Advertisement
Published: August 27th 2008
Edit Blog Post
The BIG one! Four weeks, three States, nine destinations - including DISNEYLAND.....
First Stop = San Francisco****
We booked our Airfares via House of Travel with Qantas. Little did we know at the time that Qantas were having heaps of problems with their planes until a 747 had a hole blown in its fuselage midair, then an engine failure, then rudder problems.... The flight we were booked on (QF25) was being flown by an ancient 747-300 which was due to be decommisioned earlier this year and we started to wish we had paid a lot more and flown Air NZ. Hindsight is a wonderful thing! Anyway, can't worry about things we can't change, so who cares - we updated our wills and hope for the best.
D-DAY arrives and we're just walking out the door when Steve answers the phone, handing it to me saying, "it's Qantas- the flight is delayed at least 6 hrs due to mechanical failure". I told him to get real, it's someone taking the mickey. All my friends know that this is what I would be expecting, and thought I'd fall for it. No such luck - this is for real, bugger it.
But it turned out to be our lucky day-we were offered Air New Zealand flight 06 as an alternative which arrived in LA at approx the same time that we were scheduled and we kept our connecting flight to San Francisco. YAY!
Air NZ were awsome. Near new 777 aircraft with inseat entertainment to keep the kids square eyed for hours. I think Jordi watched 8 movies (or part thereof) in total and only slept for a couple of hours at most. In fact none of us slept very well (as usual) and we were all pretty knackered by the time we got to San Francisco 25 hours after leaving home (the 3 hr delay in the the LA-SF flight didn't help).
Anyway, everyone perked up when Jordi managed to set the alarms going in the baggage claim area. I was across the room sorting out the transfer to our hotel when I heard all these alarms going full blast with 3 police on bicycles (I kid you not) surrounding someone near where we had been standing. When I returned and asked what was going on, Ash informed me that my little girl had fiddled with something she
shouldn't have and all hell had let loose!!! Poor kid, she was distraught with embarrasment (as you would be), but thankfully the policemen understood and it was a good lesson learnt (and a huge source of amusement for us).
Walked outside the terminal and little did the kids know that I had organised for a stretch limo to pick us up - talk about excited when it drives up with our name on the front windshield! This was an excellent way to transfer to our hotel. No waiting for shuttles, no dropoffs all over town and we felt like stars for the 25 minute drive into the city.
Checked into the Grosvenor Suites, and whilst we don't have the view I was really hoping for a higher floor, the apartment is fantastic and will suit us perfectly for the week. Plenty of room to spread out, a kitchen with full fridge/freezer and comfy beds to sleep off the jetlag.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.056s; Tpl: 0.017s; cc: 5; qc: 30; dbt: 0.0276s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb