How I Planned A Birding Cruise

Posted on August 21, 2015 by Tara

The cruise I will be blogging about in this series took place in 2011 on the beautiful Coral Princess by Princess Cruises. It remains to this day as the best cruise we have ever taken out of about 6 so far. It was the perfect itinerary – birding at almost every port and not too many sea days. Unfortunately Princess no longer does this itinerary, probably due to American passengers being afraid to travel to Acapulco and the cruise was only just over half full. Good for us, not so good for Princess!

GETTING THERE

This cruise was done during what I call the Golden Age of Miles & Points – when there were lucrative promos and fewer people who had the expertise to exploit them. I did the US Airways Grand Slam promo on both mine and my husband’s accounts to get over 120k miles in each our accounts. The whole itinerary was in business class!

SINGAPORE AIRLINES: BNE-SIN

ASIANA: SIN-ICN-LAX

US AIRWAYS: LAX-PHX-MEX

Open jaw for cruise, then drive to Orlando to see friend. Fly to LAX and drive to see family using separate ticket on AA.

ASIANA: LAX-ICN-SIN

SINGAPORE AIRLINES: SIN-BNE

As I stated in the previous post, we arrived in Mexico 3 days prior to the cruise and spent 1 day in Mexico City at the Hampton Inn Centro Historico, saw the pyramids, took a bus to Acapulco and spent 2 nights at the Crowne Plaza on points and were upgraded to a corner suite. We had a great view and even saw our ship the Coral Princess come in!

THE CRUISE ITINERARY

This map shows the ground transport (red) and cruise (blue).

Here we have the cruise itinerary with timings. Timings are always important as you see way more birds in the early morning. We were really good about being downstairs ready to dis-embark the minute they started allowing people off.

OUR SPECIFIC PLANS FOR EACH PORT

Huatulco – Princess actually had a bird-watching shore excursion so we did that.

San Juan del Sur – I couldn’t find anything for birding at the time so we did a Masaya Volcano/Granada shore excursion hoping to see birds incidentally.

Puntarenas – I booked a private day trip to visit Carara National Park and a bird sanctuary

Panama Canal – The ship provided commentary throughout the transit of the canal. When we reached Colon, they only gave us a few hours to see the shopping centre at the port.

Ocho Rios – I booked a private birding tour.

FUN FACT: I got to watch the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton on the big screen at the swimming pool during the cruise even though I had to get up at 4am to do it!

Birding From A Cruise Ship

Posted on August 20, 2015 by Tara

Back in 2011, before I started this blog, we did a fantastic trans-Panama Canal cruise on Princess and were able to find some good birding at most of the ports. I’ll be posting about that trip in detail, but first lets look at why you would want to use a cruise ship for birding…………….and a few reasons why not.

CRUISE SHIP BIRDING PROS

Economical transport, food and convenience of not having to pack & unpack
Variety of locations
Please a non-birding spouse/friend/family – they have other things to do while you are birding

CRUISE SHIP BIRDING CONS

Birding is best in the morning and the ship may not dock in time
Having to rush back in the afternoon before the ship leaves
Ships tend to dock in cities and birding location may be too far for a shore excursion
Ports can be cancelled at short notice for weather, strikes or other complications

HOW TO CHOOSE A CRUISE FOR BIRDING

Just like choosing a land based trip, you need to know what kind of birds you are most interested in and what part of the world they are best found in. You also have to look for national parks or wildlife reserves near to a cruise port. People who are more interested in sea birds and shore birds will have more to choose from than those who are interest in parrots and songbirds. Hummingbirds are active throughout the day so any cruise which calls at a port in Central or South America has the potential to see them. Here are a few typical itineraries from Princess Cruises (you can use this idea on any cruise line) that have at least one port with a good place for birding nearby. It is very unlikely the cruise line will have a specific birding shore excursion so be prepared to find and organize your own guide using sources like eBird, Fatbirder, Trip Advisor and even Google!

PORTS TO CONSIDER

Australia ports for small forest reserves located near ports (most major Australian cities have them)
Belize City for Crooked Tree Sanctuary
Dominica for Northern Forest Reserve
Galapagos – anywhere
Guayaquil for Cerro Blanco
Huatulco for local parks
Ocho Rios for local birding
Panama City for Soberania National Park
Puerto Rico for El Yunque
Puntarenas for Carara National Park
St Lucia for Quilesse Reserve
St Vincent for Vermont Nature Trail

GENERAL MILES AND POINTS TIPS FOR CRUISERS

Book your flights well in advance as you won’t be the only one wanting award flights that day!
Fly in the day before to avoid last minute delays/cancellations causing you to miss the cruise. On long trans-Oceanic flights (for example Australia to/from Caribbean), I’d allow at least 2 days. For example in 2011, our cruise departed Acapulco. We flew into Mexico City on a very convoluted routing BNE-BKK-ICN-LAX-PHX-MEX in J with USDM miles 3 days beforehand and did local sightseeing those 3 days. We would have had a buffer if anything had gone wrong with the flights.
Use hotel points if you have them for your pre-cruise and post-cruise stay.
Book your cruise through your airline’s portal to get a few thousand miles.
Use a credit card that has a travel category bonus to pay for it such as Chase Sapphire Preferred or Citi Premier Thank You card.
Consider dedicated cruises for birders such as the World Parrot Trust’s annual Parrot Lovers Cruise. You must book through the official travel agency but they put on special tours and activities for the group, you also support the World Parrot Trust with conservation projects!

A Pleasant Surprise From Club Carlson & US Bank

Posted on August 19, 2015 by Tara

A few months ago, Club Carlson got rid of the best benefit on their US Bank Visa card which gave the last night free on any award booking. Many of us (me included) called in to complain and got 7500 points. Now, they seem to have realized how much they have alienated their customers and out of the blue have emailed many of their customers (Club Carlson’s Twitter says it was targeted) a free eCert valid anywhere in the world!

People are reporting on Flyertalk and other blogs that they either got one for each Club Carlson credit card they have or were left out completely. Luckily, I seemed to make the cut! Clicking on the red Book Today button lead me to the booking page with my unique eCert code and general promo code pre-filled.

I wasted no time in redeeming it for 1 night in Port of Spain, Trinidad which will be convenient for an evening tour of Caroni Swamp, a top birding spot.

As you can see, I just saved $179 if I had been prepared to pay for this hotel or at least $120 for booking an independent hotel. Trinidad is small enough that we can drive to all the birding hotspots such as Nariva Swamp, Aripo Savannah, Asa Wright Centre, Yerette and Caroni Swamp so this worked out very well indeed!

Air New Zealand’s Dreamliner Shanghai – Auckland Economy W/Skycouch

Posted on August 18, 2015 by Tara

We had to get our boarding passes issued as Thai had been unable to do it the night before. Although I had us booked in the best possible free seats, they upgraded us to a Skycouch! Barring redeeming in business, this was the best possible outcome for a long flight in a Dreamliner!

Purple is one of my favourite colours so I was pleased with the mood lighting!

Here you can clearly see the layout of the economy cabin 3-3-3 configuration.

Touchscreens made it easy to control the AV.

In the 4th photo below, you can see the diagrams of how to use a Skycouch. There was no way we were going to fit side by side so we went with the 2nd option for couples with 2 seats extended and one seat used as a normal airline seat. My husband can sleep sitting up and I can’t but I did manage some sleep in the space of the 2 seat Skycouch.

It was interesting how the mood lighting changed throughout the flight.

The city of Auckland came into view and the flight was over.

Gotta love bird paintings!

We used my Amex’s Priority Pass to access the Emperor Lounge where I spent as much time as possible online. They keep careful track and we were unceremoniously kicked out when the 3 hours were up!

Oh joy! Our flight to Rarotonga was delayed 3 hours! At least they gave us food vouchers which we spent at the Burger King to maximize the value.

Since I have already blogged about the Cook Islands and the remainder of this trip was about visiting family, I’ll end this trip report here.

Quick Layover Trip Into Shanghai

Posted on August 17, 2015 by Tara

I wanted to maximize the award ticket and we had never been to Shanghai before so when I saw the routing come up on United’s award booking tool, I grabbed it. After researching online, I decided the best thing to do was take the Maglev into town, get a connecting train to the Bund, take a walk along the Bund and then go back to the airport in time for the onward flight to Auckland.

It’s easy to find the Maglev train as Shanghai Airport is well signed. Our flight arrived around 5:30am so we had to wait for the ticket counter to open and then catch the first train into town.

The first few trains only get up to 300km/h, a snails pace for this train!

When you reach the final station – Long Yang Road Station, you have to change to the metro to get to the Bund.

Not nearly as comfortable as the Maglev!

We got out at East Nanjing Road and started walking towards the Bund. It was drizzling so I knew this did not bode well!

Some of the shops were very interesting though not open yet.

We finally reached the Bund and just randomly chose to turn left and start walking.

We didn’t get far before the heavens opened up and we grabbed a few pics, then took refuge inside Starbucks where we had breakfast.

We waited and waited for the rain to let up but it never did.

We had to find something else to do so we inched along the building the Starbucks was in and found this bizarre tunnel attraction. At least we would stay dry and experience something different!

It really was bizarre! Like tripping without drugs! The ride didn’t last long so we still had to find something else to do.

We didn’t want to spend more money on overpriced tourist attractions and the rain was finally letting up so we wandered around this area of Shanghai while trying to find a metro station.

We got lost and couldn’t find anyone who spoke English to tell us where the metro was but did find this cool peace dove topiary thing!

We eventually ran into a tour group and the guide pointed us to the metro. We went back to Longyang Road to get the Maglev back to the airport.

This time the train got up to the max speed of 430 km/h (267 mph) which was pretty cool!

Before we knew it, we were back at the airport. Since we still had one more Lounge Club pass to use, we hung out at the lounge for awhile.

Back To The Back: Thai Airways KUL-BKK-PVG Economy

Posted on August 16, 2015 by Tara

I had run out of United miles so it was back to the back of the plane for this trip. It was still a phenomenal use of miles since the routing got us from Brisbane to Chiang Mai, Chiang Mai to Koh Samui with a 23 hour layover in Bangkok, then an open jaw from Kuala Lumpur to Rarotonga via Bangkok and Shanghai with a 10 hour layover. In this post, we will look at the Thai economy experience on the Dreamliner.

In economy class you don’t get lounge access unless you have a credit card that includes Priority Pass (Amex) or Lounge Club (formerly include with Chase Ink). We wandered around the airport and checked out a few shops but didn’t buy anything. The kaftans were nice but out of my budget.

A quick shot of the business cabin as we walked through.

And here’s the economy cabin. This is where dreamliners become “nightmare-liners”. Seats are in a 3-3-3 so couples will usually have a stranger with them unless they get lucky and have an empty middle seat. We weren’t lucky but at least it was a short-ish flight from Kuala Lumpur to Bangkok.

The one thing I did like was the controls in the seatback instead of buried in the side compartment of the seat.

Trying to sneak more photos of business class on the way out.

We had a 3 hour layover in Bangkok so we used Lounge Club to use the Louis Tavern lounge. It’s nowhere near as good as the Thai lounge from the last time we were here but better than sitting at the gate!

I was too tired to take photos of the plane between Bangkok and Shanghai so managed to pass out despite being in economy. At least this time we had no one in the middle seat! We quickly got transit visas and headed off to take the Maglev into town.

Eco-Lite: Kuala Lumpur Bird Park

Posted on August 15, 2015 by Tara

OVERVIEW

Located in the serene and scenic famous Lake Gardens, the KL Bird park is also well known as “World’s Largest Free-flight Walk-in Aviary”, offers a 20.9 acres of verdant valley terrain to be explored.

HOW DO YOU GET THERE?

The park is located about a 20 Ringgit taxi ride from the central Kuala Lumpur area. Beware of taxis trying to overcharge on departure, walk down the road and hail a taxi passing by as the private ones operated just outside are very expensive. Use miles and points to get to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

HOW MUCH IS IT?

Adults 50 MYR, Children 41 MYR.

Credit cards accepted.

HOW LONG SHOULD YOU SPEND THERE AND WHAT SHOULD YOU SEE?

It’s a fairly large park and has several shows so try to give it at least half a day.

VALUE TO CONSERVATION

There aren’t any particular projects mentioned on their website. The park does give an opportunity to see some rare Malaysian species, especially hornbills up close which can later help you identify them in the wild. It’s a great place to bring kids and exhibits are well-signed.

WHERE TO STAY NEARBY ON POINTS

Hilton, IHG, Hyatt, Wyndham and Marriott all have hotels in Kuala Lumpur, however unless you really need a posh hotel, I recommend paying for a hotel as prices are so low here.

PHOTOS

Killing Time In Kuala Lumpur

Posted on August 14, 2015 by Tara

We arrived in the afternoon and hadn’t had time to eat lunch since we got a quick connection between Kuala Tahan and Jerantut to KL so we were starving! We dropped our backpacks at the Hotel Geo and hopped on the free Go KL bus (every major city should have one of these!)

I highlighted in yellow where we boarded (Pasar Seni) and got off (Pavilion).

Inside the huge Pavilion shopping centre, first stop was the food court where we ended up at Johnny Rockets. Don’t shoot me, remember I am American born, living in Australia so it was nice to have some comfort food, and the fantastic peanut butter milkshake!

After our late lunch/early dinner we wandered around the shopping centre. It has a lot of designer boutiques and is not for the budget shopper but it was fun to have a look around.

I loved these crystal birds!

The best thing for any bird lover who has time to spare in KL is to visit the KL Bird Park so of course we went there. I will do a separate post about that. After we left the Bird Park, we had to get a taxi as no bus goes near the place to get back to the Pavilion Shopping Centre where I just HAD to have more American comfort food, this time at Tony Roma’s!

I grabbed a few shots out the taxi window of some mosques and scenes around town. It was really hot so we weren’t up to walking around much.

Hotel Review: Hotel Geo, Kuala Lumpur

Posted on August 13, 2015 by Tara

Location, location, location! There are many reasons to choose one hotel over another and in a city, I like to be well located within walking distance of restaurants and have public transportation readily available. Kuala Lumpur is one place where our Aussie dollar still gets a good value so since it was just an overnight, we went for a budget place near the Central Market – Hotel Geo. To maximize mileage earning, I used Pointshound to book it.

I had to laugh when I looked out the window at the Geo Hotel and saw a Birdnest Guesthouse across the street!

Reception was friendly and they showed us where to get the free bus outside.

They have very strict rules about bringing durians, mangosteens and pets into the rooms!

The room was on the small side but the wifi was good so that was really all I wanted after being unplugged for 3 days in Taman Negara.

The best thing was the free bus right outside that makes a loop around central KL stopping at several key locations, one of which was a major shopping centre with a huge food court.

All things considered, Hotel Geo is a nice budget choice if you don’t want to spend hotel points. I think that in less expensive destinations like KL, it’s worth it to just book a budget place and save points for pricier destinations.

Transport Between Taman Negara (Kuala Tahan) & Kuala Lumpur

Posted on August 12, 2015 by Tara

As I mentioned in my other post, you can get private shuttles to get to and from Kuala Tahan from which you take the small shuttle boat across the river. You can also use public transport from Kuala Lumpur via Jerantut. This is how we got back to Kuala Lumpur.

1 ringgit each to cross the river.

Then walk up the road and turn left. Locals will point out the bus station.

The public bus leaves at 10am, 12 noon & 3pm and costs 7 ringgits and takes almost 2 hours to get to Jerantut due to frequent stops along the way. You could also get a shuttle (pictured above) or taxi if you miss the bus or are in a hurry.

Heading out of town, we saw a sign advertising the Taman Negara Bird Count starting the day after we left. Bad timing for us, although on retrospect we may have had trouble getting accommodation if we had been there on those days.

Souvenir shop in Kuala Tahan

Another river a short ways out of town.

Interior of local bus between Kuala Tahan and Jerantut

Arriving in Jerantut. There are some small hotels here if you get stuck for the night.

Bus schedules out of Jerantut.

We were first off the bus and ran to the window and asked for the next bus to Kuala Lumpur. It was leaving around 12:30pm so we didn’t have time to get lunch. There are toilets in the bus station but they are a little far from where you board. The bus to KL is nicer than the local bus and is non stop to KL.

A few shots out the window as we left Jerantut.

And a nice view of the Petronas Towers as we approach KL.

The bus left us outside a bus terminal and most of the passengers got in taxis. We were quoted a high price from the taxi and I was trying to bargain with him when I saw a bus pull up that said “Sentral” on the front which I knew to be close to our hotel so we hopped on. Much to my very pleasant surprise, it was a free bus!

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