- airline tickets -- purchased. Not super stoked about flying United but they had the lowest fare (unless we wanted several layovers), we upgraded to Economy Plus (few extra inches of leg room for my oh-so-tall hubby), non-stop flight Chicago to Shanghai and a short stop in Tokyo on the way home. I highly recommend Todd Gallinek for any families looking to book tickets -- he rocks! Lifeline will book our in-country flights
- hotels -- Lifeline will book all of our hotels in Jinan (where Pres is) & Guangzhou (where the US Consulate is). I found a great rate on a hotel in Shanghai -- waiting to book our hotel in Hong Kong after we find out exactly what day we will arrive there.
- pediatrician appt booked for 3 days after we arrive home -- cardiologist appt will be booked hopefully early next week (our ped is making the appt for us)
- and on the home front -- yesterday Chloe had a school cheer meeting & then 4 friends over to swim. Today Chloe had all-star cheer camp, Piper had cheer practice (which Chloe helps at) -- and a trip to the grocery store was much needed. Justin took Coop to his late game out of town.
still need to:
- pack -- have started sorting toiletries & meds but that's it
- book Hong Kong hotel, look at purchasing Disney tickets (not sure if this is something I need to do before we go?)
- call insurance agent to add Presley to policy
- call credit card company to let them know we will be out of the country
- get "new money" from bank
- complete wire transfer to China as soon as we have an amount due from agency
- shop for all the things I've forgotten to buy
- stop the mail (love that this can be done online!)
- purchase a VPN so we can update the ol' blog & Facebook
- figure out what we want to see in Shanghai
- book hotel in Chicago -- park & fly or park at airport?
and on Piper's to-do list?
20 more days!
funny Piper quote of the day "hey Mama..do you think there's wots of Chinese people in China?"
6 comments:
Piper is just too cute! We flew United 3 times. All of our experiences were good, and 2 were even great. It is all in your expectations. We treated the attendants with much kindness and courtesy, and got that and more in return. On the 2 great trips, we flew with the whole family. The staff went out of their way trying to get someone to move just so we could have extra space to lie down if needed. One attendant even brought me extra "better" food and candy bars. One lady in our travel group asked us how we scored the goodies. I told her how we treated the attendants with many "thank you's" for all the work they did for us. But, that just our experience. I'm sure others had much worse on United. I flew Cathay on the last trip. The experience was much better, but because I traveled alone, I had little interaction with staff. I'm looking forward to following along!
Piper made me grin. And wow, y'all are busy... such a crazy and exciting time. Hang in there!
Shanghai hotels are obnoxiously expensive...we didn't do disney, and you may prefer to stay close to there, but we stayed at the YMCA Salisbury..you'll need 2 rooms, but still cheaper than one room! It wasn't fancy, but clean and your out in Shanghai, it's a 3m cab right from the train station from Guangzhou, it's right on Pearl Harbour, you can walk or take a very short cab to get on the tram up Victoria's Peak and there is ton's to do and see/eat just outside the hotel door and we felt safe...check it out!
Wow, you are so close!!!! How exciting! We also did the paper chain for Levi's countdown and it was so much easier for him to get.
We stayed in Shanghai last Nov for our first two days in China. Our link to Lydia's adoption has all that stuff. We really enjoyed it and tried to see a lot!
Not sure if you made a decision yet, but we used Express VPN and it was flawless. And pretty cheap.
I am so excited to follow your journey!
You don't have to buy Disney tickets beforehand. Just get them when you arrive at the park. They are about 1/3 of the price of our Disneyland - and the park is about 1/3 of the size too. But it's still fun!
I am so excited for you! :)
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