First Time in Hong Kong || Preparation
January 30, 2016
Exactly 46 days from now (as of the writing of this post), i will be embarking on a first time ever trip out of the Philippines. The thought of meeting new people and discovering new cultures plus touring different places in Hong Kong excites me the most. At last! my passport will get it's first official tattoo. lol. I've been wanting to visit Hong Kong from the time that i first got my passport (that was 2014) but never really had the chance to plan and pursue it, not until now.
I started planning our trip last October 2015 and we chose March 17-21 2016 as our travel dates. Since this will be both our first time traveling out of the country, the first thing that i did was reading a lot of blogs and forums discussing about travels to HK. I got a lot of tips/ideas to the point that i cannot even decide what to do (i got little bit praning, haha).
Allow me to share my preparations. ^_^ Let's start first with the:
PLANE TICKET
Looking for a pocket-friendly plane ticket is the first thing that travelers do in planning for a trip and sometimes this is also one of the most challenging and lengthy part. Lengthy because you have to wait for the PISO FARE! ^_^ But if you don't really mind paying for the regular/expensive plane ticket (depending on your destination) you can just do this at the later part of your travel plans which i don't really recommend.
I patiently waited for Piso fare but up until last week of November i still haven't seen any from either Cebu Pacific or AirAsia so i decided to book the lowest fare which cost us Php800.00 each x 2 = Php1776.00. But that's only one-way, i didn't book the ticket back to Manila because it was too expensive (at least for me), t'was around Php4000.00 each. I waited for few more days hoping for a luck but I gave up and just booked the lowest fare I saw in AirAsia worth Php5872.78 in total, so that's Php2936.39 each, still way cheaper than the 4 thousand pesos in Cebu Pacific.
Plane Ticket Cost Back and Forth( for 2 persons) = Php7648.78
Manila to Hong Kong via Cebu Pacific = Php1776.00
Hong Kong to Manila via AirAsia = Php5872.78
Do you guys think it's still expensive for a plane ticket from Manila-Hong Kong-Manila for 2 persons? Next time I'll try to book for a plane ticket at least 6 months or a year ahead. ^_^ Hopefully I can get much cheaper that 7k.
HOTEL
Our original plan is to make our own itinerary and be a "backpacker" in Hong Kong then we saw a Travel and Tours promotion online worth only around 6 thousand pesos per person including the accommodations but t'was only for 4D3N stay. Since we are staying for 5D4N in HK we ended up going back to our original plan. We tried inquiring in different Travel and Tours but it was very expensive so we just scrapped that idea.
I started looking for hotels in HK thru Travel Book Philippines, agoda.com and www.expedia.com.ph. My goal is to find a cheap and comfortable hotel in Tsim Sha Tsui (as i've read in many blogs this is the center of Hong Kong and it is near to many public transpo).
I ended up booking in USA Hostel in Kowloon thru www.expedia.com.ph . It cost us Php6892.80 for 4 night stay good for 2 persons. That's including the taxes and fees. Not bad eh? ^_^ But i'm sure there are a lot more cheaper hotels in HK, I just really didn't have enough time to search.
TIP: Creating an account to different online booking websites really help. So far I've tried using the 3 booking sites mentioned above and they give good discounts/promotions. Also, make sure to read the reviews and terms and conditions of the hotel before booking.
Itinerary
As of now, Disney Land and Ocean Park are the only places we have in our itinerary. Haha! I'm still on the process on listing all beautiful places in Hong Kong and fit it in our 4 days schedule.
Total Cost in Peso for 2 Persons (Back and Forth Plane Tickets and 4 nights Hotel stay)
Plane Ticket : 7648.78
Hotel : 6892.80
Total : 14,541.58 (7,270.79/each)
We are planning to bring Php20,000 (3262.55HKD) as our pocket money plus credit cards.
So if we stick to our budget for this trip, the overall total will be Php34,541.58 (Php17,270.79/each).OMG!!! this does not include the travel tax in NAIA yet (if there's any). haha
Wew. These are all the things i have settled for now. I can't wait for March to come and take some selfies with Mickey and Minnie Mouse. lol
For any questions or suggestions please leave it in the comment section.
See you in Hong Kong! ^_^
0 comments