Homeward Bound!
Finally, it was time to head home. Fortunately as we were already in Orlando, the journey home took only 4 flights (3 for Dave).We left the hotel and set of for Orlando Airport. Given our experiences with airports to date, we decided to allow ourselves plenty of time. As luck (or is that Murphy's Law) would have it, we managed to check-in in record time (after having to go through our bags in front of everyone to try and distribute the weight a little better - which also involved the throwing out of a few non-essential and replacable things such as product packaging, shampoo, etc). Anyway, after our amazingly fast check-in, we went for a bite of lunch. Given that the Orlando Airport was practically home-turf for Dave (after his 4 day stay here earlier), he was able to point us in the direction of where best to eat!
Even though we still had heaps of time up our sleeves, we then thought we'd best get ourselves to Security to go through the slow process of lining up, taking out the laptops, taking off the shoes, etc. Our prior experience had taught us that this could take an hour or more to get through. But not this time! We walked to Security and straight to the head of the queue - there was hardly anyone else there. We were through security in about 3 minutes flat! Murphy's Law got us again - now we had to wait another couple of hours for the flight to take off!
The flight from Orlando to Los Angeles was pretty uneventful - which is really the best kind of flight in this day and age! We were able to see a couple of cities out the window - Dallas and Las Vegas - both of which looked really pretty and sparkly from high above and we were able to make out The Strip and some of the casinos.
We were a little nervous about our changeover at LA - we only had a hour between flights which we thought could be a bit tight, and we still were unsure whether we had been able to secure an upgrade using the points we had accumulated on the way over. We needn't have worried. We walked straight out of one plane and all we had to do was walk onto the plane at the very next gate. We even managed to secure the upgrade which was very exciting(!!!) as at least this meant I'd hopefully get some sleep this time!
The one catch was that Dave and I had seats about 10 rows apart!!! Luckily I managed to sweet-talk the flight attendant into letting Dave switch seats so that we got to sit together.
I then discovered that you don't actually get to enjoy all that Business Class has to offer when you are boarding a flight at what was about midnight Orlando time (which is what we were running at!) and which arrives at it's destination at around 6am! Having champagne and a fancy dinner (and I use the term fancy rather loosely) after midnight is really just weird. Really though, the only real benefit of Business Class is the seats - you can practically lie down on them! My tenth flight on this whole crazy journey and I finally got to sleep on a plane!!!!!
The arrival into Sydney was a joy (other than having to part ways with Dave, of course, who was heading straight home to Melbourne). Australia really does have it right. Instead of being greeted by grumpy immigration officers, I was met with a beagle! They are so cute... especially when they ignore you! After a slight hiccup (my flight had been cancelled due to some misunderstanding between Qantas and United!), I checked in for my flight to Brissy and sat myself down for a 4 hour wait! All the Australian accents around me and over the PA sounded really strange for some reason - extra ocker! But oh so good to be on home soil!
The flight up to Brissy was uneventful, except for a small-world experience I had when I found out the bloke sitting next to me had also worked in Antigua (what are the odds!). Anyway, I was greeted by Mum, Dad and Katie and we headed back to Mum and Dad's (via Big Dad's for a lammie - of course). It was great to see everyone again, and to be reunited with my Chloe! After a nice afternoon and evening with my family it was an early morning drive to the airport for my last (12th!) flight.
Home again, home again, jiggedy jog!
posted by Nelle @ 12:13 am
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