Here We Go Again!

After seeing many of our friends off on their own overseas adventures in the last few weeks, it was finally time to start ours.

On today's itinerary, Brisbane to Sydney, then Sydney to Honolulu.

The Brisbane to Sydney flight turned out to be on one of Virgin Blue's Embraer 190 jets. It was our first flight on the E190 and we were very impressed. They moved us up to row 3 which were Premium Economy seats with lots of leg room. A fun cabin crew (the 2 Sarah's) showed plenty of "Virgin Flair". Our approach into Sydney took us over the harbour giving great views of the city on a beautiful morning.

After a great start, things turned pear shaped for a bit. We had to wait an hour for check-in to open and then stand in the check in queue for about an hour. Starclass had its own check-in lane but there was only one counter for it and each check-in seemed to take forever. The economy queue moved much faster which was very frustrating. Not happy Jetstar!

We cleared Customs and headed for the Qantas Business Class Lounge (complimentary with Starclass) where we could finally relax, have one or two (or four - Mel would be so proud) glasses of bubbles and some nibbles.

In a much better mood we went to the gate only to have to wait.....again. After an hour's delay (maintenance - inflight entertainment system) we finally got to board the A330-202 (a white one!) for the 9.5 hour flight up to Honolulu. Starclass offers a large leather seat, leg room, all meals, drinks and you own personal digital video player. It was better than expected but apart from the seat, it was essentially what economy used to be.

The cabin crew were very nice, especially the Cabin Manager who was most attentive to our glasses of bubbles. After a tasty dinner we both watched the movie "Forgetting Sarah Marshall". I (Brad) then attempted to get some sleep while Ben soldiered on with the bubbles and another movie "Funny Games". Don't ask Ben how the movie finishes though, he couldn't see through all the bubbles!

I managed around 3 hours sleep, Ben unfortunately got less. See the "things we've learnt" blog below.

Finally the sun came up and the island of Oahu appeared. It didn't seem like a year since we'd been to Hawaii, it was almost like coming home. We caught a cab to the hotel to drop the bags off at the hotel (damn 3.00pm check-ins!) and walked over to the Ala Moana Shopping Centre. First purchase for me, a 16GB iPod Nano (one of the new ones - black). Even with the lower exchange rate it was still $50 cheaper than back home. Ben bought himself a lovely pendant from Tiffany & Co. that was also considerably cheaper than in Oz.

We ate (pork buns & Cinnabon!!), walked around the shopping centre, ate again (beer, chicken strips and fries) to kill some time and keep ourselves awake. At last, 3.00pm rolled around and we could check-in. Time for a nap and shower before heading out for dinner. Big queues at the Cheesecake Factory and a few other places lead us to Moose McGillycuddy's (an old favourite) for dinner. We picked up a couple of bargains at Macy's on the way home before calling it a day. Man that was a long Friday!!