Left home at 11:30 a.m. , Saturday, Sept. 5. Josh took me to the airport. When I went to check in, the ticket attendant said that I would have to pay $25 for a checked bag. I explained that I was going on an international flight and that baggage should be included. I showed her my itinerary with all my flight info so she worked diligently on the computer to get everything connected and was able to get my bag checked through all the way to Melbourne. YEAH!!! Thank you dear lady!
The flight to Houston was smooth and we arrived early. I had plenty of time to get to the next terminal and grab some lunch while waiting for my flight to LA.
Upon arriving at LA airport I had to transfer to the International Terminal and check in at the Qantas counter to get my boarding pass. The LA airport terminals are laid out in a straight line with no shuttle trains or moving sidewalks so you have to go wait on a transfer bus or walk. I chose to walk after sitting on that plane for over 3 hours. It was pleasant and only took me about 20 minutes.
The Qantas agent was really nice and asked about my luggage. I told her that they checked it all the way through from Louisville. She asked for my bag claim ticket and checked on the computer to make sure it was routed correctly. It was, so she issued me a new claim ticket. I had to go through security once again to get to my gate and wait 3 hours.
The flight to Melbourne left LA at 2:00 a.m. Eastern time Sunday morning. Luckily, the middle seat in my row was unoccupied so the lady sharing the row with me and I had plenty of room. That was a very pleasant surprise for the long 15 hour flight. I fell in love with the Qantas airlines. The plane was the large Airbus A380 which is a double decker. Service and food was excellent. I actually got several hours of sleep.
We arrived in Melbourne about 5:30 p.m. Eastern time Sunday afternoon which was 7:30 in the morning on Monday in Melbourne. Yeah, I lost a day due to crossing the international date line. It took me 1 1/2 hours to get through immigration and customs. There were only 5 agents working immigration and thousands of people arriving from all over the world (over 400 just on our plane). Guess they had some budget cuts!
It took another hour to get to our hotel so in total from the time I left home Saturday morning to arriving at the hotel was 32 1/2 hours. Hope the journey home is a little shorter. Ha! Ha!
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