Eight years ago, I took my seventeen-year-old daughter, Yam, to Disneyland in California. As a single mother, every baht had mattered — but I wanted to give her one extraordinary memory before she grew up completely. She fell utterly in love with the place. Not just the rides and the spectacle, but the artistry of it all. The storytelling. Design. The way entire worlds are built around imagination and emotion.
She never forgets it.
Now in her mid-twenties and travelling the world with an ease that still frankly astonishes me, Yam decided it was time to return the favour — and to go bigger.
“Mum,” she said, “this time I’m taking you. And we’re going to Florida.”
Walt Disney World Resort near Orlando is a different beast entirely from Disneyland. Four full theme parks, two water parks, hotels, entire entertainment districts — a self-contained world that makes the California parks look, if not small, then at least modest by comparison.
Neither of us had ever been. And we were getting there aboard STARLUX Airlines from Chiang Mai to Los Angeles, before continuing onwards to Orlando.
This time, I was the one being looked after.
For anyone based in Chiang Mai, America has always felt like a complicated journey. Endless connections. Overnight airport limbo. You feel exhausted before the holiday has begun!
STARLUX has changed that considerably. The Taiwanese carrier routes you from Chiang Mai to Taipei, then onwards to Los Angeles on a single itinerary. The CNX–TPE leg operates three times weekly aboard an Airbus A321neo and takes just over three hours. The transpacific crossing to LAX is on the A350-900. No luggage drama, no chaotic transfers — just a civilised two-sector journey with a sensible transit in between.
Yam had planned the cabins carefully: Business Class for the short Chiang Mai–Taipei hop, Premium Economy across the Pacific, and Business Class again on the way home.
Lounge access at Chiang Mai Airport set the tone before we even boarded. The A321neo Business Class was spacious and beautifully upholstered, with attentive service and food that was genuinely good — STARLUX works with acclaimed Taiwanese chefs, and the freshness shows. The airline also thinks carefully about atmosphere: signature cabin scent, warm lighting, curated music. Small little things that accumulate.
On the transpacific Premium Economy sector, the first-row seats offered excellent legroom and proper support. The blankets were unreasonably soft — cool cotton, genuinely cosy, and I must admit that we had a moment considering attempting to smuggle the blankets off the aircraft. I slept deeply and woke up over California feeling, against all reasonable expectation, quite rested. The Smiley amenity kit — lip balm, lotion, toothpaste, skincare essentials — was a small but welcome touch.
Disney World, for the first time. Four parks. We did all of them. Magic Kingdom delivered classic Disney spectacle: fireworks above Cinderella Castle, Tinker Bell soaring through the night sky. EPCOT did its particular eccentric thing. Hollywood Studios collapsed the boundary between cinema and reality — Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge alone is worth the flight. Animal Kingdom’s Avatar Flight of Passage had me feeling as though I’d long left our planet behind.
We also crossed to Universal Orlando for Epic Universe, which opened in 2025. Super Nintendo World was sensory overload in the best possible way. The Ministry of Magic section was astonishingly convincing. These are no longer simply rides — they are environments built to produce specific emotional responses. They largely succeed.
Before flying home, we spent a day in Los Angeles: Beverly Hills, palm trees, blinding sunlight and a pilgrimage to Erewhon. We bought the famous celebrity smoothie. At US$21, almost certainly the most expensive drink of my life. Peak Los Angeles. No regrets.
The return Business Class on the A350-900 was where STARLUX made its fullest impression. The suites have privacy partitions and sliding aisle doors. The lie-flat bed had enough room to actually sleep in super comfortably. I slept eight hours over the Pacific and woke up feeling human.
Sleepwear was by Paul Smith. The THREE amenity kit included a face mask and slippers. The food was exceptional: croissants, halibut salad, laksa, banh mi, fresh noodles. Service was warm without being performative. A transit through the Galactic Lounge in Taipei — which has the best airport salad bar I have ever encountered — and then a clean, cheerful Economy hop back to Chiang Mai.
That consistency across every cabin and every sector may be STARLUX’s most underrated quality.
Somewhere over the Pacific, lying under a very good blanket, I thought about that California trip eight years ago. I saved for months to give a seventeen-year-old one extraordinary day at Disneyland. I never imagined she would one day respond by flying us both across the Pacific in Business Class to do the whole thing in Florida.
This time, I was the one being looked after.
STARLUX Airlines operates from Chiang Mai to Los Angeles via Taipei, with the CNX–TPE sector running three times weekly. Visit starlux-airlines.com for bookings and fare information.
