So after clearing Immigration and getting our bags, we headed in the direction of Hertz to collect the Rav 4 I had booked. Upon arriving at the counter they offered me an upgrade to a Tesla Model S instead, for the price of 200 NOK per day. Considering it would give me free parking, free recharging and avoid paying the toll fees on the highways I decided to take it – it basically cost me nothing extra considering the extras that are included.
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For once I was travelling with check-in baggage as I actually had a 6 days holiday coming up, and I was planning to stock up on some new clothes in Thailand as shopping there is really great.
I was working nightshift the night before my flight, so I decided to take advantage of Cathays 24-hour in advance check-in, and brought my suitcase with me to the airport before start of the shift. Check-in was done in 2 minutes, and very easy and efficient.
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I had leave planned for a couple of days, so I was booked to go and see the kids in the Philippines for 6 days, however, with the COVID-19 (Coronavirus) outbreak, Philippines has temporarily banned anyone traveling from Hong Kong to enter the country. As most things in Hong Kong are closed nowdays I needed a new plan for my 6 days off, and booked a last minute trip to Bangkok with Cathay Pacific, and from there transport to Pattaya which several of my firends have recommended. I was there in 2008 and thought it was mostly a dump, but I thought I’d give it a second chance. At least it is close and convenient, and I wanted a quick holiday where I could just relax and do as little as possible.
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Phu Quoc was a place that I had never really heard about before I booked my ticket to go there. I have been to Vietnam twice before, in 2004 I was in Ho Chi Minh city, and did not enjoy it at all (one of the few times in all my travels that I had someone trying to scam me), and I was in Hanoi and Ha Long Bay in 2011 and had a pretty good time. I was therefore curious to see how Phu Quoc would compare.
Boarding was already starting as we arrived at the gate, so we could skip most of the queue and were quickly showed to our seats, again the centre seats together, seats 11 DEF. As I said in the previous post , the middle seat was quite cramped, so convinced the kids to swap with me, so on this flight I got an aisle seat, whereas Marcus would take the middle seat.
As I wrote about earlier, Cathay together with American Express has a promo for twin bookings, which I have taken advantage of, and booked a trip to Taipei, and also a trip to Bangkok. Total price for the two return trips was 3500 HKD, and this will give me 2700 Asia Miles, plus 7000 miles through the promotion.
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After the 15 minutes bus ride from our remote parked aircraft I decided it was worth going to the hotel for a few hours, as I needed more sleep and it anyways would be a way to keep the kids busy while we were waiting for our onward flight to Norway.
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So, leaving the house at 17:00 we quickly arrived at the airport, where check-in was quickly completed after passing through the first set of security screening. At check-in we also got a voucher for our free stop-over in Dubai, we had been allocated Le Meridien hotel, which is just across the street from the terminal, so I decided we would have to use that as well, as long as we arrive on time. We then proceeded to fill in immigration forms for the kids, as they have Philippino passports, and then we had to clear immigration, before there is another security screening, and then we are finally in the boarding area.
After killing a little bit of time in the terminal, we were quickly starting boarding, and we were greeted by the door by one of the cabin crew, and showed to our seats, which were 7 D E F. Emirates operates with 7 seat abreast in Business Class on their Boeing 777s, in a 2-3-2 configuration, so this suited us well so we could sit together.
We had already spent summer holiday in Norway this year (trip report here), and since it is far and expensive to travel there I was just planning on bringing the kids to Hong Kong for Christmas. However, I did put my leave dates into google flights and kept an eye on the price, and when I found some surprisingly cheap tickets with Emirates in business class I decided to bring them to Norway for Christmas, and hopefully see some snow :
And finally the last segment of this holiday, Cebu Pacific Airbus A320 Clark to Hong Kong.
