WHIPPERMAN FAMILY ADVENTURES: 2013

December 20, 2013

Swimming with Wild Dolphins in Rockingham, Western Australia (December, 2013)

Cody's brother, Kip and his family (Emily and Cy) came out to Perth for Christmas. We got a babysitter and booked a tour with Rockingham Wild Encounters to swim with wild dolphins. The boat takes you out and finds dolphins and they use quiet water scooters and drag you right up along the dolphins while they are playing in the wild. It's pretty awesome as they aren't in captivity at all and they never use any food or bait to get the dolphins to hang around. We were lucky and had a whole bunch of them around us for most of the day and got a lot of time in the water with them.

Kip, Emily, Eliza, and Cody getting ready to go out with the wild dolphins in Rockingham.

Found some.

Eliza and Emily, warming up with hot chocolate after getting out of the water a few times.

Underwater shot of a dolphin.

Close up shot of a dolphin underwater.

November 25, 2013

Rock Climbing with the kids (November, 2013)

We took the kids to the rock climbing gym for Family Home Evening. Ryder and Sawyer were actually pretty good and made it to the top of a lot of the walls…they especially liked the free climbing on the bouldering walls.

Sawyer, posing for the cameras.

Ryder, just hanging out.

Daddy, trying to make it up from underneath the overhang.

October 12, 2013

Halong Bay, Vietnam (October, 2013)

Eliza and grandma Toni making spring rolls on the boat.

Ryder and Sawyer making spring rolls in their cooking class.

Sawyer and grandma Toni riding the rowboats in Halong Bay.

Going through the cave at Halong Bay.

Ryder, jumping off the top of the cruise ship and giving the crew a show.

Eliza, at the front of the cruise ship.

White Dolphin Cruises is who we went with for our Halong Bay cruise.

Halong Bay as the sun starts to go down.

Halong Bay sunset.

Hanoi, Vietnam (October, 2013)

We flew Jetstar Pacific from DaNang to Hanoi paying about $40 per person for the one way flight. We arrived at the Hanoi Hilton Garden Inn near the Old Quarter at about 7pm. We used 10,000 Hilton Hhonors points per room per night and booked 3 rooms for 2 nights (one night, then 2 days in Halong Bay, and a 2nd night back at the Hilton). They let us leave our bags at the hotel when we left so we didn't have to lug everything on our cruise, so that was nice. As both Eliza and Cody had Hilton Gold status, the rooms were upgraded to large suites on the top level of the hotel and breakfast both days was included, which was great and made the hotel even more of a bargain.

We walked from the hotel to the Old Quarter, which was a little bit longer of a walk than we expected, especially dragging all the kids with us (we should have just got a taxi or a rickshaw). We ended up wandering the streets for a bit, bought some DVDs, shoes, and then rode rickshaws back to the hotel.

The next morning, we got up early, ate at the breakfast buffet, then were picked up at 8am from the hotel for our 2 day, 1 night Halong Bay cruise. We ended up going for the higher end cruise which cost ~$152 per adult and ~$85 for the older kids (Zander, Nash, and Cy were free). There are definitely cheaper cruises out there, but this price was well worth what we got. The cruise included being picked up from the hotel, driven 3+ hours to Halong Bay, all meals and drinks while onboard the boat, which were plentiful and quite enjoyable. There was only one other couple on our ship, otherwise we had the boat to ourselves. It was a huge 10 cabin ship, with a nice open area on top of the boat and ample space on the ship for the kids to run around. We only took up 4 of the cabins.

Halong Bay and Bai tu Long Bay were incredible. The pictures don't really do them justice. It is peaceful and beautiful. It was an amazing experience to be able to be on a luxury ship and to cruise through some of the most breathtaking scenery we had ever seen. We saw some amazing sunsets and had an all around enjoyable time together.

We took kayaks through a floating village, were able to jump off the ship, even from the 2nd story, and took a walk through Surprise cave, which was very "surprising".

We ultimately made our way back to the port at Halong City and took the 3+ hour bus ride back to the Hanoi Hilton Garden Inn. We stayed another night at the Hilton Garden Inn, and saw Kip, Emily, and Cy off the next morning (they had to be back to Singapore to catch their flight back to the US).

We stayed one more night in Hanoi, heading to the Old Quarter for a few hours during the day to finish off our shopping before changing hotels over to the Sheraton Hanoi. We spent some time at the pool at the Sheraton and hit the evening appetizers pretty hard that night. One thing we should never forget is that Nash learned how to swim at the pool at the Sheraton Hanoi. He, all of the sudden, became very brave and confident and decided that he wanted to swim on his own. From this point on, Nash would never look back. We were off the next morning to head home: Toni and Scott back to the States and the Whippermans back to Perth, Australia.

Nash's first strokes as a swimmer.

There's nothing like a little downtime at the pool after a long journey.

October 7, 2013

DaNang and Hoi An, Vietnam (October, 2013)

Hyatt Regency DaNang, Ocean suites, had to return because it's our favorite spot in the world. Peaceful, no crowds, beautiful beaches, awesome pools, excellent accommodation and service, club lounge, Northface gear for nothing in Hoi An. Surfing, flying kites, kayaking, waterside, pool, Kip kiteboarding,

The kids playing soccer with mommy and grandma Toni on the beach out front of our beach Villa at the Hyatt Regency DaNang.

Ryder, flying a kite.

Ryder, trying his hand at surfing.

Nash, flying a kite, with our beach villa in the background.

Mommy, with grandma Toni.

Scott, getting some air off the end of the slide.

Ryder and grandma Toni racing on the beach.

Sawyer, racing grandma Toni on the beach.

Eliza, acting Vietnamese.

Shopping in Hoi An.

Trying on the PJ's that grandma bought the kids.

Sawyer and Zander.

Getting beat up by the waves.

Zander, bringing water in from the ocean.

Ryder, playing in the sand.

View from our balcony.

Grandpa, helping Nash body surf.

Daddy and Nash, playing in the water.

Waiting for dinner in Hoi An.

Sawyer, flying a kite with our beach villa in the background.

October 4, 2013

Phu Quoc, Vietnam (October, 2013)

Traveling from Kuala Lumpur, we were headed to Phu Quoc, which is a small island off the southwestern side of Vietnam in the Gulf of Thailand. We had heard great things about Phu Quoc and didn't make it there last year, so we were determined to get there this time. It is a little inconvenient since you pretty much have to fly from and back to Ho Chi Minh City to get there.

The travel times were tight, so instead of going all the way from Kuala Lumpur to Phu Quoc, we decided to stay the night in Ho Chi Minh City. We stayed at the Sheraton Saigon Hotel and Towers, redeeming 11,000 points/night (33,000 points total for 3 rooms) for club rooms that got us breakfast (that we didn't use since we were leaving too early the next morning) as well as drinks and appetizers in the lounge.

We pretty much hit the lounge for appetizers and then went to bed. Cody and Kip went out wandering in Ho Chi Minh City to some of the shops, but didn't really do anything. We woke up early the next morning, headed to the airport and the next thing we knew we were sitting right on the beach in Phu Quoc just outside our bungalows at the Sea Star Resort. We booked 3 water villas right next to each other just steps from the ocean for $85/night which included breakfast and airport transfers. We spent the rest of the day by the beach in the resort getting $5 massages, pedicures, braids put in hair, and lounging by the beach. We had some pretty good Vietnamese food at the hotel restaurant...the pork and vegetable spring rolls and the butter curry were the consensus favorites. A huge storm had just blown through over during the past week and there was a lot of wood, coconuts, and stuff on the beach. The kids loved picking up all of these collections and building sandcastles and structures with them.

Cody and Scott paid $2 to rent a moped for an hour and rode into the town, primarily to get some money from the ATM, but they ended up taking a wrong turn or 2 and riding on narrow back roads that were going right through people's homes, and trying to have the front tire span canal after stinky canal. At one point we broke up a cock fight where all the men were gathered and excitedly getting ready to have 2 roosters go at it. When we drove up, they all backed away, guiltily and rushed us past them so they could get on with their business. Luckily, we made our way back to the main road and bought some Mangoes and Pepsi to bring back to the bungalows.

We decided to get out and explore the next day so we booked everyone on an all day tour that had us visiting a pearl farm, touring a rehabilitated Vietnam War prison turned into a museum, hanging out at an awesome beach, taking a private boat excursion out to do snorkeling, swimming, fishing, and jumping off the boat. We also went to an amazing beach - Sao Beach and hiked to a waterfall and had a swim.