When you are mid flight between Sydney and Honolulu you would be forgiven for thinking you may never sleep or smile again. You are also forgiven for trying not to think of ways to extract revenge on the people who assured you it’s not a long flight. Leaving Australia is always a long flight. When your flight departs at 10:30pm and you are exhausted and panicked about the fact that you’re going to go days without a bed and a shower it’s worse.
Trying to sleep in a seated position with strangers as far as the eye can see is never easy. Add to that the fact that you dressed for airport and not for airplane and then to top it all off you are flying with a teenager who is known far and wide for his ability to talk continuously.
It wasn’t fun.
The highlight might have been when my son looked at me, possibly affected by too much photoshop and being awake for ever and said “you don’t need to touch up any of your photos. You’ve got a big space between your wrinkles.”
But there were real good bits. Like when the flight attendant felt so sorry for me being the only person awake on the plane (other than him and the pilot – I hope) he started plying me with business class gift bags and bars of chocolate. Come to think of it, maybe he thought I was calling for service because the way that Little Pencil had decided to get comfortable half lying on my lap meant that I had to sit poised with one arm in the air at all times.
I counted down the last three hours of the plane journey like a jailed man counts down the days to freedom. I grabbed my bag and tried to exit before the heaving masses but no such luck – the heaving masses and I were all stopped in our tracks. There was a sick passenger on the flight and the plane was being held in quarantine until she had been assessed. I’ll tell you what didn’t help – the fact that the captain called her a patient rather than a passenger.
When we were all cleared and the woman sitting in front of me had settled into panic rather than mad frenzy about the possibility of Ebola we disembarked and got ready to take the next flight to Maui. The airport at Waikiki is island style* and by the time we worked out where to go our nerves were slightly frazzled.
If only the flight to Maui was a bit longer we would have been able to recover fully before having to face the hell that was car hire pick up at the airport in Maui.
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We stand in the scorching wind tunnel that is the hire car pick up to wait for a shuttle to take us to the actual car hire place. Already I am seeing flaws in the system. We drag our bags on to the shuttle and head for the shed that Thrifty claims is their place of business. And it’s hot. And we have just come off two flights and we are exhausted. And the place is – and there is no other way to put it – fucking chaos. There is a queue snaking out of the building that conservative guesses says would take two hours to get through.
Little Pencil suggested we should have booked online. I nearly bit his head off when I explained that we had.
This was an airport – clearly we were not the only shattered, irritated people waiting in a heaving mass of exhaustion. It was worse than I can describe it. It was also the reason I will never book with Thrifty again.
We grabbed our bags again, took the next shuttle bus back to the airport, tried a shuttle service that would take 20 minutes just to arrive and then grabbed a taxi to take us to our hotel.
And as we stepped into the lobby of the Andaz in Maui every single bead of stress left our bodies. We had arrived in heaven…
*very relaxed with limited signage
Have you ever had a pleasant international flight? Ever had one seated in economy?
You have struck fear in my heart for my trip from Sydney to Dallas to Atlanta to Asheville (plus car hire hell at end of journey) on January 22. My eyes feel gritty from just reading your story.
Alana
You will be fine I am sure! Are you travelling alone or with children? I have just discovered one benefit to the dissociative amnesia that I currently have! I can’t access my memories from the last 3 or so yrs reliably. But my family tells me reliably that we went to Disneyland in 2013 with my brother’s family and my parents! I am told that one of my nephew’s was either so excited, air sock or perhaps even had a gastro bug that he pretty much barfed his way to LA so much so that the flight attendant had to find at least two sets of airline PJs for him to change into! So there were 12 of us on the same flight but somehow my parents managed to get seated quite a way away from the rest of us! I shouldn’t complain my parents did pay for the trip I’m told they are spending our inheritance on us while they are alive which is lots more fun (but would be better if I could remember it!)
I would have taken my knitting but given I am the world’s worst flyer which is always funny for everyone else except me and my brother & hubby were aircraft mechanics with QF and like to scare the crap out of me with stories of what that noise could be and what that one could be and they are never nice I am certain they did that all the way to LA, there is very little chance that I would have done any knitting! And even though my children have a perfectly capable father who would have been there every little thing they would have wanted they would have asked me!
Anything more than 30mins is a long flight for me! Who am I kidding I am such a bloody homebody I would rather stay home than go anywhere these days even somewhere super exciting!
But I am certain Alana your experience won’t be anything like mine or Lana’s!!!
Cathy xoxo
Oh heck. I flew Syd to Oahu and remember thinking 10 hours was MY LIMIT! I stayed in Waikiki for few days then flew to Hawaii. I remember the infrastructure at the airport back in 2006 & it sounds like it hasn’t improved. Thank goodness you are now in paradise xx
Fly from Sydney to Vancouver (14 hours) in economy with Air Canada, and then we will talk.
Mrs W – I did this with my then 2 year old. The flight attendants were magnificent and they let her sleep on the floor all the way, which left hubby and I with 1.5 seats each.
The flight back was a different matter. We tried Phenergan. She is that child. She screamed for 45 mins straight before passing out cold.
We have been burned and the furthest we’ve since flown with her (now 7) and 4yo twins is Fiji. Every time we do a 3 hour flight we are reminded why we aren’t doing an 8/10/14/24 hour one!
Dublin, Ireland to Sydney.
Two days before our return trip, daughter falls from not very high in a playground at Watsons Bay and fractures her arm. Thank goodness its a small fracture, but it is one none the less.
No plaster, cos her arm would swell on the plane. So just a really REALLY tough bandage thingy and a sling.
She only left G’s arms twice the whole flight to Abu Dhabi so he could go to the loo. She screamed the place out.
Detest economy.
Can’t afford business. Tho, really how do the airlines justify the difference?
hugs
x
All my international flights have been in economy and all pleasant but then I enjoy flying and once seated, I very very rarely move again for the entire flight!
I’ve done the Australia – UK flight 9 times, the last time being 5 years ago. I make sure to book a window seat, settle down for the flight and Bob’s your Uncle! I will admit that my last trip back to the UK, I got the migraine from hell about 4 hours out of landing in London and it was hell but I just sunk down into my seat, put a blanket over my head and tried my best to ignore the rest of the plane!
We’re hopefully doing Hawaii next year, which will involved a flight from Perth – Sydney – waiting at Sydney airport for a few hours and then onto Hawaii and the same in return, no complaints from me though because I also love airports LOL
Hope you have a great holiday!
We do the back to the UK thing with our two once a year. We always book a stop over (apart from when we fly via the States) and this Christmas last we did the whole round world thing. So it seems we’re in love with the long haul flight. Coming home from LA with a hub in Melbourne just about pushed us to the edge, but we were coming home. I actually prefer long flights with my two rather than the domestic ones – we all settle in to the own screen scenario and sit back and relax. So, yes – we have had pleasant flights in economy!
We travelled 22 hours from Melbourne to Zurich last year with our 6 and 9 year olds, and it was surprisingly ok (love Emirates, plus the novelty of a wide selection of movies. Not sure the Amazing Spiderman was a great choice for my 6 year old – bit shocked to wake up after dozing off to find her watching it, with the 9 year old cringing beside her. Still, could have been worse – she somehow missed The Wolf of Wall Street on the list of choices). The flight home was not so good though (the novelty wore off) – nor was running through the streets of Paris (metro lines being serviced) trying to find connecting buses and our wheelly suitcases kept falling down as we tried dragging them across the cobblestones as we ‘motivated’ the kids to keep going, but missed our Eurostar train anyway (tears all round, but a memorable day). Have to have one mishap, I guess!
I’m not trying to top your story Lana but I flew from Sydney to Amsterdam with 5 kids under 12 and one of them had the flu and vomited the entire trip. Shudder. Have an amazing holiday now you’re there x
I flew alone with a screaming 10 month old whilst very ill from NY to LA to Sydney. Did I mention alone? Or the screaming? Or the fact that he didn’t sleep the entire journey? Have fun xxxxxxx