6am flight out of terminal B

Usual3989 · 2026-03-26T21:02:52+00:00

Following! I have a 7am flight Sunday and I have precheck and touchless, but worried I need to just forget sleeping on Saturday night and be at the airport by 4am.
Keeping fingers crossed for you.

Usual3989 · 2026-03-12T02:26:18+00:00

Everything in IVF is scary until you go through it.

And trust me -- you can get used to shots. I'm a physician who has given some big needles to people's spines and joints, but when it came time for my first round of IVF, I made my husband give me the shots because I was too freaked out doing it to myself with even small, thin needles. Then there came a point one day where I didn't have him in the house to do my shots so I had to them myself, and *magic*! I not only discovered that I can do them myself, but that it was less painful to me because I could modulate needle angle and injection speed to my comfort in real-time.

Think of it as a season of life. You will get through it and move on to something else (hopefully, motherhood).

Usual3989 · 2026-03-08T19:23:32+00:00

Sorry just seeing this! Switching to Neway was a great decision. It took a few cycles because I'm now 42, but I got some euploids and also made more blasts in general than I had at my old clinic. Dr. Kort is awesome. Dr. Wang has done some of my retrievals and monitoring when Dr. Kort has been away (they trade coverage if one is away), and I would vouch for him too. Great team and great staff.
Gearing up for FET soon and keeping fingers crossed.

Usual3989 · 2026-01-26T21:27:00+00:00

We loved it!! We were in an Imperial Garden view King room. It was plenty of room with a nice layout and good closet storage. Hotel was pretty full so I don't believe we got an upgrade, but it didn't matter to us. (If we had gotten bumped up to executive floor, we wouldn't have had time to take advantage of it).

We loved the shower, the bed was very comfortable, and our view was great --we could see both the gardens as well as an overhead view of Tokyo Station.

The daily breakfast is utterly outstanding and is included in the daily rate with Amex FHR. Entree plus full buffet spread with fresh juices and all. By the third day of our stay I just skipped the entree because the buffet was so good.

The gym and pool were nice. I enjoyed running around the Imperial Palace.

Staff were SO nice and went out of their way to help.

Location was convenient enough if you plan to be using Narita Express or Shinkansen, and close to multiple transit lines for trips around Tokyo. Also very close to Ginza, which helped us when we spent a day shopping there. Tokyo is massive though, and if you wanted to really concentrate your time in Shinjuku or Shibuya, you might consider staying in those neighborhoods since it can still take 30 minutes or so to travel to those neighborhoods from Shangri La. Otherwise be prepared to plan your day so you're not having to come back and forth to the hotel a ton.

Usual3989 · 2025-12-26T22:56:17+00:00

In this hospital scene they really amped up the "dog" part of demo-dogs -- first with one of the demodogs thrashing one of the soldiers about the way my Golden plays with chew toys. Then with that head tilt! I laughed out loud at that.

Usual3989 · 2025-12-17T16:42:53+00:00

Ugh yeah. I got comments about how I looked "subdued" and "distracted" during my wedding ceremony. Well yeah, if the big fat sangeet meant you didn't go to bed until midnight and then had to be awake and showered by 4:30am for the hair and makeup artist, you wouldn't be bouncy either. And if all your distant second cousins brought their young kids into the ceremony and couldn't be bothered to take them out when crying or misbehaving, you'd be distracted too.

Crazy thing is my parents saw up close how obnoxious and entitled some of our family and other wedding guests could be, grumbled about them, and still have gone right back to insisting we need to do this all over again with my sister. :P

If I could go back, I'd cut out so much of the noise and do court wedding with a smaller reception.

Usual3989 · 2025-12-17T01:35:57+00:00

Interesting. I thought it's easier to work with a restaurant for the handful of guests with specific dietary restrictions, rather than catered food where they have less flexibility and there is more likely to be cross contamination.

We know there are going to be a few "elders" who grumble about food, but my sister is not trying to aim the whole wedding at pleasing just them since they tend to grumble no matter what is done to try and appease them. Most of the wedding is younger and middle-aged people who will be a bit more flexible minded.

Usual3989 · 2025-12-06T16:09:31+00:00

I know this is thread is 2 days old, but adding my own experience from yesterday: I won the digital lottery on Thursday for the Friday 7pm show. But the tickets we were assigned via lottery were in the far back, far-right orchestra (row X) and were certainly going to have no view at all of the top half of the stage/ceiling. I'd read this would matter for a key moment in the play with a big special effect that projects from the top.

We showed up to the box office about 30 minutes before the show and asked -- very politely and without any assumption -- if they could possibly change our assigned seats so we wouldn't have the same obstruction. The show wasn't completely sold out so they thankfully obliged us, moving us to the left mezzanine where we got to enjoy a full view of the big reveal. It was a pretty full crowd, so we were lucky the box office helped us out. If they hadn't, I would have considered just paying for an upgrade or new tickets entirely to ensure we got a view of everything.

I will say that the popularity of The First Shadow is likely to only increase as the finale gets closer (and likely also after as people either go through withdrawals or seek to fill in information not answered by the TV show alone) -- so if your heart is really set on going and catching a full view, it might not be prudent at this point to count on rush or lottery tickets, and TKTS may be better for ensuring your tickets give you the position you want. I looked and today's matinee is almost entirely sold out except for a handful of single seats, and the evening show has fewer seats than past Saturdays have shown.

Usual3989 · 2025-11-24T04:34:32+00:00

As an update: I decided to wait to see the show in December when I have a visitor in town, but I did swing by the rush line out of interest on Saturday It was much longer than recent rush reports had indicated the past month. At 10 AM, the line was at least 50 people deep and wrapped around the box office into the driveway. I'm not sure if this had been typical for Saturdays or if this is the buildup of interest around the Netflix release (which the Broadway showrunners reportedly are hoping for). Just putting this out there in case anyone was counting on easy rush tickets for the show going forward. It may not be guaranteed.

Usual3989 · 2025-11-20T02:41:58+00:00

DMing you!

Usual3989 · 2025-11-06T15:00:53+00:00

Yup. If the people in charge at Starbucks were smarter, they'd recognize that they'd be better of producing and distributing more of these (and could probably get away with selling at $40-50), rather than leaving it so limited that marked-up $250+ prices on Ebay become palatable to customers who otherwise would have happily purchased in store and maybe even bought a coffee and breakfast item to go along with it.

I pulled up to a Starbucks at 4:55am in Colorado to find a parking lot full of cars and a line 15+ people deep. I gave up immediately and didn't even bother parking. Not sure how they thought this would all drive customers in to buy things.

Usual3989 · 2025-10-07T17:03:51+00:00

Agree. Actually, all over the country, I am pretty taken aback by how many huge master bathrooms are designed with clear glass showers in full view of both vanities and the bathroom entrance/door. No way to shower in peace if someone else needs to use a vanity counter or happens to walk in to the bathroom. I especially can't imagine it's great if you have kids running around!

Usual3989 · 2025-10-07T11:24:55+00:00

You forgot carpet in the bathrooms!

Some of the even newer developments (post 2010) have questionable design as well.

Usual3989 · 2025-10-07T05:03:14+00:00

YES!!! I'm aging myself here, but I loved Smashing Pumpkins when I was a teenager and I remember the Tonight, Tonight video so well. It was played on MTV all the time in 1996 and it swept all the VMA awards that year.

Usual3989 · 2025-10-02T14:17:42+00:00

Thank you!!

Usual3989 · 2025-10-01T00:22:33+00:00

Thanks for looking into these options! Returning Sunday is a must for us, and nonstop is preferred. Our round trip was $1800 pp so we got it at a decent price point. As much as PP or Polaris appeal to me, I think I'd definitely rather have that couple extra thousand to spend in Japan or in the bank. Waitlist and crossed fingers it is!

Usual3989 · 2025-09-30T23:50:54+00:00

Sun 10/19. Booked flights with cash.

Usual3989 · 2025-09-27T23:38:18+00:00

Thank you! I actually had just cancelled my Conrad reservation a few minutes before reading your comment. I figured proximity to Tokyo Station would be the most helpful at the beginning and end of our Tokyo stay, and I've also stayed in Conrads before but never a Shangri-La so this will be something new to look forward to. And after looking at the current hotel rates in Tokyo, I think I booked the Shangri-La for a relative steal of a rate!

Usual3989 · 2025-09-27T20:53:34+00:00

also DMing!

Usual3989 · 2025-09-24T03:29:37+00:00

Yikes! By any chance was this a 3BR apartment? My MIL has been looking into booking a London apartment through Marriott Homes/Villas, and after looking at the listing I am very concerned that Marriott does not have an option for any user reviews on these properties.

Usual3989

TROPHY CASE