Saturday 23rd March 2024
Woke up at a normal time this morning and because we had the morning free we took it mainly normal, going for a nice walk in the morning (watched the sun rise behind the Opera House) and then headed back to the hotel for breakfast and time to pack up our stuff. Since we had arranged for late check out, we ended up spending some time sightseeing by going up the Sydney Tower Eye and have some Devonshire tea.
We checked out and requested a DiDi for the ride to the airport. I had a discount code that would get us there for a good price cheaper than what the two train fares would be! The ride to the airport in the DiDi probably took as long as what the train probably would but it was slightly more comfortable.
We got dropped off at Terminal 3 (Qantas Domestic) right in front of the doors and the place was desolate! This made it easy as we got Heidi’s bag tag printed and I got my bag sorted using the QTag and unfortunately it took Heidi’s bag tag a few goes to get picked up but it eventually worked. Then it was time for security which was empty as well. Sadly though, my experience today was not that great. They were adamant I was smuggling something in my crotch and made me go off to a private room for a wanding and a pat down and a scan, which was negative of course. *sigh*. It was very embarrassing as they were going to make me do it without my shoes on and I told them that was not advised by my doctor (they don’t recommend I walk barefoot). With it all sorted out, it was finally time to get my stuff and we could explore the terminal.
The place was pretty deserted and there was some flights heading out around the country, but not that many. Still proof that even in Australia, Saturday afternoon flights are the best. Our flight was not full at all and a good portion of the seats in the back of the plane were open, which was fine with us as we would have a good chance of keeping an open seat between us (it stayed open… yay!).
We sat around by the gate and got a sandwich to share and then just waited for our flight reading a book. I had screwed up the time a little and in a way that wouldn’t affect us in a bad way thankfully. What our boarding time was, I thought was departure time, so we were ready to go a little early.
Qantas Airways – QF926
Sydney to Cairns
1535-1740
Boeing 737-800 (VH-VZC)
Economy Class (Seat 27A)
Boarding: 1515 (Gate 8)
Push Back: 1532
Take Off Roll: 1537 (Runway 16R)
Top of Descent: 1702
Touch Down: 1723 (Runway 15)
Shut Down: 1727 (Gate 20)
Boarding was called for Business class and Heidi was wondering where the call for people with assistance was. Well they were already onboard as that is what happens when the airline runs the assistance staff, they are all well known already and all lined up and taken care of well ahead of time. Once the business class had been called everyone lined up on the Economy side waiting to get onboard. I had to throw some trash away which was next to the line, so I got in line anyway.
When boarding for Economy was called, everyone else bum rushed the other line, cutting in front of a lot of other people and it was like being cut off on the road. Everyone made comments to themselves but never said anything and I was too far back to actually care. Eventually I scanned my boarding pass (making sure not to scan Heidi’s which has happened before) and then it was down the jet bridge onto the aircraft. There was no double door boarding today and it didn’t really matter as the flight was just over half full anyway.
Boarding was done within about 10-12 minutes of the process beginning and we closed up early and even left the gate early. We had a stupid quick taxi straight to the end of 16R which was right outside our gate almost. With no one in front of us, no waiting for any arriving aircraft, we pulled onto the active and the pilots just blasted us off. They didn’t even have time to give a small talk until we were already on our way out of Sydney!
We climbed out pretty quickly and I did not even notice the seat belt sign coming off and it was nothing like an American domestic flight where the seat belt sign pretty much stays on the whole flight, this was off with no fanfare at all. No one really got up at all during the flight, it was strange. We climbed up to cruising altitude and as we climbed up there was a smell filling the cabin. It smelt pretty good but I assumed it was drifting down from Business class. I was wrong!
When the service trolleys started coming out one started from the back and considering there was only a few of us back here we got served pretty quickly. They offered us mini sausage rolls with our beverage of choice. They smelt really good, they tasted ok, but they were greasy as hell, so I gave most of mine to Heidi since she loves a good sausage roll. The Bundaberg Ginger beer went down really well with the rolls. Add on a bottle of water and we were kept pretty well hydrated for our flight.
The aircraft did not have seat back tv’s like the one I was on flying down to Sydney, but it had streaming entertainment and free WiFi so both of these helped while away the 2 hours and 47 minute flight. We spent most of the flight above cloud cover, so wasn’t really sure where we were, but Flightradar24 helped with that. When we started to descend it was still cloud cover and for most of the descent into the Cairns area the clouds were still there and then right as we turned over Yorkeys Knob and heading in on final, did the clouds break. Not that great of a view, but it did the job.
We touched down in Cairns and had a relatively quick taxi to the gate. They were trying to walk out the steps so that we could disembark from the back, but all I saw out the window was a Qantas staff member arguing with the Menzies staff member for about 5 or more minutes and by the time the back door was opened, everyone else was off the plane so we just went straight out the front.
We stepped off the jetbridge, walked back and forth down the ramps that Cairns is famous for and then when we stepped into the terminal, it looked WAY different to the last time I was in Cairns (2011 I think it was). The terminal was full of all new food and shopping outlets and we came out into a small, newer looking baggage claim. While Heidi got the bags, I got the rental car sorted with SIXT and then it was off in our 4WD (thanks to upgrades) off to Palm Cove.