WAMUMOF4
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Feb 10, 2011
- Messages
- 1,924
It's time to document before our trips start blurring i will put up some photos (when i work out how)but they will be the ones the kids took as our camera decided not to work.
USA 2011
Day 1
The idea was to go to bed and get up when DH got home from work that did not work! DH arrived home from work at 1:30am a quick shower and down the driveway by 2:15am we arrived in Perth checked the car in to long term parking and check in we were quite surprised at how many people were checking in to international on that flight and how many were going to Dallas.
All was going well except for the man behind DH who abused him when we got off the plane in Sydney for having his seat back for the flight
he didn't put it back until they had collected the trays from breakfast so i am really unsure what his problem was.
The kids had been well drilled that when we arrive in Sydney there was no time to waste as we only had an hour and 35 mins till our flight left so no messing around until we got through customs we get of the plane and go over to the transfer point and see a massive line we just looked at each other and both had panic
on our faces they tell us the buses are not running at the moment because the power has gone out. In my tiredness i know the day is only just beginning but i had already been up for over 24 hours i'm thinking were going to miss our flight
I didn't even contemplate that no power meant that nothing could run.
DH decides to take the kids to the toilet of course as they do that the line starts to move and people come from everywhere i don't know where they were all hiding we get to the front and i think im going to have to go to the back of the line and they all appear. We get on the bus go over to the international terminal hop of they usher everyone inside the doors and we get into the line to go through customs and lets just say i am really glad that day that we got cut into the line you could not see an end to it.
Customs were manually checking everyone in it took us an hour to get up to being processed which actually wasn't to bad really. The whole time we were in line they were calling out for passengers on certain flight numbers and ushering them through i actually thought they did a great job under the circumstances.
We rush through to our gate and then whilst we were sitting waiting DH decided to go back and get duty free Bundy to take over he asked them at he security point first if he could bring it back in an they said yes at that point we were still worried about having it taken of us. I was quite surprised that whilst there was a pat down area it was only selected passengers unlike Fiji where we all had to be patted down before boarding the plane.
At the time the plane should be leaving we were boarding and they said we were waiting for 9 passengers. The kids started watching movies and i did think that was a bit strange that the entertainment systems were already on but still didn't think that much of it. They asked the couple behind us if they minded swapping seats with DH so we were all on the same side of the plane and they very kindly did so it was still a row of 2 but just the other side i am very grateful to them for doing that. Then they announced that since we had been sitting there for so long they were going to serve us drinks which they did then DS 14 says Mum you know i have watched a whole movie and i am in disbelief thinking we haven't sat there for that long until i looked at the time. As they were serving drinks they announced that we were about to take of it was only 2 1/2+ hours late. Finally we are in the air DS14 and i both had gluten free meals and they were actually nicer than i thought.
I have to say that we were told by our travel agent not to expect the same service from Qantas we had had with air pacific and that they were quite grumpy with kids and it was not like that at all the cabin crew we had were fantastic they joked around with us and the kids and made the flight all that more enjoyable. I was actually surprised at how quick the time went and i much preferred the longer flight.
About 20 mins before we landed they made an announcement that only a few passengers luggage had made it on to the plane those of us from Perth thought it would be our luggage as we had all checked our in straight through from Perth no such luck. We filled in the forms to have our luggage delivered to New York in 3 days time Now we only had 3 suitcases with suitcases inside them but they had our video and camera chargers my nebuliser our changes of clothes and most importantly the Tom Tom shopping was not on the agenda till NY.
We went through immigration had a great lady joking around with us and telling us things we should go see in NY then we got to customs and as we had declared we had more than 10g in cash we had to go to a different line they gave me forms to fill out whilst we were waiting and the guy was chatting to me whilst i was filling them out and i jokingly said to him with the way the economy is here i thought you would be busting to let us cashed up Aussies in to shop. He laughed and said your right you know and when the lady came over to process us he said to her this lady says she is here to shop and i believe her she took our paper work and had it stamped and let us through as we started to walk through with 1 carry on bag she said where is your luggage and we said still in Sydney and she said to us your part of that group are you. We then headed down to catch the bus to pick up the hire car even though we had prepaid the guy still wasted half an hour of our time trying to get us to upgrade the car and it was quite annoying we stuck to the minivan we had booked. By the time we drove out it was 6.10pm and we were tired and hungry.
We drove for about an hour and then we decided we would just go to Walmart and get a change of clothes and there was a McDonald's that we would eat there i ordered the food and handed over a $50 it was all i had and the servers eyes lit up and he he held it up and had a big grin on his face as if he had never seen one before and this kinda freaked us out and then the manager came over and said are you Australians we said yes and he told us they had some in there the other week as well. We sat down and ate and i said to Dh i think we picked a bad area lets hurry up and get what we need and get out of here. It was still 9pm when we left the store.
We drove to Greenville TX and we checked in to a Comfort suites where we all very gladly showered and dived into bed.
USA 2011
Day 1
The idea was to go to bed and get up when DH got home from work that did not work! DH arrived home from work at 1:30am a quick shower and down the driveway by 2:15am we arrived in Perth checked the car in to long term parking and check in we were quite surprised at how many people were checking in to international on that flight and how many were going to Dallas.
All was going well except for the man behind DH who abused him when we got off the plane in Sydney for having his seat back for the flight
he didn't put it back until they had collected the trays from breakfast so i am really unsure what his problem was.The kids had been well drilled that when we arrive in Sydney there was no time to waste as we only had an hour and 35 mins till our flight left so no messing around until we got through customs we get of the plane and go over to the transfer point and see a massive line we just looked at each other and both had panic
on our faces they tell us the buses are not running at the moment because the power has gone out. In my tiredness i know the day is only just beginning but i had already been up for over 24 hours i'm thinking were going to miss our flight I didn't even contemplate that no power meant that nothing could run.DH decides to take the kids to the toilet of course as they do that the line starts to move and people come from everywhere i don't know where they were all hiding we get to the front and i think im going to have to go to the back of the line and they all appear. We get on the bus go over to the international terminal hop of they usher everyone inside the doors and we get into the line to go through customs and lets just say i am really glad that day that we got cut into the line you could not see an end to it.
Customs were manually checking everyone in it took us an hour to get up to being processed which actually wasn't to bad really. The whole time we were in line they were calling out for passengers on certain flight numbers and ushering them through i actually thought they did a great job under the circumstances.
We rush through to our gate and then whilst we were sitting waiting DH decided to go back and get duty free Bundy to take over he asked them at he security point first if he could bring it back in an they said yes at that point we were still worried about having it taken of us. I was quite surprised that whilst there was a pat down area it was only selected passengers unlike Fiji where we all had to be patted down before boarding the plane.
At the time the plane should be leaving we were boarding and they said we were waiting for 9 passengers. The kids started watching movies and i did think that was a bit strange that the entertainment systems were already on but still didn't think that much of it. They asked the couple behind us if they minded swapping seats with DH so we were all on the same side of the plane and they very kindly did so it was still a row of 2 but just the other side i am very grateful to them for doing that. Then they announced that since we had been sitting there for so long they were going to serve us drinks which they did then DS 14 says Mum you know i have watched a whole movie and i am in disbelief thinking we haven't sat there for that long until i looked at the time. As they were serving drinks they announced that we were about to take of it was only 2 1/2+ hours late. Finally we are in the air DS14 and i both had gluten free meals and they were actually nicer than i thought.
I have to say that we were told by our travel agent not to expect the same service from Qantas we had had with air pacific and that they were quite grumpy with kids and it was not like that at all the cabin crew we had were fantastic they joked around with us and the kids and made the flight all that more enjoyable. I was actually surprised at how quick the time went and i much preferred the longer flight.
About 20 mins before we landed they made an announcement that only a few passengers luggage had made it on to the plane
those of us from Perth thought it would be our luggage as we had all checked our in straight through from Perth no such luck. We filled in the forms to have our luggage delivered to New York in 3 days time Now we only had 3 suitcases with suitcases inside them but they had our video and camera chargers my nebuliser our changes of clothes and most importantly the Tom Tom shopping was not on the agenda till NY.We went through immigration had a great lady joking around with us and telling us things we should go see in NY then we got to customs and as we had declared we had more than 10g in cash we had to go to a different line they gave me forms to fill out whilst we were waiting and the guy was chatting to me whilst i was filling them out and i jokingly said to him with the way the economy is here i thought you would be busting to let us cashed up Aussies in to shop. He laughed and said your right you know and when the lady came over to process us he said to her this lady says she is here to shop and i believe her she took our paper work and had it stamped and let us through as we started to walk through with 1 carry on bag she said where is your luggage and we said still in Sydney and she said to us your part of that group are you. We then headed down to catch the bus to pick up the hire car even though we had prepaid the guy still wasted half an hour of our time trying to get us to upgrade the car and it was quite annoying we stuck to the minivan we had booked. By the time we drove out it was 6.10pm and we were tired and hungry.
We drove for about an hour and then we decided we would just go to Walmart and get a change of clothes and there was a McDonald's that we would eat there i ordered the food and handed over a $50 it was all i had and the servers eyes lit up and he he held it up and had a big grin on his face as if he had never seen one before and this kinda freaked us out and then the manager came over and said are you Australians we said yes and he told us they had some in there the other week as well. We sat down and ate and i said to Dh i think we picked a bad area lets hurry up and get what we need and get out of here. It was still 9pm when we left the store.
We drove to Greenville TX and we checked in to a Comfort suites where we all very gladly showered and dived into bed.
me too, makes me 
for our upcoming trip. 39 sleeps.
