Monday 18th July 2016

We dropped off the rental car at the National depot and got ourselves onto a shuttle over to the airport. This time I unfortunately got stuck waiting for a fresh shuttle to fill up. I had made sure that we had extra time today as we had to go check in to get boarding passes. We headed over to the Bradley Terminal to check it out. The last time I was there was way back in 1994 and back then it was a dump. Now it looks amazing!

Check in was a breeze and we had our boarding passes and instructions on getting to the lounge (though they were not as easy as they really should have been). Security meant the full show today unfortunately as there is no Pre Check in that terminal as it is mainly International Airlines. We got ourselves into a relatively short line and had to spend forever waiting as our bags had already gone through the scanner. Thankfully joking with the TSA agent got me to the front of the line through the WTMD rather than the nudoscope.

On the other side we headed off to the lounge and it was a rather large place. Took a minute or two to check in but they let us loose into this giant canvernous area. They had plenty of different spaces but my priority was power. I wanted to make sure that I got my phone charged up and I could do some stuff on my laptop. Sadly it was at this moment I lost my shit. No seriously I had lost my shit. I could not find any of my charging stuff at all. This wa NOT good. I checked through all my bags and tracked it back and it must have come out while in the rental car. Dammit!

I was on the phone frantically trying to track down all the stuff, but National was making things difficult. I eventually got through to the LAX desk and the bad news came out. The Lost and Found team were done for the day. So much for getting my stuff back! Even if they did have it, no way was I getting it today. Time to go and try and replace them! I knew I had some chargers back home in Australia, but the cable for my phone was the essential item. I wasn’t sure if I had one at all anywhere else.

The one store with the cable I wanted had them for $30 as they only had the official Apple version. Considering I paid $2 for mine, wasn’t going to happen. Heidi had a cable of mine so we were covered there thankfully! I checked with the lounge staff and they confirmed that there was a USB charger at every seat and a universal power adaptor as well. Problem solved!! I could deal with it in Australia (since I had other chargers waiting for me at home in Seattle as well).

I took the time in the evening to use the one real charging area of the lounge, write some trip report and relax as best I could. Airline cutlery may have made it into my bag, or it may not have 😉 The food was pretty decent and it was changing up most of the night. It became extremely packed in the lounge though and we started to head out to the lounge with about 20 minutes to go. I wanted to get onboard fairly shortly after it started.

Qantas Airways – QF94
Los Angeles to Melbourne Tullamarine
2215-0700
Airbus A380 (VH-OQL)
Economy Class – Seat 36K

Boarding: 2132 (Gate: 156)
Push Back: 2257
Take Off Roll: 2339 (Runway 25L)
Top of Descent: 0708
Touch Down: 0738 (Runway 16)
Shut Down: 0745 (Gate D9)

Boarding was called and I had checked beforehand as to how we board since we were not on the main Economy deck. We had 2 seats in the 5 rows of seats on the upper deck. So we were wayyyyy down the back, but better than the same on the lower deck to be honest. We got onboard and had to walk all the way through Business and Premium Economy. The small cabin at the back was pretty good. We had 2 seats in the very last row and they were right in front of the Galley side. We didn’t have to deal with the rest room side.

Once we got settled in to our seats (thankfully the window has the side storage bins on the upper deck… woooooo) it was time to wait. I was fending off snuggly wife every few minutes so I had my hands full. We waited quite a while. Departure time came and went and thanks to the Skycam I could tell when the boarding doors were still open. We had a wierd guy up the back sitting just about anywhere he could in the hopes someone didn’t show up. Suck it up moron and take your seat!

We eventually pushed back almost 45 minutes late and at that point we had been onboard like an hour and a half. Ugh… so not going to be a good connection in Melbourne. Life was going to be rough. The crew up the back were pretty good, after a small grill about my batteries (stupid lithium battery problems these days) they were really friendly to everyone. We even got a pre departure beverage which was really nice as they had to many poured from Premium. Being upstairs has its benefits!

Took a while to push and get started up. Taxiing at LAX is all over the shop these days. We headed to the east, to go back west. Down the far side taxiway for some reason. Ugh… confusion. We finally got our turn to take off and it was a long slow climb away from the USA, out over the pacific. The seat belt sign went off at a non us airline point so we were able to really get ourselves settled before things got too out of hand. The meals were being heated up so the cabin started smelling of deliciousness.

One downside to our seat was the fact that we were the last ones to be served, so there may not have been much choice. But they had all options and the best part. They had Premium Econ leftovers, which are a larger portion. Qantas has stopped giving the whole tray style main meal thing and it is really more a plate with the meal placed on top of it. Apparently makes it quicker and easier to clean. It is also less food, which is good when it is almost 1am. This meal should be more a snack than a full meal. Food was good, giving my wife her first real drink of Bundy though, that was priceless. The crew were not light on the pouring either, very generous tonight!

Once the meal had been served and cleaned, I had been starting to drift off. So I did my best to get some form of rest. Next thing I know almost 2-3 hours had passed! That was probably about as good as it would get and Heidi had just woken up, so we swapped seats as I was pretty sure my sleeping was done. I tried for a little while longer and failed, so I decided to just run with it. Coffee and snack time!! Spent the rest of the time finishing off the movie I had started and then writing. Interspersing the time with walks and chats really helped me out!

It wasn’t an easy flight, but it had it’s moments. I was happy to be on the flight and once I got this flight over and done with, all the rest of the long haul would be much, much easier!

After a little while longer I had been watching another movie and again halfway through it, fell asleep. Nothing but consistent apparently! But the flight continued on. I went for some real coffee at one point while Heidi was awake and I was even given it from a real china cup! Nothing but amazing service from the crew today. I was very impressed!

Within a few hours of landing there was smells filling the cabin and that meant one thing. Fooooooooood. Breakfast was either a hot breakfast of the usual styles (eggs etc) or a fruit platter. Heidi went with the eggs, I went with the fruit. Both looked good and Heidi scored a premium economy version again! A couple of coffees later I was finished watching TV and we were approaching Australian shores. We crossed the coast just south of Sydney, thought we couldn’t see anything due to cloud. We were definitely going to be late so that was going to eat into that connection time. It was all going to come down to how long we spend in immigration and waiting for a bag.

We came in from the north of Melbourne so there was no real views, only of the surrounding airport area and we were off the runway fairly quickly. We got to the gate in a short amount of time, but had to wait to get off the plane. We were the final people off the upper deck, but that put us right in the middle of bedlam.