After you make your reservation, they will respond back with a confirmation and very detailed directions on how to get to the shop. Save these instructions and don’t be late!
Read their website carefully for any frequently asked questions you may have. The website is slightly out of date but still has a lot of good information.
Give yourself plenty of time to get to the shop on the day of your tour. Even if you arrive early you can spend more time choosing your costume. 🙂
When you show up, check in and pay (credit cards are accepted), choose your costume, and put your extra stuff in one of the free lockers. Bring your IDP and your phone/camera with you. I couldn’t find information on this before, but was happy to find there is a small neoprene pouch attached to the steering wheel of the kart by your right knee.
Save Maricar’s phone number (+81-80-9999-2525) to your phone in the unlikely event that you get lost, you should pull over safely to the curb and call the shop right away so they can alert your guide and not have to send out a search team.
Follow your guide’s instructions, don’t do anything stupid, and have fun!! Throughout the tour, your guide will take lots of photos for you on his iPhone, basically at most stoplights, and during rest stops. He’ll take individual photos of you too.
At the end of the tour, your guide will Airdrop all the photos to your iOS device right away and give you a printed copy of a group photo to take home as a souvenir.Night or Day Tour?
I HIGHLY recommend a night tour. Personally, I feel that Tokyo is most beautiful at night, due to the lights. Having been to Tokyo many times now, I’ve always felt that Tokyo is a city that really comes alive at night. Some buildings are a bit old so I feel like the view is not quite as amazing during the day. The only downside is that it’s harder to get good photos at night. I did not want to carry my heavy Sony A6000 with me, but maybe I should’ve.
I chose the 6 PM Course S-L departing from Shinagawa, hitting up Rainbow Bridge, Odaiba, Tokyo Tower, Roppongi, and Shibuya. This is the longest tour option of 3 hours for a total of 8000 yen (very reasonable in my opinion). In May, the sun has not set yet by 6 PM so I got to see the Rainbow Bridge and Odaiba during golden hour (this is a photographer’s term for the best lighting of the day the hour prior to sunset) AND see the beautiful lights of Tokyo Tower, Roppongi, and Shibuya at night. Shibuya at night is especially amazing. Dat crossing.
One of my friends asked, “Isn’t it more dangerous at night?” To this I say a big fat NO. This is Japan we’re talking about, and never once did I feel unsafe while following our tour guide. Once I realized that Japanese drivers are really polite (just like their culture) and kept their distance on all sides, allowing us to merge when needed (wasn’t needed often, maybe once), I was able to fully relax and enjoy the tour, and had no issues keeping up with my group of 6 karts.
Oh, and there was practically no traffic at night. Their message (copied and pasted below) recommends a morning tour due to smoother traffic, but I would strongly recommend the night tour.
Addressing My Fears
I have to admit that when I first sat down in the kart, I was immediately a little scared. The last time I drove a gokart was at the Livermore gokart tracks and I sucked. Kept running into the sides, had poor handling of the kart, skidded a lot, was overall the second slowest person in my company, etc. All of those memories came flashing back to me.
Not to mention, I HATE DRIVING and I especially hate flooring the car. I always make my husband drive whenever we go out. So when I sat down, I thought to myself, “Why did I just sign up to DRIVE for 3 hours?!” I was also scared for at least the following reasons:
- I would be driving a gokart and not a real car so the handling is different, what if I don’t brake in time and crash into something?!
- We’re in Japan where they drive on the left side of the road, so I’m not accustomed to that…what if I accidentally forgot and drove into oncoming traffic?!
- I can’t read signs in Japanese, the roads and signs and lights and lanes look really confusing, what if I break some traffic rules?!
- What if cars drive really fast and can’t see me because I’m so small and my head is at bumper-level?!
- Since I was such a slow gokart driver in Livermore, what if I get lost and left behind, and have no idea how to navigate the streets of Tokyo by myself?!
- What if what if what if…!!!!
Similar to my other Trip Suggestions posts, the *** denotes things I feel like are must-do’s. Of course, everyone’s interests are different, but hopefully this will give you a good starting point. This post will be a constant work in progress, as Michael and I input more experiences of our own each time we go, and collect must-do suggestions from friends and readers.
General Info
- www.japan-guide.com – Almost everything you need to know, from top-rated attractions, opening times, entrance fees, how to get from A to B, learn about the differences between the types of transportation, view cherry blossom schedule, etc etc. This is by far my favorite and the most comprehensive guide I suggest to everyone for planning your own trip to Japan. I wish every country had such a thorough and detailed free guide like this on the internet!
- www.tabelog.com – The premier food guide to Japan. Anything above 3.5 (out of 5) is going to be amazing by our standards because the Japanese are very very critical. However, the only problem is this site is in Japanese, so it may be a bit difficult to navigate.
- www.tokyocheapo.com – Japan doesn’t have to be expensive. Get lots of ideas from here.
- Japan Rail Pass – 7/14/21-day passes available for unlimited rides on the JR system, including one of the bullet trains. Weigh the advantages/disadvantages against just flying with Avios. JR pass would be more flexible and efficient (i.e. don’t have to go to the airport, not tied down to specific flight times, no delays, etc).
- Rail Pass Calculator – Use this site to calculate whether you will save money with a rail pass vs. just buying individual tickets. (Thanks for pointing this one out Dawn! See, japan-guide.com is amazing!)
hyperdia.com – Transportation timetable and route calculator for everything except for city buses.
Suica card – Transportation card for subways/trains, also widely accepted at all convenience stores, many restaurants, lockers, stores, etc. Definitely get one! This blog post contains lots of photos on navigating the machine to buy a physical card.- You can now add Suica to Apple Pay! You can either create one from scratch, or transfer a physical card onto Apple Pay (if you do, you can no longer use the plastic card). P.S. Use CSR to load for 3x and pay everywhere with it! You don’t need to unlock your phone when swiping, so it is very convenient. I love it because my phone is always in my hand already anyways (looking at directions, etc). You can also reload on the fly and it gives you instant notifications whenever you use it and an easy to read transaction history. So much better than the physical card.
- Update: there is now an English app to make it a lot easier to add Suica to your phone.
Buying discount tickets:
- If you are are willing to brave a Japanese interface, Loppi machines, located at Lawson convenience stores can provide great discounts. Often you can search online for “Loppi [insert name of activity]” and you can find the code to enter and the current deals. Here is a guide to using Loppi machines.
- Another way to buy discounted tickets are at kinken shops. These are shops located near major subway stations (one major store is Access Tickets) that sell discounted train tickets and activity tickets like Disneyland. I’ve personally used it for saving $20 on a Disneyland ticket! It’s at your own risk, but I think the risk is low.
Pocket Concierge – Get reservations at popular restaurants for a small fee. Good option if you don’t have a hotel concierge to work with. Most upscale restaurants won’t take reservations from foreigners directly without working with a hotel concierge, and American Express Platinum Concierge will only work with your hotel concierge.
=&0=&- Go to the basements of any large department store like Isetan or Hankyu and you will find a wonderful world of amazing food. Great for when you are out wandering and are hungry and don’t have time for a sit-down restaurant or to wait in line at some popular ramen joint.
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- Japan is a cash-based society. Make sure to withdraw plenty of cash with your bank debit card at the airport (for good rates). Good debit cards are Schwab and CapitalOne.
- Most ATMs in Japan will not work with your American debit card. You’ll need to find a 7-11 (they’re everywhere), a post office, or an American bank like Citibank in order to withdraw more cash.
- Good general tip is to not use a money exchange counter. Use an ATM.
If you’re a big fan of the reality television series Terrace House, they have seasons set in Tokyo, Shonan (south of Tokyo) and in Karuizawa (a ski resort town 1 hour northwest of Tokyo.) Here are Google saved maps of all the locations they go on the show. They tend to be good ideas for restaurants, bars, and cool areas to check out.
Seasons
Sakura (cherry blossom) season:
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- Where to go: http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2011.html
- Most famous place in the world is Yoshino-San, a day trip outside Osaka/Kyoto.
Forecasts (plan your trip using this): http://www.japan-guide.com/sakura/
The site Japanese people use for forecasts: http://sakura.weathermap.jp/en.php
Follow @wm_sakura_en on Twitter for specific locations that are in bloom throughout Japan (use the built-in Twitter translation).Summer season (hot and humid):
- Recommend doing indoor activities and nighttime activities, or visiting cooler parts of the country like Hokkaido. Okinawa is also a great choice, for scuba, etc.
- Fireworks season – in the hot summers, the thing to do is dress up in yukatas (thin and light summer kimonos) and go out with your SO, friends, or family to one of Japan’s amazing pyrotechnic shows. Seriously, once you go to one of these, American fireworks shows will look like little sparklers. These Japanese shows often set off over 15k fireworks and are huge, stunning displays that will leave you speechless. If you go to Japan in the summer, you MUST go to a fireworks show! Tokyo has a bunch almost every weekend, but there are huge shows held elsewhere in the country as well. You’ll want to google for the current calendar, but here’s one example search result.
Fall (colors) season:
- To be added – definitely hit up Kyoto
Winter (snow) season:
- To be added – obviously, Hokkaido and Niseko, and the snow monkey onsen
Tokyo
Stay
- Hyatt:
- *** Andaz Tokyo!!!! (Cat 7) *** – Toranomon, HIGHLY recommended. Definitely our favorite Hyatt in the world. Incredible views. Has a nice cocktail hour, even more amazing breakfast. Just a few blocks from the station (on flat ground) on the convenient Ginza line. Great pool/fitness area with beautiful views (and famous for their carbonated hot tub, there’s also a water massage pool too), and if you like free massage chairs, the private ones in the locker rooms are excellent. 😀 Globalists get free rentals of swimsuits, swim caps, goggles, workout shirts/shorts, socks, and shoes. The guest rooms are well-appointed and all have great unobstructed views. Great bathroom amenities and has a Toto Neorest which is definitely worth mentioning (self-opening/closing, self flushing, self cleaning, heated, all that good stuff).
- *** Park Hyatt Tokyo (Cat 7) *** – Shinjuku, great views, highly recommended for the experience, but inconvenient to the super busy/confusing Shinjuku station (uphill walk from the station for 15-20 min, there is a shuttle but we hardly used it due to the timings and long waits).
- Grand Hyatt Tokyo (Cat6) – Roppongi, easier chance of getting a suite upgrade if you’re Globalist. The suites are nice. Great views if you get a high floor, has a nice club lounge with mediocre breakfast and great happy hour, a convenient location to the subway, and attached to a nice mall. Also has free rentals of swim/workout gear for Globalists. Their pool/spa/fitness area is nice, but has no views. They do have free massage chairs too, though! Pro Tip: If you don’t like June Jacobs amenities, you can request for REN amenities which are significantly better.
- Hyatt Regency Tokyo (Cat 3) – Shinjuku, good views, decent hotel with a club lounge, relatively small mediocre breakfast and happy hour, convenient to Shinjuku station (few blocks walk on flat ground). I still hate the Shinjuku station though. Otherwise a bit dated. Was recently downgraded from Category 4 to 3, which is more fitting, in my opinion.
- Hyatt Centric Ginza (Cat 6) – Ginza, very modern and new hotel with nice suites, relatively small breakfast, no views, no cocktail hour, no onsen or pool. Very convenient location to multiple subway and JR lines, smack in the middle of amazing shopping for all budgets, and great for spending the night before a flight out as it is on a direct line to the airport.
- In my opinion, I would stay at Andaz Tokyo > Grand Hyatt > Hyatt Centric > Park Hyatt > Hyatt Regency based on convenience first and luxury second
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- *** Prince Gallery Kioicho *** – HIGHLY recommended by my friend Kenneth and many others. Incredible views, amazing breakfast. Convenient as it is located directly on top of a subway station.
- Ritz Carlton Tokyo – Roppongi Hills, great high views, convenient to the new and impressive Tokyo Midtown mall.
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- Conrad – Shiodome, beautiful hotel with great views if you can get the Rainbow Bridge side, and located close to Tsukiji and Shimbashi. Breakfast in the club lounge is decent.
IHG:
- Intercontinental ANA The Strings – Shinagawa, beautiful hotel with gorgeous water feature in the lobby, located in the JR East One building on top of the bustling Shinagawa station. Easy station to navigate and only 15 min ride to Haneda. Great location for a last night in Tokyo.
Other:
- First Cabin Kyobashi – great “capsule hotel” with segregated men’s and women’s areas, very cheap but super modern and clean. Great proximity to Tokyo Station, Kyobashi Station, and Takaracho Station (direct access to HND), and walking distance from Ginza. Book it on hotels.com with discounted gift cards. Was around $30-40 per night when booked it, great for a one night stay before an early flight. Not a good choice for light sleepers since you will be able to hear others snoring.
Transportation
NRT:
- By far the fastest way – take Keisei Skyliner into town (41 min from NRT to Ueno for around US$20). If you buy the tickets online in advance you can get a discount. Consider getting the bundle with the unlimited Tokyo subway pass.
- There’s also the Narita Express (NEX) which takes you to major train stations like Shinjuku, Shibuya, Yokohama, etc. If you want to get tickets for the Narita Express but there’s a long line at the ticket counters, you can also get your tickets at the Travel Service Center. It’s around US$27 one-way or US$36 round-trip (this is the discount price for foreigners).
- I’ve never used it, but apparently the airport limousine buses are comfortable and can drop you off and pick you up at major hotels. Cost is around US $30 for adults, but there are discount tickets for foreigners, such as 4 ticket pack for US $80 or a round trip for US $45 if only flying in and out of Narita. https://www.limousinebus.co.jp/en/bus_services/narita/index
- There’s a US ~$10 bus as well that goes to Tokyo Station: http://www.keiseibus.co.jp/inbound/tokyoshuttle/en/
Luggage delivery to/from the airport. Luggage delivery in Japan is a very common service and not actually too expensive. Japan is actually efficient enough to offer same day luggage delivery to almost anywhere. Prices range from $10-25 for a piece, depending on size. https://www.gpa-net.co.jp/en/passenger-service/baggage-delivery/to_airport.html
Definitely do NOT take a taxi (US$300+!)
Narita offers free tours of the town if you have a long layover: http://www.narita-transit-program.jp/ (from my friend Dawn at ShareTraveler.com, thanks!)HND:
- Take the Keikyu subway line (<30 min). Super easy, and awesome airport. The Tokyo monorail goes to Hamamatsucho and is around US $6, or is covered by the JR Rail Pass. The Asakusa subway line also goes to and from Haneda airport.
- Be sure to explore the 4th and 5th floors before you enter security! It’s a lot more interesting and fun before security — there is a cute Kyoto-themed street with its own “yokocho” (alley of restaurants), a bunch of cute stores, a Japanese-style bridge and “shrine”, an outdoor observation deck to view takeoffs and landings, a Don Quijote, flight simulator games, and even a planetarium café.
Tokyo Recommendations map
A map of cool things to do and see, and hype restaurants in Tokyo, curated off of Tabelog, RamenDB, Ramen Beast, and personal experience/recommendations. Keep in mind that these are popular restaurants, so there will likely be a line!
Sushi
Top 50 sushi restaurants in Tokyo according to Tabelog.com users (the Yelp of Japan.)
Dessert
=&14=& is a Japanese show on Netflix about a Tokyo salaryman who goofs off during his sales visits by stopping by dessert shops. The places are real, so worth checking out if you are really into dessert. Japanese desserts have a large varieties (parfaits, shaved ice, chocolates, puddings, pancakes, bean desserts, jellies, etc.) so go satisfy that sweet tooth!
Here is a list and map of all the places visited on the show.
Mochi (Dessert)
- Learn about different kinds of mochi: https://www.snakku.com/blogs/news/118172613-10-mochi-you-need-know-before-travelling-to-japan
Themed Cafes
- Owl café
- Cat cafés
Other
- Other things to look out for:
- Nagasaki champon noodles (pork broth with egg noodles and seafood)
- Onigiri (triangular seaweed-wrapped rice and stuffings) – found at any convenience store, great for a snack
- Butadon (pork rice bowl)
- Oyakodon (chicken rice bowl)
- Takoyaki (octopus balls, more of an Osaka thing)
- Okonomiyaki (savory pancake, more of an Osaka thing)
Ikebukuro
- Sunshine City– First city within a city. Aquarium, theme parks, museum, planetarium, shops, restaurants, skyscraper with observation deck. Great place for kids.
- Namja Town – Fun indoor theme park to bring kids. Lots of games, small rides and attractions, food corners like gyoza stadium.
Shibuya
- *** Shibuya Crossing *** – Hachiko exit of Shibuya Station. Fun to people-watch from the second floor of Starbucks overlooking the crossing (above the Tsutaya sign).
- *** Yoyogi Park *** – Nice huge park, fun for people watching and sakura picnics (hanami). Between Harajuku and Shibuya. Free.
- *** Meiji Shrine *** – Next to Yoyogi Park, beautiful shrine in a forrest. Free.
- Dog Heart – play with puppies and dogs, you can even rent one to take to the nearby Yoyogi Park for an hour!
Harajuku
*** =&25=& *** – Fun people watching, small street for shopping, seeing interesting things, and eating Marion Crepes.
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- Where to go: http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2011.html
Introduction
In May 2016, I signed up for Founderscard and detailed my experience here. One of the benefits of Founderscard is Total Rewards Diamond status, which is useful for people who go to Vegas and Atlantic City. I enjoyed the benefits of TR Diamond in my last 2 trips to Vegas since receiving the status, and recently booked my free 4 night stay at the Atlantis resort on Paradise Island in the Bahamas. I had first heard about this benefit via TPG’s post, and originally people were skeptical about it and thought there would be some gambling requirement, etc. I thought I would write a post today for anyone who is planning to go. For the current benefit, the trip must be booked before Jan 31, 2017, with travel before the end of Feb.
My friend Michael (not my co-blogger) had gone at the end of September (during hurricane season, no less) and provided a lot of the tips and advice I will be describing in this post. He was essential in my preparation for this trip. Thanks, Michael!!
Making The Reservation
I made the reservation in November by contacting Atlantis Casino VIP Services and got a bunch of my TR Diamond friends to join in. In all, we booked 5 rooms for 8 people for mid-January. There are two packages available for the benefit:
The Daily Resort Fee is $49.95 + $3.75 VAT for a total of $53.70 per room per night or $214.80 for all 4 nights. Unless you want to gamble on turning your $100 free slot play into $200+, I would recommend selecting the Beach Towers, which is connected to the Coral Towers and is less than a 5 minute walk away through a beautiful hallway adorned with dolphin fountains.
I should also note that you still have to pay the VAT on the room rate and resort fees even though the room is complimentary, and there is also a mandatory gratuity. In all, expect to pay $6.99 (room charge) + $4.88 (VAT) + $10 (gratuity) + $3.74 (resort fee VAT) = $25.61 per room per night for couples or $102.44 for all 4 nights. For guests staying alone in the room, it would be $6.99 (room charge) + $4.88 (VAT) + $5.00 (gratuity) + $3.74 (resort fee VAT) = $20.61 or $82.44 for all 4 nights.
Flights
Jetblue was the best option in terms of timing for flying to NAS. I booked my flights SFO-FLL-NAS roundtrip with those Jetblue PointsMatch points for a total of 47,600 points and $214.38 taxes for two people. The cash equivalent of the flights was $954.00 for a cpp of 1.38. In hindsight, due to those taxes, it may have been better to book with Chase Sapphire Reserve at 1.5 cpp, but oh well.
Packing Tips
Besides your usual beach gear, like swimsuits (I recommend bringing 2, since it takes a long time to dry due to the humidity), sunglasses, hat, sunblock, chargers, action cameras, water shoes, sandals, etc, here are a few things I’d recommend adding to your packing list:
- Loads of snacks — resort food is not very good and expensive (and by expensive I mean more expensive than even American resorts…like a small pizza would cost $36), so if you want to save money, bring your own granola bars etc, so that you won’t need to order as much food.
- Alternatively, you can bring a small George Foreman grill or Instant Pot and some basic ingredients. I almost brought my sous vide, but opted not to, because I looked up some prices at nearby grocery stores and the meats were still expensive. I’ll explain meals later.
- Mosquito repellent – in the winter, there were basically no mosquitoes. However, I brought a small tube just in case, since the Bahamas is in the Zika-affected region.
- Cash – although Atlantis is a cash-less resort (everything is charged to your room key), you will still need cash to pay the taxis, and if you eat at some off-site restaurants.
- Jacket – in January, outside temperatures were generally 70-80F, but indoors it could get really chilly due to the A/C. Alternatively, you could just wrap yourself in a towel!
- Waterproof bags – I brought a waterproof bag for my phone, a waterproof case for my GoPro (actually, a Xiaomi Yi), and a 10L dry bag for other things I wanted to keep dry such as the room key. These were totally essential and I ended up carrying a lot of other people’s things since I was the only one who had dry bags.
- I packed my own snorkel (I’m a yuuuuge fan of the full-face snorkel) for the Exuma day trip. Very glad I did.
General Tips
- Bahamians speak English.
- The Bahamian Dollar is pegged to the US Dollar at 1:1. Everyone accepts USD. Try to pay exact change so that you won’t need to get change back. Even if you do, you can often ask if they have USD to give back to you.
- The Bahamas is on T-Mobile’s free international roaming data list. It works on the BTC network and I had very strong coverage throughout and even while out on the waters on a speedboat.
- Google Fi also works flawlessly on BTC (my husband used it on his iPhone). My work phone is Verizon and I found that it also connects to BTC but often had network issues while roaming.
- They use the same electrical outlets as the US, so no travel adapters needed!
- Download the Atlantis app (iOS, Android) for real-time chat with a concierge, messaging your friends, making dinner and activity reservations, etc. The app also has a great guide on all the awesome features of the resort, such as all the aquariums and lagoons you can go to (for free!), and a map of the resort to make it easy to get around.
- There were no mosquitoes during our time, and most importantly, no bed bugs. However, check your bed carefully for signs of bed bugs, and bring mosquito repellent just in case, since the Bahamas is in a Zika zone.
Taxi Adventures – Do Your Own Math
Sadly, the Bahamas does not have Uber, so we arrived at NAS and found a sea of taxis. They stated that the fare was $32 for the first 2 people, $3 per person thereafter, $2 for the bridge toll to Paradise Island (entering the island only), and $1 per piece of luggage.We told them we had 5 people and they piled us into a van and said it would be $32+$3×9+$2+$1+$1+$1=$49 (we had 3 pieces of carryon luggage). I later found out that the sign on the taxi stand says each person is entitled to 1 bag and 1 carryon, and the $1 is only for additional bags, so we were overcharged $3. Oh well. Here is the price list for your future reference:
The ride is about 20-25 min for about 10 miles.
Our van looked like it was about to fall apart, and at one point halfway, it started smelling like gas and the driver slowed down to a crawl and told us his engine was overheating. We managed to roll into a gas station and the driver “fixed” his car there. This was actually a welcome opportunity for us to buy some gas station fried chicken. We bought about 10 small pieces for $20. This was one of the cheaper foods we’d find on this island… When we finally arrived at the resort, the driver opened the door to let us out and the handle fell off. #facepalm
We took the taxi to/from the airport 3 more times after this since we flew out of NAS to go to Exuma on our last full day. We noticed that all three times, the taxi drivers tried to charge us more than what was posted (one driver wanted to charge $10 PER PERSON!). We had to hold our ground firmly on the posted price and they did not fight back too much. I told one taxi driver that the price should be $46, and he said, “Well you pay the toll then.” And I said, “Okay, I’ll pay you $44 then.” 🤣
The moral of the story here is: DO YOUR OWN CALCULATIONS.
Check In
We arrived around 11 pm. The check in for the Beach Towers is at Coral Towers (so this is where you tell the taxi driver drop you off). As we walked through the building on the Wednesday evening, it was clear that the hotel was very empty. Many more guests arrived on Friday and the weekend, and even locals come to hang out at Atlantis on the weekends.
Atlantis is part of Marriott’s Autograph Collection, so put your rewards number in at the front desk. Platinum Elite gets a choice between a half bottle of wine and a snack OR 500 points. I took the points. I put my SPG credit card on the reservation for 2X SPG points at Marriott properties.
Room Review
Before the trip, I tried to email for a possible upgrade to a different type of room since we had so many people, but was denied. If you check on the Atlantis website, you will see they have a variety of buildings on the expansive property of all different types ranging from mini apartments with kitchens next to the yacht dock to luxury suites. The Beach Tower is the cheapest and least luxurious of them all, but hopefully you won’t be spending much time in your room anyways.
Upon check-in, we were given the crappiest rooms in the Beach Towers by a receptionist who I wouldn’t exactly describe as friendly. When we got up to our room, the view was of a large flat roof.
After the first night, I asked for a room on the other side of the hotel facing the pools/ocean since the hotel was not full by any means, and was approved for a room change. The new room view was wonderful! It was definitely worth the move.
All of the rooms have balconies, which was really nice. The bathtubs have a clothesline, but I wouldn’t recommend hang-drying anything in there since it’s rather humid. Even the carpet felt like it was always slightly damp. I dried everything on the balcony instead, and even then it would take 2 full days to dry.
The rooms and the building were definitely showing their age and there were multiple maintenance issues. For example, in one of our rooms, the soap dish, hair dryer, and clothesline were all broken. On our 3rd night, there was a power outage in the middle of the night, which caused some people’s TVs to start screeching for over half an hour until they could figure out how to turn it off. On our last morning, the wi-fi and TV were down for over an hour, which made it hard for us to coordinate (we mostly were using Facebook Messenger). I reported all of these to Atlantis.
Resort Fee Inclusions
| Wi-Fi in guest rooms and lobby areas for up four (4) devices | For one of my friends, the previous guest’s devices were still connected, so it required IT to reset his room’s connection to free up the device slots. |
| Access to Aquaventure, a one-of-a-kind 141 acre waterscape | This is definitely the highlight of the resort. You get a wristband at one of the huts at Aquaventure (centrally located in the resort) and you can go on all the rides, use the River Rapids, etc. Plan to spend most of your days here! More on this below. |
| Access to the Fitness Center: Up to 2 persons per day per room | This is really far away from the Beach Towers, about a 15 min walk. It’s very nice though. From the site: Fitness center access entitles guests to complimentary use of the cardio studio, universal and free weights only. Tennis, fitness classes and personal training sessions are not included. |
| Two (2) 20 oz. bottles of water daily per room | Don’t touch the water bottles in the room…they cost $7 each. You get 4 water passes as part of your resort fee, each pass gets you 2 x 20 oz bottles of water at any food and beverage establishment. For us, 8 bottles was definitely enough for the 4 nights. |
| Unlimited local phone calls | We used this to call each other quickly and also to make arrangements for our day tour of Exuma (non-Atlantis). |
| Access to the Atlantis Movie Theater | The movie theater is between the Coral and Beach Towers. We didn’t watch any movies but they had daily showings of movies like The Secret Life of Pets. |
| Resort Shuttle Service | Honestly, we never saw the resort shuttles, and never used them. |
| In-Room Coffee and Tea | They use Starbucks coffee and Tazo tea. |
| Casino Lessons | We did not check this out. |
Casino Experience Pass Review (“C-Pass”)
You may pick up your C-Pass at the rewards desk in the Casino during their open hours. DO NOT LOSE IT, since it cannot be replaced. When redeeming experiences on the pass, you must present both the pass and your room key.
| Experience | Value | Review |
| One shallow water dolphin interaction for one person per room | $150 |
Make your reservations first thing after checking in (call the Dolphin Cay from your room during their open hours and make a reservation). Wetsuits are provided. No cameras allowed whatsoever. No jewelry allowed. The experience is approximately 1 hour and consists of a short orientation (i.e. never touch the dolphin’s face, they don’t like it), and then you split up into ~5 groups. Each group has a trainer and a dolphin, and the trainer will have the dolphin do a few tricks, and then each person gets photos with the dolphin — kissing, high-fiving, and feeding, and then a pose behind the dolphin. Basically, there is a LOT of waiting around while each person takes photos. Warning: the official photographers are not very good and many of our photos came out focused on the wrong thing. Also, the photos are expensive. We purchased our group photo for $30 (an 8×10). The digital photos cost $149, even if you only want ONE photo, it doesn’t matter. It’s really a shame you can’t bring a GoPro or something. Since this free interaction is only for one person per room, your companions can watch from a viewing deck that is pretty far away (basically, they can’t really see much and they can’t talk to you). There is an option to watch from the little beach but it would cost them $33 for that privilege. |
| One round of golf | $275-295 | Can’t be booked for play prior to noon on Friday or Saturday. Does not include rental clubs ($75 per person). |
| One Sushi and Sake Sampler at Nobu (6 pieces of sushi and 2 shots of sake) | $35 + $8 gratuity/VAT | Nobu is a fine-dining Japanese restaurant located in the Casino. The sampler was delicious, but extremely small. It’s more like a snack. The sake tasted like Sho Chiku Bai. VAT and gratuity are also complimentary (covered by the pass). |
| Two cocktails at Olives | ~$30 + $7 gratuity/VAT | Olives is a restaurant/bar located in the Casino. The service at the bar is horrendously slow (took 20-30 minutes to take our orders, then another 10-20 minutes to make the drinks), and the glasses were often not fully washed. We opted for disposable plastic to-go cups. VAT and gratuity are also complimentary (covered by the pass). |
| Two cocktails at Seafire Steakhouse | $25 + $5.63 gratuity/VAT | Seafire Steakhouse is located in Marina Village (a short walk from the Casino) and has very limited hours. I think their hours are 5-11 pm and they’re not open every day. One of the members in our group basically forfeited this item on their C-Pass because the hours were not convenient for him. The service is also very slow here but slightly faster than at Olives. VAT and gratuity are also complimentary (covered by the pass). |
Note: You will MOST LIKELY see some or all of these charges show up on your final hotel bill, so be sure to read it carefully. I had the Nobu, Olives, and Seafire Steakhouse charges show up on my bill. The front desk quickly took it off after confirming that I had a C-Pass, so I am glad we looked at our bills carefully.
Casino
The Casino is not part of the Total Rewards or Caesars network, as I erroneously believed in the beginning. So, your Diamond card is useless here, no special lines for you or anything. You can get a specific Atlantis player’s card, or your room key also works as a player’s card.
No, you cannot charge bets to your room and cash out; i.e. this casino is not MS-able in that way. 😉
Written by Michael:
Compared to Atlantic City or Vegas casinos, this one is small, but they have all the standard games. (note from Esther: They do NOT have poker, pai gow, or baccarat, but there is video poker)
They have free slot play tournaments Sunday – Thursday at 11:00am, 11:30am, 8:00pm, and 8:30pm. Friday – Saturday 11:00am and 11:30am. The tournament contains a maximum of 20 people. You hit a button as fast as you can for five minutes and the one with the most points at the end wins. (from Esther: the game is completely based on pure luck, but in the 11:00 am tournament on Thursday that we played in, two of my friends earned 2nd and 3rd place!)
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