Seeing the "real" Hong Kong

[tpwc]

Re: Seeing the "real" Hong Kong

I love Hong Kong and never thought to ask at the hotel about city tours. That is a great tip! Thank you!

Did you see the Giant Buddah of the Po Lin Monastery? I thought that was really neat. They now have a gondola that gets you there rather quickly. I had to take a 45 minute bus ride when I went.

Hong Kong has a very easy sub/rail system and Disney has its own station. This makes it VERY easy to get around the city and see the things you'd be interested in.

Now if you want to go to Po Lin Monastery, you don't need to take the 45-min bus ride as the Cable Car System - Ngong Ping 360 resume services!

http://www.np360.com.hk/

[Loomis]

Re: Seeing the "real" Hong Kong

My advice would be to do as we did, and not bother with organised tours. Buy yourself an Octopus Card fairly early on in the piece, then jump on MTRs; ferries and buses as often as you like. This includes the Peak Tram, although it will take more of a chunk out of your credit than the very cheap ferry. A week there of going about, and we didn't use all of our initial credit from our cards!

[Dustysage]

Re: Seeing the "real" Hong Kong

I love Hong Kong and never thought to ask at the hotel about city tours. That is a great tip! Thank you!

Did you see the Giant Buddah of the Po Lin Monastery? I thought that was really neat. They now have a gondola that gets you there rather quickly. I had to take a 45 minute bus ride when I went.

Hong Kong has a very easy sub/rail system and Disney has its own station. This makes it VERY easy to get around the city and see the things you'd be interested in.

[mikeland]

Re: Seeing the "real" Hong Kong

Thanks for the information. Hong Kong is an amazing city.

[it398]

I asked the hotel (Hong Kong Disneyland hotel) if they could recommend a tour company offering tours around the city. Disney not only recommended Splendid tours http://www.splendidtours.com but also booked it all for us. All we had to do was choose which tour we wanted to do and on what day. Disney then arranged for a taxi to pick us up from the hotel and take us to the tour pick up location.

Unfortunately the day we booked our tour for my Dad was ill and so we could not go, but Disney contacted the tour company and arranged for the tour to be changed for the following day. Can't beat the Disney service.

As for the tour itself we did the all day land and sea tour. The Dim Sum lunch was urm interesting and not my cup of tea but the restaurant did have nice views of the city. The "sea" part of the cruise was very nice. the "land" part took us up to victoria peak and the market and a few other places. was good and our tour guide was very good at filling the time whilst on the coach with information on Hong Kong. i did feel time at Victoria Peak was rushed and way too much time was given to a tour of a jewelry factory but apparently this is common in tourist tours in China.

All in all very enjoyable.