5:30 alarm wakeup. Finished the last of the cereal and other food. Except the celery. Which was frozen. The fridge in our hotel room was set to be right on freezing, so high water content foods froze, although other things (including the beer) were ok. We tried to adjust the thermostat, and broke the knob in the process because it wouldn't move. Oh well. I don't really like celery much anyway, and defrosted celery didn't sound appetising, so it had to go. Got ready and checked out.
Got the 6:47 bus from just across the road, asking for a transfer ticket. Hurray, aircon! Transferred to the 7:25 111. As we got off the first bus, the bus driver was super helpful and reminded us to take the 111 going to the airport and not the other direction towards Sea World. We knew this, but it was super helpful of him. Now if only the bus driver in Tampa had been as helpful and not scammed me out of another two dollars for a ticket I didn't need..
I didn't need to be at the airport quite so early, but figured it was easier to just go with David on the buses. Said goodbye to him at the airport, then I sat around for a couple of hours til my checkin opened. As per nearly every airport terminal I've been too recently (Venice, Dubai I'm looking at you), Orlando's power points in the chairs don't work either. Dumb. Tried to backup on my phone photos but filled the laptop, so gave up on that idea.
At 10:45 I went to checkin. United have kiosk checkins like Qantas do, so checkin and bag drop was super simple and no queues. Lovely.
Then it took probably half an hour to get through security. Not so lovely.
Took the train out to the terminal hub, and had some lunch.
The flight from Orlando to Houston was full. The person next to me fidgeted a bit in the beginning (brushing my arm a lot in the process #grunt). We flew a lot further north this time, over land for most of the flight. Not really much to see though. At the end of the flight I went and said hi to the flight crew. Just because. Well that, and because I'd never been on the flight deck of a 737-900 and wanted to have a looksee.
United Boeing 737-900(ER) N67846 at Orlando Airport
Route 528 from the air (spot the B-52 on the right!)
Route 414 and 441 and surrounds
Wingtip of the plane
View of Lake Houston and surrounds
Villages at Tour 18
Route 69
Air traffic control tower at Houston Airport
Ooo look, my bag made it!
Inside the cockpit of United Boeing 737-900(ER) N67846
Arrived in Houston around 16:00, which is 15:00 Houston time and my next flight was not til 20:15. Blerf. The walk to the international terminal was short and simple. In fact you don't even need to go through security again. Go figure. Found a bar with a view of a plane and electricity, so had a couple of beers while catching up on blogging. Stoopidly over priced beers of course. Then had to deal with noisy people on face time and fidgety kids. Kill me now. Or them. Seriously people that make noise on their phones in public places should be shot in the head.
Fancy bar in the international terminal of Houston Airport
Now this is civilised - planes, beer and a computer
El Premio where I had a couple of beers and did some computer stuff
The flight from Houston to Sydney was long and tortuous. Made slightly more bearable by having a two seater up the very back to myself. Meant I could fidget and go pee without disturbing anyone, and was even able to rest for a bit sort of lying down. David was luckier on his flight. He had the two to himself, but the row of three in front of him was free so he grabbed it and was able to lie down a bit better. Between dozing (no real sleep) I watched Raiders of the Lost Ark, How to Train your Dragon (the only one I'd never seen before), The Lego Movie, ET and Labyrinth. I was going to try and see the flight crew, but they kick you off further back on 787s, so didn't bother.
Me ready for the tortuous flight home
Leg room on the 787
Diverting around a storm near Fiji
Sydney's northern suburbs
View towards Sydney Harbour and city
View towards Sydney CBD
Sydney Airport
Botany Bay (I can see my house from here!)
Approach over Kurnell
United Boeing 787-900 N25982 at Sydney Airport
Immigration was quite painless (not much in the way of queues for the machines, but there's still no dedicated spot for them, they're just in random places along the corridors. But I did feel awake enough to grab a bottle of whiskey on the way through. Customs was pretty simple too. Declared the feather I got for the fascinator I made on the ship. They didn't even want to see it heh.
And then home.
I actually stayed awake all day which was pretty amazing.
My fears about getting covid on the ship weren't unfounded. But next year the cruises will go back to being 7 days instead of 14 days, so I suppose it's good that I used up the credit. Because there's no way I would ever ever ever EVER go on a Bare Necessities cruise again. And I continue to tell the story of my dramas to anyone who will listen.
But. All in all it did end up being a pretty awesome holiday. David did an amazing job of organising all the stuff either side of the cruise. I just had to turn up and follow him. Much like Mum last year with me in Italy ;)
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