Stormy Travels: Touchdown in Vietnam

Good morning! Today (Thursday October 19, 2023) starts Hunter's and I's vacation! We tried to fly out last night but loads were not great, so we evaluated our options and decided to sleep at home and fly out this morning. We got up at 4am and met Emily at 450 because she was kind enough to drive us to the airport as she works at 530am. We quickly cleared security missing the typical rush since we were kind of cutting it close for a 6am departure to Detroit. We got through security around 5:10 and then I went and checked in on my restroom renovation project. We had an incident yesterday with some major flooding, so I wanted to verify my contractors cleaned everything up in order for the gate to reopen.

After checking in on everything I then headed to meet Hunter at our gate on A concourse, one concourse down from the restroom reno. Our plan was to fly to Detroit and try a flight to Haneda as well as Seoul in hopes of getting Delta One. We got seats 20 A/B on DL936 to Detroit to start - comfort plus! The flight was just under 2 hours, but felt longer.

Sunrise over Detroit

When we landed we found a power outlet to sit beside because Hunter's phone didn't charge and then Hunter got to work searching up all the flight information. We decided to take DL 275 in Delta Premium Select, a ~14hr flight to Haneda. While Hunter was busy doing the research to make sure we were taking our best option and booking our connections, I went and found snacks! I wanted to make sure we had enough sustenance for our 14 hours since I wasn't sure how much food we would have access to in premium select. I got us cheezits, fritos, cretors popcorn, 1L of water, and two Diet Cokes!

After packing up our snacks, I then got us breakfast at Subway since it smelled so good. Hunter had a Mexicali sandwich and I got a club sandwich. I got a foot long to save half for a snack later. I was really worried I'd be hungry, so wanted to be prepared!

After eating and finishing up on the computer, we headed to our gate where they called us up for passport check and seat assignment. We got assigned 21 E and F! I made a pitstop to the restroom before boarding and then we started our journey!

Takeoff was incredibly smooth and soon lunch service started. Hunter and I both wanted the Japanese beef, and thankfully it was available! To start we had little cheese biscuits that were very cute and sparkling water. Then the main meals arrived and were very tasty. We had tomato and cucumber salad with bulgur wheat and minted yogurt, beef sukiyaki with grilled tofu, enoki mushrooms, napa cabbage, and steamed rice, and mango mousse with passionfruit compote! Don't forget the Diet Coke!

cheddar biscuit snack

After eating Hunter started watching Rick and Morty and I played on my phone/iPad. I worked on some of my last trip's blog posts as well since I got a bit behind on that. Picture uploads and organization takes forever! After a bit, I got sleepy and set a 2 hour alarm to make sure I stretched my legs. I woke up just before my alarm and thankfully one of the aisle seat passengers got up just in time for me to get up. I hate waking up people on these long flights, so any chance they got up, I got up too!!

Around the 5.5 hour mark I was also able to get up and grab some snacks for Hunter and I. I ate my leftover sandwich and Hunter and I shared the popcorn! Shortly after I finished the midflight snack came around (6 hours into our journey) and we had three cheese and rosemary pizza twists. These are not my favourite. We also had them on our way back from Bali and they were just as bad. They don't have good flavor in my opinion and the ends of the twists are very hard/unpleasant to eat. Oh well, thankfully I was prepared with snacks!

After our snack Hunter watched some TV and I did some research on what to do when we arrive at our midpoint destination. We have around 36 hours before the final flight, so we looked up multiple things to do and have a pretty solid plan - I can't wait to share more!

At 12.5 hours in, the arrival meal started. For our arrival meal we had seasonal fresh fruit and yogurt cup and an egg and cheese calzone. It was okay.

We finally landed in HND at 1230pm local time Friday October 20 or 1130 pm EST Thursday. Once we deplaned, we headed to the priority pass lounge called TIAT lounge. We lounged a bit and Hunter checked all our flights again before getting to take a lovely shower! After getting clean we had some more drinks and then finally headed to our gate around 330pm.

Our Delta plane on arrival

Initially, there were no agents at our gate, but they soon arrived and Hunter waited in line while I supervised the luggage. I was also quickly running out of steam and getting very tired! Hunter then needed me to bring our Visas over to the gate, so I went and brought out things to him. We were then given seats 21H and 31G on flight NH891 to SGN! That's right, we are heading to Vietnam for 7 nights! Two nights in Ho Chi Minh City and 5 nights in Phu Quoc!

Once we boarded it wasn't long before I drifted off and was abruptly awoken by the window passenger straddling me trying to get out to use the restroom. I then told them no thanks if you need out I need to move, please don't climb on me. They were understanding thankfully and it didn't happen again! Dinner service started about 1.5 hrs into the flight. I had the chicken option which was pretty tasty! Hunter had the seafood dish which he really liked as well. For dessert we had Hagen Daaz icecream! It always amazes me the economy service Asian carriers provide! It's impressive! We definitely enjoyed our first time flying with ANA.

Cleared!

Our ANA plane to Vietnam!

Cute Japanese safety video

Starting snack

Ready to nap!

The flight was about 6 hours long and it did feel long, especially because I wanted to just get into a bed and sleep! I did try my best to stay awake for as long as I could after dinner, but it wasn't that long!

First airplane restroom I have seen with a bidet!

Almost there!

We landed at 9:15pm local Friday October 20th, 2023 and cleared customs and immigration. It was smooth sailing for us because we got the good visas online and didn't have to wait in lines for the picture stuff at the airport. Once we were out, we went and looked for an ATM to get some cash, but quickly found out our debit card expired!! Thankfully I have my credit union debit with us so we will use that. I was really worried we were going to have to do a cash advance on our credit card which can be costly! We checked if we could pay for grab (Asian Uber/Lyft) with our credit card and thankfully it let us. Earlier I was reading that it was cash only on someone's blog. We booked a car and headed out to the parking lot.

Once we found the car, we started the 30 minute drive to the hotel through many narrow streets with lots of motorbikes. We also passed through a full restaurant in the car and while it felt like we shouldn't be there, no one seemed phased by it.

Finally, we got to our hotel, the amazing Vinpearl Landmark 81, an Autograph Collection Marriott hotel and also the tallest building in Vietnam. We were met by a bellhop who showed us to the elevator that whisked us away to the hotel lobby on floor 48. The elevator was creepily smooth and the only way we knew we were going up was from our ears popping!

We checked in pretty quickly at about 1030pm. They gave us a quick rundown of the various facilities and then we were escorted to our room on the 62nd floor. It has a great view of the river and downtown Ho Chi Minh City. We quickly took showers and headed to bed where Hunter booked us tickets for Sunday afternoon on our final leg from here to Pho Quoc. I can't wait to see what Vietnam has in store!