On the road again

Just a quick post to keep the blog going and talk about our upcoming trip to HK (again).

The plane tickets were too good to miss.  And Disneyland is a place my kids love at a price that I can tolerate.

But we'll spend overnight in Singapore at Changi Airport.

So a couple of tweaks on our plans.

We'll jump off the plane and stay in an apartment in Kowloon for a couple of nights, near Jordan and Austin stations.  Then onto Disneyland and then back in HKI.

This is hopefully going to get me a couple of good nights' sleep.  

More importantly, it'll give me an opportunity to visit the Woosung Street Temporary Cooked Food Hawker Bazaar.  A link to a couple of Aussie foodies and their trip there.

Apartment was (dis)courtesy of airbnb.com

A couple of warnings - last time we used wimdu and it was pretty much hiccup free.  We tried both this time and apart from the first couple of nights accommodation which looks okay so far, their service has been deplorable.

We booked an apartment.  The person who owns/manages the apartment ignored all correspondence from us. Our credit card had a 'bar' or 'hold' over the funds via a pre-authorisation from airbnb.  The vendor neither cancelled nor contacted us and so after a couple of weeks we contacted airbnb. It eventually got sorted, but not without airbnb threatening that under their rules (read them, we were told by the girl answering the phone - she was Aussie) we would lose all of our money.

Eventually after 2 weeks and calls to our bank, we got our authorisation money accessible again.

Pretty poor form from airbnb, though.  Really should have a means whereby if the owner/manager of the apartment does not accept, then no authorisation should be put on the card.  

Wimdu were way better.  A similar thing happened, but with 2 key details.  1.  The landlord accepted and then tried to back out when the price was too good (they did make a mistake) - so less 'pre-authorisation' lock and more 'take the money once accepted'.  2.  Wimdu apologised profusely and were prepared to find us similar style accommodation and then foot the bill for any difference; or were happy to refund.  Their service was very friendly albeit very slow.

My tip is that if you are planning to use these services (I'll continue with wimdu next time I need something) then leave more than enough time to iron out hiccups. Have 2 months' worth of accommodation monies locked up isn't fun.  We had the cash for a third apartment if need be, but realistically, leave time, if it goes pear-shaped, then you have time to wait out the pre-authorisation lock 'refund'.

Onto the positive parts - look HK is expensive accommodation wise and these places offer a good sized (for HK) room/apartment for a lot less - great for larger families.

And my other tip is get one near an MTR.  Last time we were too far from one and it made travel inconvenient.  We took taxis but a larger family does scare some off.  Having said that, we had some great experiences with local cab drivers, including one bloke who says "No money, no honey" all the time.