New York and Orlando, with a long weekend in the UK! Dec 2017/Jan 2018 - Pre Trip Report

[ajmaggs]

After many years of reading so many of the amazing trip reports on here, I thought it was about time to attempt one of my own.

Apologies for the length of this pre-trip, but as you’ll see, the planning so far has been somewhat complex, thanks to living on the other side of the world, visa requirements and changing ideas and plans….

Who / When / Where:

Cast of characters:

Adrian (me) - Planner in Chief, 40-something.
Florida/USA veteran, first trip back in 1987, with about 35-40 trips under my belt since then. Last trip to the USA was to the Smokey Mountains in Sept 2014, and Florida even earlier in Nov 2013, so have been REALLY missing it! Works in IT.

Layla - US/Florida first-timer, 30-something, my fiancée, Has a lot to look forward to! Just finishing up a Business Admin diploma at college, having gone back to school full time.

This is us, taken in Paris on our trip there last year:



We’ve been living in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, for about the last 3 years, thanks to my job. Whilst this has been a great opportunity, and given us some amazing experiences (including being where we met back in March 2015), it has meant that the USA hasn’t really been on the radar for holidays, mainly due to the distances involved (KL to Orlando would be about 24-26 hours flying time, no matter how you do it, which is about 15 hours beyond my tolerance level for flying!)

We have been content with holidays around south east Asia, visiting Thailand, Bali, Hong Kong (inc HK Disneyland), Singapore, Philippines, as well as several places in Malaysia (which is not exactly a hardship!). We’ve also done several trips back to the UK, and introducing Layla to the British way of life (she is originally from the Philippines), but we decided that it was time to finally bite the bullet and get a trip stateside in before we get married next year.


Travel Plan - Version 1:

The plan was actually born at the end of 2016. My parents and I own timeshare at Orange Lake in Kissimmee, which we used to use on a yearly basis.



The last couple of years, we’ve not been able to get over to use it, and whilst we’ve used our points in other parts of the world, we had about 120,000 points that were going to expire on 31st December if they weren’t used to book something.

I’d been starting to think about doing a trip to Florida in December 2017, so took a bit of punt and on 30th December 2016, booked two weeks at our timeshare resort for two weeks from 9th - 23rd December.

At this point I had no idea if those dates would be suitable, but as Layla gets 5-6 weeks off from college at that time of year, (the main school holidays in Malaysia seem to be in December, rather than July/August) we’re able to travel back to the UK then for basically the whole of December and the 1st week of January, I though it was likely that we should be able to get some time there, and at worst, I could always move the booking to another date, or even cancel it and get the points back to reuse for something else.

Travel Plan - Version 2:

We then spent a week in Scotland between Christmas and New Year, including spending New Year’s Eve 2016 in Edinburgh. After we got back to Kuala Lumpur, we started talking about where to go for New Year’s Eve 2017, and half jokingly, I suggested that we go to New York - after all, if you’ve done Edinburgh, then New York is probably one of the few places on Earth that could top it for NYE celebrations…

I was only half serious about it at the time, as not only did we already have two weeks booked in Florida in early December, I though that trying to get hotel rooms in central Manhattan for New Years Eve would be “interesting” at best, not to mention a tad expensive! In addition, Layla would need a visa for the US (Pilipino citizens are not entitled to use ESTA), which having heard the horror stories of people trying to get at the US embassy in London and the up to 6 month waits, was not something that gave me a warm fuzzy feeling.

However, I started looking at hotels - no harm in looking is there! - and as I thought, anything that was either a) central or b) slightly better than a doss house was somewhere in the range of a monthly mortgage payment per night! At a last resort, I decided to check if there were any Hilton hotels available on Honors points, as I had a shedload of points to use from various hotel stays I’ve done through my job. I was very pleasantly surprised when I found the Hilton Garden Inn Times Square (just off Broadway, about a 5 minute walk south of Times Square!) available on points! I booked 4 nights there and then, so I now have 4 nights in a central Manhattan hotel, over New Years Eve, for “free”

It was now obvious that we were going to do at least one trip to the US, so it was time to run the gauntlet of the US Embassy, and apply for a visa for Layla…


Getting a US Visa in Malaysia.

The Short version: If you ever need to apply for a US visa, do it in Kuala Lumpur! It’s quick, painless and very straightforward.

The Long version: Before we started the process, this was the thing that I was dreading the most - having heard of horror stories of people waiting weeks or even months for an appointment, and then up to 6 months for a visa to be issued, but having now gone through the process, I can honestly say it was very straightforward, simple and quick.

It’s a multi stage process:

1. Complete an application online. This is basically an expanded version of the ESTA questionnaire, with additional details asking for your parents details, previous/visas for other countries held, details of your proposed travel etc. It took Layla about an hour to complete, but a lot of that time was getting all of the paperwork together and checking the answers.
2. Once the online application is completed, you make the application payment (approx $100 for a B1/B2 visa). This can be done online, but can also be done at branches of a local bank (Malaysians are still very wary of online e-commerce in general and many would not consider giving their credit/debit cards to a website. We did the payment online, which took about 2 minutes.
3. Once the payment is completed, you go back onto the US Embassy website, retrieve your application and book an appointment for an interview (you can only do this by entering the reference number from your payment, so you need to pay before booking the appointment). Appointments are available Monday to Friday, and Layla was able to get an appointment for the following week.
4. On the day of the appointment we walked along to the embassy (we are lucky - we live in the centre of KL, about 5-10 minutes walk from all the major embassies!). Layla had to go in alone, so I waited in a Starbucks nearby.
5. The interview takes about 20 minutes, and consisted of the general questions you would expect - why do you want to go to the US, how long are you staying, how will you pay for your trip, are you travelling with anyone, what will you do whilst there etc - Layla is used to the visa application process, as she has had to get UK and EU visas in the past for previous trips, so has all the necessary paperwork and can answer the questions confidently and truthfully. At the end of the interview, the interviewer will either approve or deny the visa application. Layla got the “Your application is approved” response, and was back in Starbucks with me before I had finished my Latte!
6. A day later she got an email saying that her passport was ready for collection (the embassy will keep it if your application is approved, so they can affix the visa). We went to the document collection point, and picked up here passport - complete with a newly minted visa, valid for multiple trips for 10 YEARS!

Seriously, this process was so hassle free and straightforward, and really does put the experiences people have to put up with in the UK to shame. I am sure that more applications are received in Malaysia (Malaysia is also not an ESTA approved country), but it does show that it is possible to operate an efficient visa processing service.

So now we had the visa, we wanted to get the most use out of it possible, so the plan could be firmed up a bit more…


Travel Plan - Version 2, continued:

We had a hotel in New York, but as of yet, didn’t have any flights to get there. I spent a few days scouring Kayak, Expedia, Skyscanner and the like to try and find the best options for flights, that met our requirements:

• Ideally, we wanted to fly from Bristol, this is my “local” airport (at least it is to my parents place), and I wanted to avoid the trip to Heathrow or Gatwick during the Christmas/New Year week, when trains are all over the place, and weather could be bad.
• If possible, fly via Dublin for the Pre Clearance immigration. JFK or Newark can be a nightmare clearing immigration.
• We wanted to fly out on the 30th December, and back on the 3rd January - our hotel was booked for 4 nights from the 30th December, and we would be travelling back to Kuala Lumpur on about the 7th January, so this would give us a couple of days back in then UK between journeys.

I found found a deal on Expedia: Aer Lingus from Bristol, via Dublin, to Newark, departing 28th Dec and returning on the 3rd Jan.

Now the more observant amongst you will have noticed that this is two days earlier than our current hotel booking. Here's the thing... when I was searching for flights, most were coming in around £600 each return, but by booking a package with a couple of nights was only about £700, so for an extra £100 each, we could get two more nights - worth doing in my book!

The hotel for our extra nights is the Tuscany, which is about 5 blocks from our other hotel.

We are basically getting 6 nights in New York, over New Years Eve, for about £100 per person, per day, which isn't a bad deal in my book. We do have to change hotels part way through, but it's only about a 10 mins walk between the two, so not a major hassle.

The flights and extra hotel were booked, so our plan now looked like:

28/12: Bristol-Dublin Dep 08:10, Arr 09:25
28/12: Dublin-Newark Dep 13:00, Arr 15:30

03/01: JFK-Dublin Dep 21:10, Arr 08:40
04/01: Dublin-Bristol Dep 10:05, Arr 11:15



2 nights at The Tuscany Hotel



4 nights at the Hilton Garden Inn



At this point, we still hadn't decided what to do with our timeshare booking in Orange Lake, but at least we had something booked. We’d decide on what to do with Orange Lake later in the year…


The Plan - Version 3

Fast forward to late July. Layla had some changes in her college schedule, which means that she will be graduating in November 2017, rather than in May 2018 - she has basically been put on an advanced placement track in order to complete the diploma in a quicker timescale.

The good news is this means we are no longer going to be restricted to her school holidays, which means we can come back to the UK earlier than planned at the end of the year (late November rather than early December), and more importantly, return to KL in mid, rather than early January. I’m fortunate to have a understanding employer, who allows me to work from home and take large blocks of annual leave in one go, so I will probably work for the first two weeks we are back in the UK, then take the rest of December and 1st week of January off.

We were sat at home one Sunday morning a couple of weeks ago, after her schedule had been changed, and started talking about what to do when we were back in the UK. After a lot of discussions, we decided that Florida was definitely the preferred choice, especially as the accommodation would be basically “free” thanks to our timeshare. The problem was we already had plans for the 10th December (my great uncle’s 90th birthday) so wouldn't be able to leave before then, and I think my family would disown me if we were away for Christmas, so we had to try and slot a trip in between the 11th and 24th December, so we could be back for Christmas Day!

Cue much searching of flights for Orlando, and I finally hit on something that was suitable - Are Lingus (again) flying from Bristol on the 11th Dec, returning on the 23rd. This would give us 12 nights at Orange Lake, and still have us back in time for Turkey on the 25th (just!)

Flights were booked with Aer Lingus, price £477 per person:

11/12: Bristol-Dublin Dep 08:25, Arr 09:40
11/12: Dublin-Orlando Dep 14:15, Arr 19:00

23/12: Orlando-Dublin Dep 20:50, Arr 09:50
24/12: Dublin - Bristol Dep 13:55, Arr 15:10



So now we had a plan that had both New York and Orlando in it, with a slight detour back to the UK for 4 days in between! However, we weren’t quite finished…

When we were planning the original trip to New York, we did toy with the idea of adding on a couple of days in Boston, as this is my favourite city in the US, having spend a lot of time there about 15 years ago when I worked for the UK branch of a company that was based there. I’d not been back for about 7 or 8 years, and felt it was well past due for a visit. However, dates and times didn’t work out, when we were being restricted to the original dates for Layla’s school term. However, now that restriction had been removed, we took another look at it.

I knew that it would not be possible to change our existing Aer Lingus flights returning from New York (either date or destination), but if I was able to find a cheap-ish one way from Boston, it might be worth just writing the Aer Lingus returns off. I knew that Norweigan Air Shuttle had direct flights from Boston to Gatwick, so did a quick check of their prices, and found a flight on the 7th January for £127.00 each one way, including luggage and food! Needless to say, these were booked without a second thought!



I’ve also booked a hotel in Boston for the 4 nights - the Doubletree Boston Downtown



but will keep looking to see if alternative hotels come up as it is a bit early for really discounted rates to show up yet. We’re going to get Amtrak between New York and Boston, rather than having to deal with the hassle of flying for such a short distance, plus I can use a small amount of timeshare points for the tickets.

So our final plan, at least as of today () is as follows:

11/12: Bristol-Dublin Dep 08:25, Arr 09:40
11/12: Dublin-Orlando Dep 14:15, Arr 19:00

11-23/12: 12 nights, Orange Lake Country Club, Kissimmee

23/12: Orlando-Dublin Dep 20:50, Arr 09:50
24/12: Dublin - Bristol Dep 13:55, Arr 15:10

24-28/12: Christmas at home

28/12: Bristol-Dublin Dep 08:10, Arr 09:25
28/12: Dublin-Newark Dep 13:00, Arr 15:30

28-30/12: 2 nights at The Tuscany Hotel
30/12-02/01: 4 nights at the Hilton Garden Inn

03/01: Amtrak - New York to Boston

03-06/01 4 nights Doubletree Boston Downtown

07/01 Boston-London Gatwick, Dep 20:20, Arr 07:40

Costs wise, it’s not too bad, mainly due to a lot of “free” accommodation, thanks to timeshare and hotel points:

Flights - Bristol - Orlando: £954.00
Flights - Bristol - New York £1464.00
Flights - Boston - London: £253.00

Hotel - Tucany New York: 0.00 (Inc in Flights)
Hotel - Hilton New York: 0.00 (Hotel points)
Orange Lake Country Club 0.00 (Timeshare)

Amtrak - NYC to Boston: 0.00 (paid with Timeshare points)

Total to Date: £2671.00

We’ve still to book a car for our Florida leg, which I’m in the process of researching the best options at the moment (is it me, or have car hire prices rocketed in the past few years?), and looking at the various options of what to do in each location. Updates will be posted as things get added.