The time has finally come to start this adventure. It has been in the planning stages for quite some time. The whole point of this trip was to make up for lost trips in the past and also for Heidi to get down to Australia to meet my folks, and possibly the rest of Australia. I won’t get to indepth into the booking of this but I will certainly point out some of the moments that have caused things to change.
The planning of this particular trip started over a year ago, back when I first started my current job really. There was always intentions of visiting Australia during 2016 as we had to wait out leave and time etc. So it was always going to be during the Summer vacation for Heidi. But it was a complicated thing as we had a lot of points stashed away, but only in certain places. None of which could really help too much. We had points with Singapore Airlines after we had to cancel the Japan trip, Points with Qantas and also with American. So we knew that getting to Australia would probably involve Qantas and coming home would probably involve Singapore Airlines (as we wanted Suites). What was going to happen in the middle, well who knows!
We got some stuff worked out after over a month of working through schedules and possible ideas, but once space started opening up, it changed quickly. In the end our trip ended up being down to Australia on Qantas in Economy (thank you Qantas for never releasing space) and then from Brisbane to Singapore on Emirates on the Red Eye. Then Singapore Airlines in Suites to Tokyo on the Red Eye with a connection to San Francisco on ANA. We would have 6 nights and an extra day in Brisbane thanks to the Red Eye and about 2 nights in Singapore for a good way to end the trip. The stop in Tokyo was only about 8 hours so wouldn’t require a hotel or anything as it was a daytime stop. Maybe enough time to go downtown if we were lucky.
Our flights for this Epic Journey would look like this.
Then the changes started happening, just weeks after we started booking. Singapore to Tokyo was taken off suites. Change that to a day time flight and now we lose a day in Singapore, but gain an overnight in Tokyo. Then Emirates cancelled its Brisbane to Singapore Leg, so we were rebooked on the Qantas Daytime flight. We managed to move that to the day before giving us 3 nights in Singapore. Then the SEA-LAX flights started changing. First we had 5 hours (what we wanted), Then 3, Then 2. This wasn’t going to happen with runway works in LAX and the only option they would give us as 12 hours. Guess who gets to go plane spotting! In the end it would be 5 nights in Brisbane, 3 in Singapore and then 1 in Tokyo (thank you 24 hour stopover rule!). It would be a lightning fast yet still pretty good time. Now it was time for hotels. In Brisbane we were covered. It is called sponging off my parents. But for the rest of it, we wanted to use one of the benefits of my work. I get some free hotel nights at some amazing hotels and I wanted to experience some good stuff (and spoil heidi).
Heidi’s folks decided to come (and so did a friend for a while but he pulled out) and we ended up deciding on having a big party with my family (which will be bigger than our wedding) and we decided to do a lot of touristy things. When we are finished they fly off to do other stuff but there will be plenty of adventures as well. It took a bit of arranging but this is what we ended up with (flights as well).
Monday 18th July
Alaska Airlines – AS462 – SEA-LAX – 0700-0950 – 737-900ER – Economy
Qantas Airways – QF94 – LAX-MEL – 2210-0700+2 – A380 – Economy
Wednesday 20th July
Qantas Airways – QF610 – MEL-BNE – 0905-1115 – 737-800 – Economy
Accomodation – Parents House – 20th to 25th July
Monday 25th July
Qantas Airways – QF51 – BNE-SIN – 1215-1835 – A330-300 – Business
Accommodation – Fullerton Bay Hotel – 25th to 27th July
Accommodation – Raffles Hotel Singapore – 27th to 28th July
Thursday 28th July
Singapore Airlines – SQ12 – SIN-NRT – 0925-1730 – A380 – Suites
Accommodation – Peninsula Hotel Tokyo – 28th to 29th July
Friday 29th July
All Nippon Airways – NH8 – NRT-SFO – 1710-1055 – 777-300ER – First
United Airlines – UA424 – SFO-SEA – 1440-1650 – A319 – First
It is going to be a fun and busy time!