so this morning we sleep in a little, get up and finalise our packing. we can't find one of our luggage locks and trina lends us one of her spares. we get all packed up, call down to luggage services, and they come up with their little cart & load us up. from here on, we pretty much don't have to carry our own luggage, and we're grateful, cause there's a lot and it's heavy. we head down to check out, and they're suprised we're all paid up. they must have 20 people working the front desk, in shifts of only 2 at a time cause none of them have been the same employee we have previously dealt with, or know anyone we have previously dealt with. we left knowing that nicole was investigating our issue, and having all the confidence in the world that she would sort it out.
our last morning in vegas -- i had to open the window the 2.5 inches it would open, stretch my arm out & take these pics one handed so as to avoid the 'wrapping' on the window -- you are welcome
we went off and gambled some. carlo and i set ourselves a budget of $50 each and stuck to it. trina did the same, but won about $80. we walked away with about $5 in winnings off our initial input of $50, so we were down $45.
one of trina's winning machines with $48.99
we got pizza from pelegrino's pizza for lunch, and we ordered a whole pie, half vege for carlo, half meat for me & trina to share. it was not good or at least, not anything like the amazingness of ray's pizza from nyc. they do have a raspberry iced tea drink though that i found addictive. trina and i got a little frozen yoghurt to wash down the greasy pizza, then we were on our way.
huge pizza:
before we left, trina wanted to put $100 on a roulette spin. it was one of her 'must do' things in vegas. she didn't care if she won or lost, but she wanted to put $100 on and just have it bet on a spin of the wheel.
roulette wheel:
trina betting:
chip - hers is the $100 on red
(again, please excuse the grainy shots, i was down to the old p&s camera as my good camera was waiting for the battery to recharge & these were really bad lighting conditions)
not giving away the outcome, but trina definitely left with more money than carlo & i.
skylight at tropicana, similar to mickey's hat at DLR:
the ride to the airport was awesome, as i finally got my coveted shot of the luxor. the night before, i'd bought a post-card with the luxor on it so that i at least had a pic of the only casino i'd been unable to get a shot of... and then just as we were turning into mccarran airport, the luxor beautifully framed
as per regulations, we got there early, and as per our luck, there was only a 2 min wait for TSA/Security so we had plenty of time to wait before the flight. boarded & the Southwest staff were doing their safety instruction demonstration when the air hostess's hairpiece got tangled in the oxygen mask, and came off. seems she was wearing a longer ponytail piece. after that, it just got hilarious as she used the hairpiece to add a much needed dose of humour to the proceedings. she blew kisses at us as she finished, and we applauded the performance. nice start to our journey home.
our fabulous southwest 'cruise director'
an hour later we touched down in lax, got one of those little trolley cart things, and loaded up our luggage. we had to wait a while for luggage to arrive as an earlier flight with delayed baggage had delayed ours...
we had arrived in terminal 1 and our VAustralia flight was departing terminal 3. we didn't want to haul luggage onto/off the transport, so we walked from terminal one to terminal two, to terminal three. let me just say, that's a fair haul & i can see why people take the transport
we were a little tired & cranky at this point, so we begged assistance from the first person wearing a uniform we could find, found v australia check in and got all our luggage away. up past tsa (again, a tiny little wait, but nothing like the rumoured hour or so) and then into the gate area. as we'd come in on esta and didn't need the i-94 forms or anything, there was no customs or immigration check point or anything for our return journey, just the normal tsa screening and passport inspection.
we were in the same gate area that we had initially departed on our first lax -jfk leg of the journey, and we ended up in the same burger king for dinner. we were chatting and reminiscing, but by this time it's about 9pm and our flight is due to leave at 10.55. trina was making friends while charging up her laptop and camera battery, and i was reading. we go to the gate to sit down and trina weaves us over to a bunch of seats. we sit down and directly opposite us is a colleague from my previous job. of all the departure lounges in all the world
they were heading home after 4 weeks doing california, we were heading home after 2.5 weeks across the width of america. we were all busted and broken and tired.
i picked up some jerky
carlo got jolly ranchers which he & trina shared:
our flight finally starts boarding, and we're one of the last to board due to a slightly different boarding policy... we're in the middle of our cabin, just over the wing area. the same sporting team that flew with us bne-lax is on our lax-bne flight. omg!!! but they look just as tired & beat as we are so hopefully this will be a good flight.
cabin seats:
we find our seats, get settled and they start bringing around dinner straight away. i'd assumed it would be too late for dinner, but apparently not.
carlo's dinner - vege option
mine - beef burgundy with greens & mashed potato
we pick at ours and hand it back. we take them up on the alcohol though, thinking it would put us to sleep. no such luck. trina sleeps for most of the flight as does almost everyone on board. the flight from bne-lax was a nightmare. this is like a giant slumber party. awesome-sauce... carlo and i can't sleep properly though -- we get about 2 hours in spits and spurts here and there. i spend it reading and watching tv shows, or the first hour or so of various movies til i got bored and would change to a different movie. 14 hours goes by quickly this time, and shortly enough it's wake up time (or turn off the tv-shows time) as they're serving breakfast.
sunrise:
this time it's edible and i love the yoghurt.
carlo's breakfast - vege option
mine - omelette with sausage
we only have another hour or so of flying at this point. it seems like no time at all, and it's 6.30am and we're touching down in brisbane. now comes the nerve wracking part... getting our food from wwohp through customs and the quarantine inspection people. we'd filled out our entry to australia card, and there's a line at customs. we wait about 10-15 mins here to use the smart gate service. we all get cleared through, get our luggage and put it on individual carts. mine has a wonky wheel
we get up to the inspection point, the quarantine inspection officer looks at our cards where we declare we're bringing in food, puts trina and i in the k-9 line, and carlo gets cleared straight through as he's got no food. trina and i get lined up in front of a gorgeous golden retriever & black lab, who are cute and sniff us and then we're good to go. welcome home. carlo's not where we thought he'd be waiting, so 5 mins of looking for him later and we're all together. trina heads off & jumps in a cab for the ride back to her place, and we're in a cab heading home. it's about 25 degrees c with humidity in the 60s. it's hot and muggy and i want to go back!! the usa was cold and even when it was warm, it was only 20 degrees c with a humidity of like.. 0%. in the states, with no product, no straighteners, no hairdryers etc, my hair was fabulous. it looked great and shiny and sat perfectly. 10 mins after being back home and it's ruined. stupid brisbane weather - grumpy now. also the whole time we were away, carlo had no allergies, no sniffling, no asthma problems. the day we get back and he's reaching for the telfast & kleenex. stupid brisbane weather.
we pull up to the house around 8am & it seems terribly familiar & yet completely strange to be back here. we head inside, dump our things and open all the windows to get some fresh air circulating. there's no food in the fridge as groceries are being delivered tomorrow, so we grab some water & head up to shower. we're exhausted, and though we know it's silly as we'll ruin our acclimation to brisbane time, we head to bed.
we get woken around 3pm with a welcome home call from dad. he's at work on a break. he's happy the trip went well and he's pleased for me that all my planning & research & hard work paid off. i think he's most gratified that all the plans and confirmations and preparations actually resulted in what we wanted... we weren't scammed by any online companies, the hotels were exactly what they'd purported to be, all our shuttle confirmations were actually there, no delays in flights and such. which was actually very gratifying. aside from a few issues with people on the trip (yeah, i'm looking at you mr drunk guy on the first flight, and front desk staff at the trop) all of our actual plans (ie reservations, confirmations, shuttles, flights etc) all went off without a hitch.
ordered eagle boys pizza for dinner, had some friends over & retold tales from the trip. we don't have to be back to work til monday, and it's only wed night now, so 4 more days to rest and recover.
checked my email on day 17 (thurs after we landed) and nicole had written back... an internal investigation of our account was being done. trina's room had been charged resort fees it shouldn't have and the authorisation on my credit card was still outstanding. nicole got back to me within 2 business days of hearing about the initial inquiry. they dropped the authorisation, refunded the money and sent an apology. the manager had been given appropriate feedback about their conduct and nicole had even called her bank & explained the situation to them so they could tell her what she could tell us to ask our bank to do to release the hold on the funds. she was fabulous and went seriously above and beyond in resolving this, especially as this was right before thanksgiving, which is traditionally a hugely busy time of year for them. we will go back to tropicana,for sure, as we loved it there and this was really only a tiny blip on the radar of a great trip, and it was resolved quickly and competently. i'm not so precious that i'll let this experience sour me on a great hotel. but will i take steps with the front desk to make sure this doesn't happen again -- fo sure!
so anyways, that's our story. our first trip internationally, our first trip to
disneyland, and our first trip to the USA. it was fun. exciting. amazing. tiring. exhilarating. exhausting. and memorable.
carlo and i are in love with disney. when i was first planning, i thought 3 days would be enough to do both disneyland and dca plenty of times over. having been now, we know that you could be there for 2 weeks and not see it all (and we want to see it all. like, every single experience). so we're doing another trip. Nov 2012. DLR for 5 nights. WDW for 5 nights. WWOHP for 5 nights, then a final night at DLR before heading home. we're getting a premier passport each for DLR and WDW as it's the most cost effective way of visiting both parks and will cover us for our 2013 trip as well
then May/Jun 2013. 5 nights at WDW for Star Wars Weekend. We'll do a quick trip to NYC for 2 nights prior to WDW, but only a short trip in 2013.
in order to save up for this trip, we bought no birthday/easter/christmas presents for each other. i stopped having my hair done. we didn't go to the movies or have date nights or go to restaurants or any kind of luxury extras. we worked, slept, ate and repeated. all our savings went into the bank and we used most of those to pay for this trip. and it was so worth it.
now we're looking at doing it again this year, and we're talking about doing the same thing.. no luxuries, all our savings in the bank, some of it used for this trip. we're getting a new car this year, but i think carlo's been good and he's put up with me & my obsessive trip planning so i'm tossing up whether to buy him a ps3 for xmas as a surprise. what do you think?
we had decided to just have a 50 min swedish massage each, and a 50 min pedi each. We'd asked for our appointments to occur at the same time so that we could enjoy our privacy, but still not be sitting around waiting for the other person etc. we'd also been given the choice of male/female attendants. i don't really mind, but trina hasn't had a massage before & i figure she'll be more comfortable with a female, so i opt for 2 x female attendants.
i take the call & ask what's wrong. the card issue again. nope, it's all fixed, says i. nope say the front desk. there is still an amt of $148 outstanding that they couldn't present to the card. what? but the room for us has been paid, and all of trina's room except this $148 has been paid. yes, says the front desk. ok. clearly i miscalculated the funds on the card, i thought we had plenty on there, but we'll bring it down in cash, if that's ok? sure, they say. so we head down. 
silly us. 
)
. We are planning to include Vegas in our 2013 trip so it has been useful to read about the issues with preauthorisation charges.
