Advertisement
Published: March 6th 2014
Edit Blog Post
Sydney Opera House
seen from Sydney Piers The story about our trip continued from Los Angeles Airport about 10:00 West Coast time on Mar 4
th. The International Terminal is pretty nice and we had been waiting comfortably for our flight. Boarding went smoothly and we got on our plane, which was a huge A380-800. This plane has several sections (basically rooms) and they were pretty wide and high. We entered through a door where we (the riffraff) did not have to walk through the Business or First Class people.
The plane is configured with 3 seats, an aisle, 4 seats, another aisle, and 3 seats. So we did not have an option for just 2 seats by ourselves. We did not want to have to climb over someone else to get out of the seats during the flight, so we got seats B & C (on the first aisle but one removed from the window). We were in row 59 and the plane goes back as far as row 88 (did we say the plane was huge?). But 2 rows behind us, all 3 seats were empty so the cabin attendant offered to let us move back and get 3 seats to share between us.
Sydney Harbor Bridge
seen from Sydney Piers Then one person from row 60 moved up to our 59 seat, leaving 3 seats for the two remaining people there too. Anyway, we had as much space as we could have hoped for. Each seat has its own display screen and controls to select whatever movie, TV shows, music, etc. to watch to entertain ourselves. Except the window seat sound did not work, but we still had two to watch when we wanted to.
The flight left about 10:30 or so and soon we were past midnight and into our “first tomorrow” for March 4. Later on we crossed the International Dateline so we got our “second tomorrow” on the same flight. It was a very loooooong flight – about 14 ½ hours. It had been dark about the time we left St Louis and did not start to get light until about 3 hours outside of Sydney (a much longer sunless time than any other normal day). We did get to sleep a few hours during the flight – Janet (because of her yoga classes) was more able to contort into a sleeping position (sort of). Bottom line is that we arrived in Sydney and
Part of Sydney Skyline
including Marriott Hotel we aren’t especially tired right now. Tonight might be an early evening, but so far we aren’t feeling to bad - just a little confused about what time we think it is.
They served a hot dinner and a hot breakfast during the flight, as well as a “snack bag” for whenever we wanted to nibble during the night. The meal portions weren’t overly large, but it was actually fairly tasty. Dinner also included a free bottle of wine for each of us, so that might have helped with the sleeping too.
Also good news is that our luggage made the connection and came out on the baggage turnstile in good condition. There were lots of bags to off-load (did I mention it was a large plane?) so we started to get a little nervous when so many bags went past and none of them were ours, but all the bags came out eventually. Immigration was a breeze and customs just required us to let a cute little beagle to sniff the bags – no problems though. We got the bags on a push cart and out to a taxi. The cab fare was pretty close to what we had been told to expect (no rip-off like had happened in London) and we got to the Marriott Hotel a little past 10:00 AM. Check-in is not supposed to be until 3:00, but they had a room available already, so we got directly into our room.
More good news! The 2 plane tickets were FREE using frequent flyer miles and the Marriott tonight is paid by reward points from when David worked for IBM. However the rest of the trip we have to pay for everything else, but these were our 2 FREE perks.
After getting settled (unpacking a little and resting for a while) we sent yesterday’s blog then had a fairly good sized lunch in the hotel. Afterwards Janet went up to the room to take a couple hour nap and David went exploring. It turns out that we are only 3 blocks from the Sydney Harbor Piers, so here are pictures of the Sydney Opera House and Sydney Harbor Bridge (both seen from the piers). We discovered after-the-fact that our cruise ship docks at a different set of piers, which are about 15-20 minutes away from here.
Later in the afternoon we both went for a walk and looked at some of the souvenir stores and the different nearby sights. We will have future opportunities to visit Sydney, so we did not feel compelled to buy anything today. Then we had a light dinner and adjourned to our room by 7:00.
That about completes this entry, with our major accomplishment simply being that we got here and are all set to really launch the vacation tomorrow. Have a good day – whatever time it is wherever you are.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.131s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 9; qc: 45; dbt: 0.0683s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb