The final morning of our holiday was an early one. We had to be up at 6am, to try and squeeze in a quick brekfast at 6.30am before checking out and being picked up by our airport shuttle at 7.15am. As it turns out our shuttle was early so we left at 7am. We collected a handful of other passengers on the way - all Australian. We had great chat to another Aussie family who had also been travelling through the US for a few weeks. They highly recommended Nashville and Maui. Hmmm another time perhaps???
When we arrived at the airport we were a little horrified to see that there were QANTAS and Jet Star flights with the same flight number going to Sydney - JQ4 and QF4. We were really hoping it was not a codeshare flight being operated by Jet Star. If this was the case we would be back to having to pay for everything on the flight and given they only take card and we can't use our credit card it would be a nightmare 11hours. We checked our baggage through with no problems but would have to wait until boarding time to see who's plane we would be on.
Customs and Security were straighforward. We then went to the food court to spend some of our last US cash. The food court is right next to a beautiful Japanese Garden complete with fish in pond. Just as we were about to check out books in the bookstore the flight to Sydney was called and we had to go to our gate. We were gutted to see two Jet Star planes. Thankfully when we looked into it a little further we found that although it was the right gate number it was not our flight - Jet Star were leaving at 9.30am and we didn't fly out til 10.55am. Back to the main concourse and the bookstore.
Once we had made our bookstore book and snack purchases we went back to our gate. We have never been so happy to see a QANTAS plane in all our lives. We didn't have to wait too long before boarding. Poor Ryan was quite upset as he wasn't ready to leave Hawaii just yet. We did hold our breath for a moment when we saw the plane was a 2-3-2 configuration with NO seat back TVs. Instead we found that in the seat back pocket of each seat was a personal IPad - which according to QANTAS is the latest state of the art in flight entertainment system. Yay - free luggage, food, drinks, snacks and individual IPads.
The flight was relatively trouble free although poor Connor was still feeling unwell. We landed in Sydney just after 6pm. We then had quite a few things to get done before we could board our next flight - we had to line up to clear Immigration, collect our bags, clear Customs, walk to bag drop, drop off our bags again, go back through Security again, and then catch a shuttle bus to the Domestic Terminal. Although we, and many others, were worried about missing our connection we made it with plenty of time to spare.
When we arrived at the Domestic Terminal as we were walking in we noticed another large group of people all in some sort of uniform. At first I thought, Oh, cool some sort of sporting team. It took me a few minutes to register that it wasn't just any old team, it was the Adelaide Adrenaline Ice Hockey Team. We stayed and chatted for a while with Connor's hockey idol, Josh Harding, Greg Oddy and Ryan O'Handley. They were very keen to hear all about the Friendship Games. Later when we were waiting at our gate. We heard someone call Connor's name and found it was one of his friends from school. Jack and his family were on the same flight back to Adelaide as us having just returned from a Pacific cruise. The Adrenaline boys were also on our flight after their road trip.
We boarded the plane for our short flight home. Connor and I dozed most of the way. When we landed in Adelaide we sure noticed the climate change from Hawaii. We had left sunshine and 25-30 degree weather and landed at home to rain and 7 degrees. Not to worry it was good to be home. Thankfully David's parents met us at the airport which was nice.
Well that brings our travel adventures to a close.....for now!!!! We hope that you have enjoyed sharing our adventures with us.
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