ALERT THIS POST WAS STARTED BEFORE CHRISTMAS 2016!!

This is a strange time of year, a time of joy and excitement, potential bankrupcy and at times  sadness. It’s definitely a time to reflect on one’s life, a year gone by full of highlights and some bumps in the road.

I have to say for me one of the highlights of this year was our family trip to Hong Kong. Being an expat I sometimes find that you end up using all your holiday time a money flying backward & forwards to home. Which, don’t get me wrong is lovely. However it’s never a proper holiday. So this year we were selfish and used the Easter break to take a family trip, just the 4 of us to Hong Kong! We took the plunge and booked totally landing on our feet by bagging two for one flights with Qatar airways. Only going for 6 days we split the trip into adults and kids, the first few days we took in the sights of Hong Kong and the last two days were all about the kids at Hong Kong Disney. We booked into the Marriott hotel  not the most child friendly but in a superb location. It had a pool which was freezing and was attached to mall so we didn’t have to go far to eat. As I said before it was in a great location, a short walk away from Hong Kong park, a beautiful oasis in the middle of this bustling city. Play area’s, waterfalls & streams filled with terrapins, restaurants and an aviary. All for free!

We were also with walking distance of the extremely steep tram that takes you up to Victoria Peak, if you can bear the ride up and people push to get on the tram first. You’ll be greeted with some of the most breathtaking views of Hong Kong city and Kowloon. We were extremely lucky with our weather as it was a warm spring day, no clouds in the sky and zero humidity.

We also took a ferry ride across to Kowloon and watched the city light show, it was fantastic but of course the children we’re far more excited about the ferry. We also went to the Hong Kong observation wheel. This for me was hell on earth but the kids loved it and I think it did a fab job of hiding my complete and utter fear. We then checked out and headed over to Disney. We got a good deal staying at Disney Hollywood hotel the pool was unfortunately out of use however we we’re so busy at Disneyland we didn’t even have time to explore the hotel fully. However we  loved it, there was a Disney movie playing in reception while we were checking in so the children weren’t running around like loonies.Every was Disney down to the wee soaps in the bathroom. We checked in  dumped our stuff and jumped the free bus to the park. We struck gold on our first day at the park, although we got there at lunch time we pretty much walked on to every ride.

The favourite was toys story land and future land where we met Buzz lightyear and found Star wars eggs! We also were lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time when meeting our other favourites. To see the children’s smiles was pure magic and I would do it all over again.

I have to say Hong kong was expensive, it was on parr with Dubai so although we had saved we went through our money pretty quickly. If you’re thinking of making the trip I’d get saving as you don’t want to scrimp in this amazing place.

To end our, much to our sons disgust we went to visit the “Big Buddha/Tian Tan” we climbed the 260 steps all the way to the top. the views were awesome even if it was very smoggy and humid. After being convinced by my family I braved the Nygong Ping 360 cable car, not an experience I would want to do again as I’m afraid of height but it’s the best and most beautiful way of getting back to Hong Kong Island.

So that was our amazing trip in a nutshell, start packing and get going, show your children the world is their oyster.