It’s back to Australia! But first, let’s open with a chorus of:
“Well did they ever return, no they never returned, And their fate is still unlearned…”
Most my readers are old enough to appreciate this pluralized reference. Frances and I currently are resting in United’s SFO lounge. We’re supposed to be in Sydney preparing for a flight to Darwin, where we’ll be boarding the good ship Seabourn Pursuit and starting a ten day adventure exploring the Kimberley of northwest Australia. We’re still hoping to get to Darwin before it sets sail. But more on that portion of the trip when and if we finally board.
Also on this trip we have a reservation on the Indian Pacific Railroad, which will take us from Perth across the country and continent to Sydney. This will complement our train trip on the “Ghan” from Darwin to Adelaide of February of 2020. We’ll again be joined by Brian and Karen McKenna, who are already in Sydney and soon in route to Darwin. In all, we should be gone more than three weeks, assuming, of course, we get to Australia and eventually get back home.
I include a few teaser photos from the internet on our coming trip:
Why the pessimism? Wellllll, glad you asked. This has been a “if it can go wrong, it will go wrong” kickoff to the trip. We consider ourselves relatively seasoned travelers but, to be honest, I made several poor decisions at the outset. For instance, for international trips, we almost always attempt to arrive a day or more early to both adjust to the fatigue of a long flight and to build in a cushion should the trip over have problems. This time, for reasons that escape me, I didn’t do this. Second, almost never do I book our flights using a third party agent unless the service is provided by the trip or cruise company. I did use a third party this time, thinking I was saving a tidy amount on business class fares. But, mostly, we’ve learned that the software that rules airline itineraries can’t handle some situations and stubbornly fights corrections.
The actual trip started well. Our good friend Lee Saage drove us to the airport with plenty of time to spare. Then the fun started.
Actually, it all started with our original flight plans to and from Sydney, Australia, booked by Arangrant (a business class flight third party vendor). The flights looked great, a flight from Austin to Vancouver, with a reasonable layover in that city, then a flight from there to Sydney. The return was a reverse of the itinerary.
Then, argh, Air Canada cancelled the Austin to Vancouver and the Vancouver to Austin legs. We were then rebooked on, get this, a flight from Austin to Toronto to Vancouver, which added more than half a day to an already long trip. Our protests to the vendor fell on deaf ears. The company’s arrangement with Air Canada didn’t allow non-Air Canada changes. Hence I called Air Canada directly. The agent was happy to give us a new routing, through Denver in both directions (between Austin and Vancouver). Three of the four legs were to be on United, including the initial Austin to Denver hop and both legs from Vancouver to Denver to Austin on the return. So far, so good. Except, apparently, the flights were entered in the wrong order. And that is where the problems started.
First, we could not check in online. The United site declared we had to check in through Air Canada. Air Canada said we had to check in via United. Phone calls to both companies resolved nothing and both said “The tickets are good, check in at the airport.” Except, at the airport, the agent couldn’t check us in either. A half-hour of calls between the agent and someone on the other end at least got us boarding passes. (We belatedly discovered our Global Entry/TSA pre-check pass numbers had been omitted. It’s been a while since we’ve gone through the strip search line, although, much to my surprise, belts and shoes off is no longer de rigueur).
We boarded and the plane began taxing for takeoff—then returned to the gate. Here began the hateful delays, twenty-minute chunk by twenty-minute chunk—until we would certainly miss our Denver connection. (The flight was eventually cancelled.) United then wanted to send us on a flight to Houston to stay the night there, then catch flights from Houston to San Francisco to Sydney the next day. Then, unexpectedly, they booked us on a late night flight (from Austin directly to San Francisco) on Alaska Airlines, which was dealing with its own system wide set of delays due to IT problems. Alaska Airlines very nicely asked another passenger to move to allow Frances and I to sit together. When we arrived about 1:00 a.m. in San Francisco, we were comped by United with a hotel room near SFO and food vouchers.
Didn’t seem United coordinated with Air Canada, though.
This morning I checked both the United site and Air Canada Site for our flight status. Air Canada had cancelled our entire remaining itinerary, specifically our return flights from Australia. Why? We were no-shows for the Denver to Vancouver flight. A long and panicky call to Air Canada restored the Sydney to Vancouver flight on August 14 and we were rebooked on a flight directly from Vancouver to Austin. There will be a half day wait in the Vancouver lounge, but by now that seems a minor inconvenience. Our seats are not together, but we’ll deal with that, if we can, in a few weeks.
So all is set now? Alas, not quite. After arriving in Sydney we were to stay the night at a nearby hotel and then catch a Quantas flight from Sydney to Darwin in the morning. Another argh here. We would now have less than 90 minutes after arriving in Sydney on the United flight to clear customs and immigration, collect our one checked bag and get to the domestic terminal for the Darwin flight. (A separately-booked ticket, of course.) Quantas told me that should we not make the flight, we would be declared no-shows and forfeit the fare. A new ticket for any new flight would be extremely expensive. (Yes, we had caught a good deal with our original reservation.) So we have changed our Sydney to Darwin reservation to a flight that arrives at 12:45 a.m. the next morning. Who needs sleep? We’ve cancelled our Sydney hotel (and instead spend 13 hours in the Sydney airport), and informed the Darwin hotel of our planned very late arrival. Assuming we make it to the ship as scheduled, I suspect the first day, being a sea day, will be one to collapse and recover our wits.
Our flight out of San Francisco is scheduled for 11:00 p.m. tonight. We have our boarding passes and the wine in the lounge is quite satisfactory. I’m absolutely sure everything from now on will go just perfectly—with hopes we can cajole some passenger into swapping seats. Maybe if I tell the person in the seat beside me that I snore.