You’re booking your flight and you have 3 options:

1. Shortest layover possible for the cheapest price, but… it lands in Hong Kong at 10pm and departs at 11am. Too late to go out and grab dinner and see the city but it is a shorter layover…
2. Longer layover for the same price as Option 1. It lands at 5pm and departs at 11am. You’ll have time to grab some dinner, explore the city, grab a hotel room, and get a great night of sleep before your long, 14-hour overseas flight.
3. Pay $300 more per person to have a quick, 3-hour layover.

If you haven’t guessed it already, we went for Option 2 and we are SO glad we did.

ACCOMMODATIONS

By the time we got to Hong Kong, we were exhausted from a long trip in the Philippines and I was more than ready to pay a little extra for some luxuries. We chose to book a room at the Hong Kong SkyCity Marriott for $146USD ($1144HKG). It was extremely close to the airport, which would prove beneficial the next morning when we were able to have a stress- and traffic-free drive back to the terminal. Breakfast was not included in the price, but they did have a good selection of breakfast options available in their full restaurant.

The room was, by far, the most luxurious room we stayed in during our trip. It was spacious, the bed was like rolling into a cloud after 3 weeks of sleeping on rocks, the shower was fit for a king, and – my favorite part about fancy hotel rooms – the closet was stocked with bathrobes and slippers.

TRANSPORTATION

Luckily, we did not have to worry about transportation to and from the airport. The SkyCity Marriott provided free transportation to and from the airport. All we had to do was find the hotel transportation Kiosk in the airport, provide our reservation information, and the Marriott representative took care of the rest.

Once at the hotel, the front desk lady was extremely helpful in getting us information on where to eat and how to get to the city. The hotel provided a regular shuttle to and from the Tung Chung Metro Station for free. We used the hotel ATM to grab about $130USD ($1000HKG), which ended up being way more than we needed for the night. Since we had spent a decent amount of money on the hotel, we decided to brave the metro system instead of a taxi, which saved us about $50USD. I was nervous about getting lost but Hong Kong certainly has the whole public transportation thing figured out. The system was smooth, there were English-speaking employees at every Kiosk at Tung Chung Station to help with purchasing tokens, and everything was SO CLEAN! So different from U.S. public transportation.

METRO TRAVEL TIP: If you’ve taken the metro before, you’ll be shaking your head at this, but to get out of the metro area and out to the street, you have to insert your token into the turnstile… and then it opens! Genius. So efficient and forces people to recycle. It took me a minute to figure that out and I’m sure I looked like a typical confused tourist.

THINGS TO DO

By the time we landed in Hong Kong, made our way to the hotel, got situated in our room, and out to the metro station, we did not have a ton of time left before places started closing. We decided to grab some food first and then just explore.

 

MONG KOK

We were told that Mong Kok was the place to go for great food options, so we went straight there in search of dim sum. Walking out of that metro station was like stepping out into a giant video game. The air was thick with what I think might have been smog. Maybe fog? Or both? The buildings were packed in like pickles (if you don’t get that reference, you must watch more Ellen Degeneres in order for us to ever become good friends) and seemed to touch the sky. Everything was flashing pink and red and green and blue. And every block looked exactly the same. Thank goodness for Google Maps.

 

YUM YUM DIM SUM!

We trusted Yelp and Google Maps with our one shot at good food in Hong Kong. They did not let us down. One Dim Sum is the place to go! We read about long lines and expected to be in line for hours but we were able to snag the last table, with no wait at all. I swear, we ordered half the menu there and every single crumb was mouth-wateringly delicious. There was a serious language barrier, more than we expected, but we were able to get by with pointing at pictures on the menu. I’m pretty sure one dish was just straight raw hamburger meat, but I didn’t want to ask questions. I ate it, it was delicious, and I didn’t get sick that night so I have no complaints.

After dinner, we just wandered and explored. We found outdoor markets, strange food and animal shops, lots and lots of knock-off electronic stores, and more clothing stores than I ever thought would fit on one block. Stress began to set in around 10pm when both our phones only had about 5% battery left, we were completely lost, and we knew that the hotel shuttle stopped running from Tung Chung Station at 10pm. Having just spent a couple weeks in a tropical and hot part of the world, I also failed to bring a jacket and it was starting to get pretty chilly.

METRO TRAVEL TIP: Bring a jacket! It may have just been the time of year (April), but once that metro got going, it got COLD! I was in a long skirt and short-sleeved tee, and sandals, shivering the entire ride.

This was our cue to start heading back. We managed to find the Mong Kok Station again and it was a quick and simple ride back to Tung Chung. From there, we grabbed an Uber (first time ever!) for about $5USD ($44HKG) that took us back to the hotel.

VERDICT

Don’t waste your long layovers! Try to time them so you are able to explore the area and get a good night of sleep before long flights. We were able to hop on our flight feeling refreshed, showered, and well-rested, which makes all the difference on a 14-hour flight.