Monday 25th July 2016

It was a slow start to the morning with a final run through my old neighborhood (Heidi went for a “prance”) and breakfast with my folks. We made the final touches to our packing and then headed off to the airport. I didn’t really want to say goodbye, but I was excited to get back into the air. We gassed up the car at the airport thinking we were going to get rammed on the price and surprisingly it was pretty much on par. The drop off for Avis was not that great as there was not a single person present at the return area and then when we took the keys back to the counter, they didn’t seem to care at all. If we had not taken a photo of the kms driven, we would have had to go back to the car.

Checking in for the flight took a little bit, but that was mainly because Heidi and the Qantas Staff member were talking about Kate Spade, they seemed pretty excited as well. After that it was pretty effortless to get it all done. We checked our bags and all of them totalled up to the allowance for just one person. It was pretty funny. After stopping for a few minutes to get our departure cards filled out we headed down to security and immigration.

Security didn’t have much of a wait at all, but it took a while after they made me empty out all of my camera equipment into trays. Such a hassle. My laptop had to go for 3 passes through the xray and then get swabbed for explosives. Heidi got selected for secondary thanks to a “random” beep which was pretty bs if you ask me. What should have taken just a minute or two, took almost 10. O well! At immigration we were funnelled out through the smart gates (I wanted a stamp 🙁 ) and Heidi was totally confused (i had never used them and she was looking to me for guidance). I was just doing as they told me so I had no idea either, not a good start.

After claiming some tax back on my new boots (thanks TRS!) we headed off to the lounge. Unfortunately the Qantas Club was closed so all Qantas pax were headed off to the Plaza Premium Lounge. This was the first contract lounge in Brisbane Airport and barely just opened but it was still pretty nice. Plenty of food and drinks on offer (not that great on the cookie options) but Heidi and I had some snacks from Mum and Dad, so we were covered. I went for a bit of a walk to figure out the gate area, grab the reg on the aircraft and just get in some walking. Heidi stayed put doing what she usually does, playing on her phone. We relaxed with our snacks and some coffee for a while before heading to the gate.

Qantas Airways – QF51
Brisbane to Singapore
1215-1835
Airbus A330-300 (VH-QPG)
Business Class – Seat 4A

Boarding: 1145 (Gate 85)
Push Back: 1208
Take off Roll: 1222 (Runway 19)
Top of Descent: 1726
Touch Down: 1753 (Runway 20R)
Shut Down: 1800 (Gate C13)

The gate area was fairly full and we waited for a while to board. The flight attendants were already headed onboard as we got there, but the flight crew showed up 10-15 minutes later carrying some coffee. Showing up late to the flight thanks to a coffee stop is a little bit lame. But eventually we got to board. I was excited to try out the new Qantas Business Class seat but we all boarded through 1L meaning that unfortunately we couldn’t take all the photos we wanted to as everyone was boarding through the one door.

I got settled eventually and Heidi was enjoying herself spreading out and was planning on getting snuggly once we got airborne with the big giant doona waiting out the seat. We pushed back about 7 minutes early (proving that you can get onboard faster when you are not dealing with Americans). We had a long taxi out to the Active today at the far end of the runway. We went past a newly repainted 77W from Air New Zealand and a Thai 787 (although it was on the wrong side of the plane). No holding at the active, it was a slow turn to line up and then the engines went to take off power and out we went.

Climbed out from Brisbane’s Runway 19 today and a few bumps as we banked North West towards Asia. While we were waiting for push back orders had been taken on lunch, but once in the air the purser came through to give out immigration cards and speak to everyone. The crew working our aisle took our drink orders couple by couple and brought them out one by one, making for what felt like a more personal service.

While lunch was starting to be served I decided to try and start watching a movie, unfortunately that was not going to happen as every time I tried to watch something, it wouldn’t start. I had to ask to have the system go through a full reboot for my screen and it took almost 15 minutes for that to happen (which by that stage i was just having my first course arrive). Lunch was pretty decent, but the service was fairly slow. It didn’t worry me with this being a daylight flight, I was not in any hurry for any sleep. I was going to be up all flight 😀

After lunch progressed I reclined back down into a more comfortable position to watch a movie and just enjoyed the flight as the Australian coast passed by below. About 3 hours out of Brisbane we passed the final parts of the Australian Coastline and headed out over the ocean, towards Asia. Watching as the blue passed by below meant that our time over Australia was finished, and there was no going back, that part of the trip was fully over.

I relaxed in to watch another movie and do a bit of writing, watching as the flight went by. The cabin was pretty much dark apart from a few windows open (why you would want to sleep on a daylight flight is crazy to me). The flight had been fairly good, the crew were a little indifferent but not horribly so. The new Qantas Business seat was not too bad. This was a very different seat to what had been had before with the Skybeds (either Mk1 or Mk2). I had not flown in this specific maker of seat but have flown similar (Swiss & ANA). This one wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t perfect either.

The seat had its foibles for sure, but it was still pretty decent. I wasn’t happy that it was not really great for reclining while eating or working. You had to pretty much have the seat fully up while doing either of these things, there was not much choice. In bed mode it was great but the armrest on the outside was very annoying (I couldn’t figure out how to move it). I liked the fact that if I put the seat into bed mode the screen moved down so you didn’t lose a good viewing angle. There wasn’t much storage space in the seat I was in, however the middle seats had plenty. I was happy with the amount of space as the overhead bins were still intact. Taking them away would have made for a really bad experience.

The IFE system was very good, extremely responsive and was from what I could tell, an Android based experience. My favorite part was that if you wanted to check the inflight map during the video, it just paused the video in the background and picked it back up the second you went back to the movie. There was plenty of choice (although I had already seen some of it from our last flight over the water) across all categories and I wasn’t hard pressed to keep myself entertained.

As we approached Singapore they were going to run an afternoon service, however I declined in favor of getting a decent meal on the ground in town. This felt like a better idea than trying some of the items, that I didn’t think was all that great. The fun part of the service though was that all the options were offered in a Chinese Takeout Box. Something a little bit different. The fruit I got instead was a good snack in my opinion.

As we approached Singapore, I managed to find the Ready for Takeoff series on the IFE and spent most of the time watching that all the way up till landing. The approach to Changi sent us all the way out and around so it gave us a good look of all the housing around the island. On finals into Changi we came in over a bay area and even spotted a couple of hovercraft of some kind.

The landing was smooth and we taxiied back to Terminal 1 as we landed on the T3 side of the airport. Lots of good things to see to begin with including one of the 50th Anniversary SQ A380s and a Scoot 787-9. Once we pulled into the gate we didn’t have to wait long to get out and it was a bit of a walk to immigration but nothing horrible. It is so strange to be just let out into the terminal and not into a sterile area before heading off to immigration. Security is done at the gate in Singapore and it means that everyone is mingling in the terminal.

Immigration was a breeze (the guy didn’t even speak to me) but because we were through so fast we had to wait a while for baggage. We got our bags (eventually) and trudged off down to the Ground Transportation desk to arrange a car to the city. Cabs are fairly cheap in Changi but when arrive in the middle of peak hour, and metered cabs also get levied at that time, it was easier to just get a flat rate cost car into our hotel (was about $10 extra). Pretty soon we were being whisked away to our hotel.

Wednesday 20th July 2016

We pulled into the gate and were off the plane relatively slowly but once we were off it was bedlam. A full A380 full of passengers along with also other flights that had hit the ground. It was a mess! The lines were stretching back past the duty free store into the terminal itself which was scary. I had to make a quick stop at the duty free store to pick up some stuff for mum and dad (that was a mistake, hello dealing with a US card) and then it was on my way to the line.

I had pushed Heidi to go on ahead after I got held up in duty free and we were separated. I got stuck behind several flights worth of crew in the express path. When we landed we had 1 hour till our flight boarded so less than an hour to make that baggage cut off. Well, that was not going to be easy at all. By the time we got through immigration to the baggage belts (Border Security was being filmed apparently, didn’t see them anywhere) we had about 30 minutes to make that cut off. This was doable if our bags came out quickly. What do you think happened? Our bags were the last two off the plane, and it was past boarding time by that stage.

So we made it through Customs super quickly and the staff told us where to go for connections. We made it up to the Qantas Domestic terminal and a staff member pointed us towards the Service desk to get rebooked. Thankfully i knew already the 1010am flight had space (thanks to Cranky Concierge) and it should be easy for them to fix that up. We reconsolidated a bit of baggage and went to security which was its true, Australian amazingness. Not a single person ahead of us at security and friendly people who wanted to help. It was effortless!

We got through and headed up to the Qantas Club where we were able to get a snack and a drink (although all the coffee machines seemed to be broken… what the hell!) and we were able to call home and let them know of the new arrival time (just an hour later). Everything was able to calm back down. Unfortunately not enough time for a shower today or even a change really, just enough time to clean my teeth and feel somewhat better.

The QF Club had great views of the ramp and of our gate in particular. What was fantastic was that we were able to watch our plane pull in. Not just any plane, it was one of Qantas’s two Retro Liveries. I was hoping to get to see one while I was here, but flying one was a double treat. A lot of people were at the window taking photos when it rolled in and I was super excited. We started to head towards the gate not long after that which took about 5 minutes or so.

Qantas Airways – QF612
Melbourne Tullamarine to Brisbane
1010-1220
Boeing 737-800 (VH-VXQ – Retro Roo II)
Economy Class – Seat 18A

Boarding: 0956 (Gate B22)
Push Back: 1006
Take off Roll: 1028 (Runway 16)
Top of Descent: 1150
Touch Down: 1213 (Runway 01)
Shut Down: 1217 (Gate 24)

I had barely been at the gate to take a few more photos when 2 old ladies were pre boarded and then seconds later a very informal “come on in guys” to the line of people waiting happened. There was a good 10 people onboard before they made an announcement. I had totally forgotten just how pleasant flying could be. As we stepped onboard there was the traditional wall plaque of the Qantas logo, but this one was the retro logo, which gave it the old “Flying Kangaroo” name as it was a Kangaroo with wings. Couldn’t get a photo at the time but I was determined to do so later.

We got ourselves sorted in the seats and boarding was set for about 25 minutes, so way less than in the USA and although the flight wasn’t 100% full today, It still pushed back 6 minutes early. Take that Alaska! This was the first flight on this trip so far where we had been on time. Crazy! The push back took a few minutes and then it was off to the runway where we were number 3 for line up. But that number 3 had to wait for a number of arrivals first.

By the time we lined up there was another 6 or 7 planes waiting to go after us. We were up and into the air pretty easily and within a minute or two the seat belt sign went off. Service started quickly and they had everyone covered with headphones and also with newspapers. After that it was a good 10 or 15 minutes (on a 1 hour 45 minute flight) till they had the snack trolleys out. Only one pass through of the drink trolley today (I made sure to get coffee to keep me going through the day) and some snacks. No real choice it was both Savory and Sweet snacks today and i traded my savory for heidi’s sweet. Good Luken and May cookies on offer this morning of which I only had half and kept the other half for later.

I was watching TV shows on the tablet for most of the flight and just relaxing looking out the window. I did manage to get up and take a photo of the Retro Roo logo by the front door (I made sure to ask about going forward into the Business Class cabin which would have been required in the states but the Qantas crew just laughed and said not to worry). Even though this aircraft didn’t have the BSI it had the newer QF seats and even a space lav fitted. That was a first time experience for me and it was quite the difference involved.

We started descent over the Gold Coast Hinterland and unfortunately I was on the wrong side so didn’t see any of the coast but I did get to see plenty of the city as we came in over it. It looked so different and just so built up now in comparison. Everything seemed so different. I was shocked. Heidi had fun poking fun at me as I was shocked at how different everything seemed.

We landed on Runway 01 and had a nice quick taxi to the gate. Everything at the airport looked familiar from the airside portion of things, but once we got to the terminal, it all ended there. I got off the plane into what seemed like a whole new airport (although to be honest I wasn’t flying Qantas much in those last few years) and met up with Mum and Dad. First time in almost 3.5 years. It was good to be home.

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.

Monday 18th July 2016

It was an o dark stupid wake up this morning after a night of barely no sleep at all. It was also going to be the longest day of my life. I had 3 flights to get through before I could sleep again in a real bed. By the time I got everything cleaned up and ready to go, we ordered a lyft to take us to the airport (hello 50% off deal) but that took a while as the first guy cancelled on us because of the distance. I thought Uber and Lyft were not meant to play taxi games.

We sailed over to the airport and there was not much of a line to check in. We got our bags checked through to Brisbane but unfortunately we couldn’t get boarding passes the whole way. TSA precheck came in handy today as we were through security in just a few minutes. Then it was off into the terminal for some rest, relaxation and a little breakfast. We rested up and headed out to the gate about 10 minutes to boarding. The aircraft was doing a short turn from Anchorage and was still letting off passengers as we got there. Unfortunately when boarding time came, the gate door closed and that did not mean good things.

We started delaying, with no real explanation and eventually got word that it was a maintenance issued, but no real information. 7am departure came and went and eventually it looked like an 8:30am departure. At one point they pulled everyone away from the gate area on the ramp and did a full engine run. Once that was complete they started boarding within a few minutes.

Alaska Airlines – AS462
Seattle Tacoma to Los Angeles
0700-1005
Boeing 737-900ER (N224AK)
Economy Class – Seat 8A

Boarding: 0750 (Gate D2)
Push Back: 0827
Take off Roll: 0841 (Runway 16C)
Top of Descent: 1045
Touch Down: 1106 (Runway 24R)
Shut Down: 1143 (Gate 65)

We boarded for what was going to be another wait. But i got myself situated and started watching TV shows on my tablet to pass away the time. Before I knew it we were pushing back on a fairly off weather morning and headed towards the runway. We had to wait in line for single runway departures this morning and on the center runway as well, so it meant that we had to wait for more people to land before we could hold on the other side. Makes for slow going.

We took off into the sky and it was fairly cloudy and boring so I focused on my t and tried to enjoy myself. I had been pretty annoyed for the lack of information and real caring on the airlines part, so being able to switch off was good. Thankfully we had a 12 hour stop as if this had happened with a 2 hour layover, not good things will have been said.

We cruised south and the crew were super slow about getting service out. Was this going to be another lazy Alaska crew like my last flight. Probably! Didn’t phase me, I was engrossed in my shows. 3 of them later we were approaching descent into LAX. The descent was pretty rapid but as we headed in I could see another plane running parallel to us, that was not good. North runway ops 🙁

As we landed in on the north runway it was pretty crowded down there so I knew that it was going to be a while till we got to the gate. I figured it would just be a long slow taxi. Boy was I right. At one point we took a full 180 turn and faced the opposite end of the field. Yep… penalty box time! We sat there a good 10 minutes before a crew member even confirmed that we were waiting for a gate. We had to wait for that, along with also dealing with an emergency on the ramp. A flight had landed and it was surrounded by 5 fire trucks and an emergency air stairs. Unsure why! We taxied past it eventually and got to the gate where we were soon onboard and I was able to use the restrooms…. Tmi?

Off the plane and out to the street to watch a National Shuttle roll straight past us. Had to wait about a solid 10 or more minutes for another one to come by. By the time we got over to the rental lot we were over 2 hours behind where we wanted to be. But at the lot we were greeted with a smiling face and when I asked where the convertibles were, he said “what color” and said he would bring one up. I asked him to bring us the newest one he had. He rolled back up a few minutes later in a silver 2017 Mustang Convertible.

We spent the afternoon grabbing some lunch at Souplantation (to make my wife happy) and doing some plane spotting at Imperial Hill. I managed to snap some good stuff and we headed over to the beach for a while so Heidi could enjoy the sand and water. I spent most of my time walking and or watching planes take off. We ran a few errands and finished off the afternoon at In n Out watching the planes land. Pretty good sunny afternoon.