Fairy's big Sydney adventure.......

[El Orans]

Sydney Harbour Bridge Climb, BridgeClimb Sydney, Bridge tours

Either way, I'll have to do it alone.

There's no way I can get El Zee to accompany me...

 

[alcina]

Well, that's what the travel agent booked for me and I trusted him to know what he was doing.:11: I emailed Qantas and they said:

We have checked your booking and can advise that the minimum connection time required for flights in Los Angeles is one hour and thirty minutes and in Brisbane one hour. In addition the airport check-in staff in New York will be able to thru check both yourself and your luggage and issue all your boarding passes.

So I guess they're not too worried, but I'll be a nervous wreck.

You're going to have to sprint, I'd guess. LAX connections suck and it's the most stressful airport I've ever been through. Security was shocking last time I had to go through...I'm hoping it's better this trip.

If this is your outbound, you'll probably make it. If this is your inbound, it would be a miracle if you made it.

Looks like I'm passing you in the airports (well pretty close ) - have a fabulous time in Australia!!

 

[Doubles]

You're going to have to sprint, I'd guess. LAX connections suck and it's the most stressful airport I've ever been through. Security was shocking last time I had to go through...I'm hoping it's better this trip.

If this is your outbound, you'll probably make it. If this is your inbound, it would be a miracle if you made it.

Looks like I'm passing you in the airports (well pretty close ) - have a fabulous time in Australia!!

Actually going to Australia through LAX isn't bad and 90 minutes should be plenty of time if your flight isn't delayed from New York.

Qantas flights to Sydney leave out of the American Airlines terminal in LAX - not out of the international terminal. So it's really like catching a domestic flight. Now if you have to change terminals then you will have to re-screen which is what we do when we fly to Oz. It's not taken us longer than 45 minutes to change terminals, re-screen and make it to the club to relax before that looooooooong flight.

Coming back is a whole different story....

Alcina where are you headed in the states? We just came back from Oz a week ago so if you have questions about coming this way via LAX drop us a pm and we can give you the scoop on how it went for us

Cheers

-s

 

[almitywife]

El, after chrissy we need to talk as it might be the sort of thing hubby would like to do

 

[alcina]

Wow, you've been lucky. I've been flying through LA on and off for 20+ years on a variety of airlines and the times I can switch out in under an hour I could count on one hand! It was so bad that I usually do whatever is humanly possible to avoid LA now...this time there was no choice.

I land in LA on the 15th at 0600 and depart at 1830 if I can't get on the early afternoon filght to Denver. Will spend a couple of days there with friends before heading to the midwest for a couple of weeks.

Fairy - I'm sure you'll be just fine!

 

[Doubles]

Well I fly a lot and have the system down.

If you are do in at 6am the Customs lines won't be bad. Get in an hour later and the lines start to double in size. You probably know your going to have to pose for a photo and get that digital finger print.

If you purchase any duty free liquids and carry those onto your Qantas flight, you will have to put them in your checked baggage in LA. The rules on liquids at LAX should be the same as they are when you leave Australia. Thats bottles no larger than 3 ozs, and all of those 3 oz bottles must fit into a 1 quart bag. Only one 1 quart bag per person.

While in Oz we discovered that your post sells some really nice wine bottle packaging which we used to place some wine into our checked baggage. Of course the TSA here went through those bags a couple of times, but the wine made it just fine. The rest of the bag was a mess ...but hey the important stuff made it

It was bad flying Qantas out of LA back in 2002 when they were still flying out of the international terminal. That terminal is tough - the phrase "train wreck" would apply if you had to use that one.

You may have an issue when you land with your checked baggage. All of our airlines have differing rules on accepting or transferring baggage based on your layover time. As long as Qantas prints the connection info on your baggage tags you will be fine. There is a re-check station right as you exit customs.

If Qantas doesn't print your connection flight info then you have to go to the airline counter and try to check it. But thats a 12 hour layover - I am guessing you will have to keep your baggage for a while. If that is the case, I doubt you will be able to get back into the terminal as they won't let you through the security check point.

If you are going to try and catch an earlier flight, you would have to keep your baggage anyway as they really don't like to spend the time searching for baggage to change the tags and flights. Also many (not all) flights these days here are close to sold out or over sold. It is not like it used to be when trying get on a different flight. If you are using FF miles, be prepared to pay a change fee as there isn't anything free on free tickets anymore.

Oh and the airlines here are not completely like crapstar. It's not $7.00@kilo it's usually a flat $50.00 for over weight bags. But the baggage allowance is a bit higher here. (1 kilo = 2.2 lbs). No real food to speak of on our airlines - but coffee, tea, soda etc is free.

Hope your flight goes well - sorry your not going to make it to Florida

Cheers

Steve and Andrea

 

[almitywife]

...........e not completely like crapstar. .....

spoken like a local! heheheh

 

[alcina]

Steve - thanks for the long and informative post!

I may have confused you, though...I am American and have been doing the US - AUS - US and AUS - US - AUS for 20+ years

Happily on the way TO the US my luggage is less than minimal...it's dragging back after shopping that's always interesting

Didn't make Florida this year, but next year it's on the list of things to think about - unless we all decide to meet somewhere and dive instead!

Hope you had a fabulous time in Oz!!

 

[Doubles]

I may have confused you, though...I am American and have been doing the US - AUS - US and AUS - US - AUS for 20+ years

Hope you had a fabulous time in Oz!!

Too funny

We have been hoping to be able to do that - but it might be a bit late in life for us. Although while at the Opera House I sat next to the owner of a small computer consulting firm in Sydney. So you never know..I might get to spend more time at the Lord's

So I guess you won't have to worry about the photo op at customs

Lorraine - once you have flown crapstar it's easy to sound like a local - I thought we had it bad here with out no frills airline, but at least we don't have to pay for a water........

-s

 

[fairybasslet]

Ooo. I've been away on business and just now, finally got a chance to check out my big adventure.

I don't think I could ever eat Skippy. He is just too cute. And thanks for the fan, mate. Or should I say "Almitywife's mate"? LOL.

Hey, that room looks really nice. Shelves? Why would I care about shelves, unless they fall off the wall and hit me in the head. Even then, I might not notice.

As for the Oly 7070, we can both curse the fact that the damn thing has an aversion to focusing. I did spring for a focusing light for this trip. I figure "What the hell?" I just paid $700 in vet bills for the cat, $850 for a brake job for my son's car (don't ask) so why not spend some of my hard earned $ on ME for a change.