The hot and cold Xmas/NY break

[Scarlett]

As I have learnt a valuable lesson from my previous international trip, I'm currently sitting on a break day between international flights (and different tickets!) and figured I could probably start a trip report about this one as it does have some less travelled destinations.

The hot and cold in the title is because I'm travelling from Canberra in summer (hot) to Hobart in summer (cold), then a short stop in the northern US in winter (also cold), then to the Caribbean (hot), then retracing my steps to get home without the visit back down to Hobart. The trip to Tassie is to spend Xmas with family, then heading off to the Caribbean by myself. All up, just short of a month of living out of a suitcase.

In numbers it's:
57,000 Km of travel
22 flights
11 different tickets (maybe I haven't learnt my lesson)
10 accommodation bookings
9 games of golf
7 countries (and one extra as a transit)
5 hire car bookings
3 new airlines
and a partridge in a pear tree, or would you believe a magpie in a gum tree?

In per-ticket IATA-speak it's:
CBR-MEL-HBA (VA Y)
HBA-SYD-CGK (QF Y/J)
CGK-HND-ORD-DCA / DCA-IAH-NRT-CGK (NH & UA J) - my main international ticket on UA stock, with the below indented tickets US to the Caribbean and flights within that area

DCA-EWR-MBJ (UA J)
KIN-GCM (KX Y)
GCM-NAS (BA Y)
NAS-PLS (JY Y)
PLS-MIA-DCA (AA J)

CGK-DPS (GA Y)
DPS-BNE-SYD-ADL (VA J)
ADL-CBR (VA J)

To save people diving for iata.org:
MBJ = Montego Bay, Jamaica
KIN = Kingston, Jamaica
GCM = Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands
NAS = Nassau, Bahamas
PLS = Providenciales, Turks & Caicos
KX = Cayman Airways
JY = InterCaribbean Airways

Pictorially, on GCMap, it all looks like this:

 

[Scarlett]

To begin: Mrs Scarlett and I had finished work and Mstr Scarlett had started school holidays, so we packed our bags, called the Uber and headed to CBR to join the Xmas time travelling masses. VA WP status meant only 5 minutes to have boarding passes in hand and a surprisingly quick trip through security. I'll note here that one of the best things about status (and not often called out, so maybe undervalued?) is the access to the usually much shorter check in lines. I rate this aspect just below lounge access and free Econ X for VA WPs.

VA lounge was about 75% full but no problems getting a table and the staff were doing a great job keeping everything clean and tidy. The pork wraps hit the spot and the coffee was okay, but had that peculiar taste I get every time in the CBR lounge.

FJ had taxied out in front of us and then the broccoli jet departed.






It was a lovely summer day in CBR, although a little hazy.

 

[Scarlett]

VA274 CBR-MEL
B737-800
VH-YFF
on time

A standard short hop down to Tullamarine. I'd put Mrs Scarlett into J for this and the next leg using up some (about to expire) WP complimentary upgrades and the child and I sat in Econ X. An unremarkable flight, although Mrs Scarlett was happy with her snack and whatever the couple of wines were.


Had it been particularly windy in MEL, or maybe they assumed Santa was just bringing them a new one?


The MEL lounge was a little busier than CBR but no problem getting seats and a table. Noticeably more used dishes and rubbish around the lounge. I still love the large windows and tarmac views from the MEL VA lounge and it allowed us to watch this Max 8 taxi in and be 'turned-around' over the space of about 45 minutes.


I'd posted in the Ask the Pilot thread about why this pilot doing the walk around was still wearing an old Virgin Blue jacket and it seems to just be personal preference. I also like the ground staff member really getting into the festive season and doing a jig past the main landing gear!

 

[Scarlett]

VA1330 MEL-HBA
B737-800
VH-YFS
on time

Another standard short hop on a 737. We did a little cloud bashing on the descent into HBA.


A Hobart, that I would like recorded for posterity, was 12 deg C and raining as we stepped out of the jet and walked across the tarmac. Summer in Australia. Well for some it was.

We spent the next few days enjoying family time, walking around the Derwent River / estuary, eating good food, playing golf (well I did) and relaxing.



We also went in to the city for dinner one evening and then wandered around to Battery Point. There was due to be some more action here in about six hours time!


Mind you, some tugs had been working with a large ship further down the channel and were returning back to their berths. They decided to have their own race and of course used the appropriately marked finish line.


When planning and then booking this trip earlier in the year, I had hoped that the new 7 Mile Beach golf course, quite close to HBA airport, would be open. They'd been targeting an opening by the end of spring but alas, all has gone quiet and no new course to try out yet. The dune setting along the water promises a spectacular site and Mat Goggin has had some great people in designing and working on the course, so when it finally does open, it should be well rated. I was one of those hoping to be rating it!

7 Mile Beach

world class public golf

7milegolf.com.au

 

[Flyfrequently]

On board @Scarlett
Looking forward to your travels

 

[RooFlyer]

A Hobart, that I would like recorded for posterity, was 12 deg C and raining as we stepped out of the jet and walked across the tarmac. Summer in Australia. Well for some it was.

I don’t regard that as a bad thing. It’s keeping my garden watered while I’m away for the month.

 

[Scarlett]

The planning for this trip followed my usual procedure of copying my template spreadsheet tab and setting up a new trip, then over a period of weeks/months, slowly turning the red cells green as I add the flights, accom etc etc. It’s effectively my checklist with cells for travel insurance info, visas and other entry requirements, eSim details and of course a timeline of the days and dates. Each new trip is a new tab on the same ‘Travel Planner’ spreadsheet, so I can quickly go back over past trips for info if I need it. I also write the bookings down in my diary so if I run out of battery power or don’t have access to a device for any reason, I have a hard copy of the basic info. When I’m booking something I’ll double-check the dates and days on the spreadsheet with what I’m doing online, to hopefully avoid needing to post in the ‘travel mistakes thread’!

The one mistake I did make before travelling, was double booking a hotel near DCA. For whatever reason I didn’t write it down on the spreadsheet when I booked direct through the hotel site, and I had a hotel consolidator site tab open for the same property. So a day after booking the Crowne Plaza Crystal City on the CP site, I then went and rebooked it via hotels.com using a non-refundable rate. As I realised almost immediately, I email the hotel through the hotels.com portal and asked to cancel, giving the reason. They came back quickly in the affirmative. It then took another week to get hotels.com to agree, but refund is back on the original credit card and problem solved.

Whilst in Tassie I finalised the few things outstanding, such as the Indonesian eVOA application, some tee time bookings and loaded up the NAB debit card (the replacement for the Citi Visa debit) so that I could get cash out when arriving in the different countries. Also made sure the Bankwest MC was cleared off enough and that the 28Deg card was good to go. These are the international transaction free cards I’ll be taking along with me. It’ll probably be the last time travelling with the 28Deg card as it’s only ever been a backup card and I’m not likely to keep paying a monthly fee for it to sit in draw for the majority of the time. I think from the other thread that there was a Bendigo Bank card that will become its replacement.

 

[Scarlett]

With Xmas done we loaded up the car and headed back to be dropped off at HBA.

I was flying to SYD on a one-way HBA-SYD-CGK booking with QF, whilst Mrs and Mstr Scarlett were departing about an hour earlier on VA heading back to CBR, via MEL. The QF booking was made, as it’s the simplest journey to link up with my south-east Asian based international ticket and was actually quite cost effective. The other half of the family are flying VA so that they can family pool VA SCs to me, to aid in 2025 VA WP requal. With the VFF changes there is little chance we’ll be able to requal multiple members of the family in the future. I suspect we’re exactly the sort of family that VFF was targeting with their changes as we earnt most of our SCs flying J on international partners. We obviously met the requisite number of ~ flights each year, but the bulk of SCs were earnt with partners. Combined with judicious use of family pooling changes (internal to the household) we currently have Mrs Scarlett and I was VA WP, and Mstr Scarlett as a soft-landed Gold. We all requalified in the final quarter of 2024 so are set for 2025 and it’s now about planning for 2026.

I’ve been VA WP for most of the past ten years and probably easily have 12,000 lifetime SCs with VFF, but due to the heavy use of partners SCs and Family Pooling, I’m probably going to be about 3000 self-earned, VA-booking, SCs short of Forever Gold. Annoying, but you can only play the hand you’re dealt!

 

[Scarlett]

QF1500 HBA-SYD
Bombardier C-Series 300 (A220-300)
VH-X4C
On time

I waited with the family in a pretty packed HBA departure area, then headed to the world famous QF closet after their flight started boarding. Personally, I don’t see the problem with this lounge. Yes it’s quite small, but it had coffee, some snacks and a clean and quiet place to sit for an hour waiting for my flight. Watched both the MCG Test and my aircraft arrive and park almost directly in front of the terminal.


As a regular Econ X flyer domestically, I had the novelty of boarding via the rear stairs for this flight. Got chipped by the ground staff member for stopping to take a photo, but then had to stop and wait 10m further along at the bottom of the stairs anyway. Clearly the seats to go for are the A & C seat pair in rows 1-9, but the $30-something QF wanted for the just less than two-hour flight was more than I wanted to pay. The mediocre comfort of row 23 it was.


Didn’t take a photo, but sitting off the pax tarmac to the south I could see the rear end view of a QF A320. Seemed a strange visitor. I assumed it was something to do with the Sydney-Hobart yacht race; maybe a group charter. On taking my seat, I looked up arrivals to HBA and found that it had come in the day before very early in the morning. It seemed to have been doing a regular daily LST-HBA run, usually early in the morning. Hmm, even more strange. Once we taxied out I could see through the windows on the other side of the cabin that it was actually a QF Freight aircraft and had AusPost markings. Seems a very expensive method (using an A320 for only two flights a day) to move freight between HBA and LST when they’re only 2.5 hours apart by truck??? Anyone know if it was just a ‘high season’ thing for the aircraft to be based in Tassie, or is it a regular?

Departing HBA had a nice view of one of the golf courses I played during the stay: Richmond GC, a course I hadn’t played for about 15 years until this trip. With a view over to the Derwent and the city in the background.


Then of course a typical arrival view into SYD.

 

[Scarlett]

I had an overnight in Sydney before heading up to Jakarta and had held off booking a hotel as all the SYD area ones seemed expensive for that particular night. Prices seemed to drop the closer it was to the night of staying. Whilst the Rydges would have been easy to just walk over to the international terminal for the following days flight, I’m not a hotel snob and will pretty much stay anywhere as long as it’s not a dorm room in a backpackers. The Rydges was $300 and most of the hotels near the domestic airport were over $200. However, the day before travel the Ibis (the red one) appeared for $135 so I booked there. I generally use hotels.com, or booking.com if they have a better deal, or the hotel website, so I was a little concerned to see that rate was being offered by vio.com, a site I had never used before. Figured I’d give it a go and can report no problems. All of my usual options were showing the same room for around $200. The booking confirmation email actually said ‘Priceline’ in small print on it at the bottom and I know they’re a large US consolidator, so was happy from that point on.

It was a glorious afternoon in Sydney, so I walked from T3 up to the hotel (with golf bag and suitcase) and then after getting checked in and dropping bags in the room, decided to head back out to Sydney Park about 1.5Km from the hotel heading north past Mascot station.




Alan Davidson Oval was looking great, so I did a couple of laps around it, regretting my retired from playing cricket status!

Plenty of others out enjoying the day too.

 

[Scarlett]

QF41 SYD-CGK
A330-200
VH-EBP
On time

The HBA-SYD-CGK ticket was booked in whY and I’d selected a window seat on this leg somewhere in the 30s rows, but had nominated for a points upgrade to J. The day before the flight I received the pleasant text message news of a successful upgrade and went into the app to select a new seat. The system had given me 5F which is a centre seat, but directly opposite the mid-cabin toilet. No other seats were available for selection. I could select the aisle / window drop down box and that said something like it would "override other seating selections", so I selected window to see what might happen.

Nice premium car park you have there between T2 and T3, Sydney Airports…


After an easy late-morning check out and the Super Shuttle around to T1, I presented to QF J check in with no waiting required. I asked whether I could change seat and the agent showed me the boarding pass which had already come out with 1A on it. Nice.

I took my golf clubs around to oversize drop off, then it was straight through e-gates and security with no waiting and up to the QF J lounge. Maybe I’m just easily pleased but I think that lounge is fine also: plenty of seats available, coffees, a late brunch and power sockets if needed. I completed the Indonesian customs form (Bea Cukai) and the Health form (Satusehat) whilst in the lounge and saved those QR codes as images on my phone. Boarded from gate 37 so about a five-minute walk from the lounge and then settled into my seat for the next seven hours.



PJs (for the day flight) and PDB offered, amenity kit on the seat, etc: all the standard QF J stuff so I don’t think there’s anything new I can add. Flight progressed smoothly and we landed in Jakarta a little early.

Continuing with the theme, CGK arrival was smooth and easy. Fairly short walk to immigration and I went straight to a vacant e-gate (having done eVOA online back in Aus) and was waiting at the baggage carousel in a matter of minutes. I used the CGK wifi to activate my free 28Deg provided Flexiroam Esim which took about 15 minutes to sort out. Probably should have done it whilst in the QF lounge at SYD. By then bags had started coming out and that was another short wait until my suitcase arrived, then about 15 minutes at oversize waiting for my golf clubs to appear.

CGK have tried to make the T3 arrivals hall a little less sterile by adding some greenery.

 

[drron]

The other QF plane you saw was a freighter. On my last working stint in Launceston I was under the flight path into LST. heard it go over every night.

https://www.qantasnewsroom.com.au/media-releases/qantas-announces-two-widebody-freighters-to-meet-permanent-increase-in-e-commerce-demand/

 

[Scarlett]

I had booked two nights at the FM7 hotel close to CGK through QF hotels, as I had an early morning start for my international J ticket. It also meant I could catch up with a friend in Jakarta during the whole day I had there.

The FM7 has a hotel shuttle so message the property and let them know your arrival flight details and there will be a staff member with sign waiting for you as you turn left and head outside from T3. There were three names on the list he had, so waited about 5 minutes until we were all there, then led down to where the shuttle was parked (the other end of the terminal on this occasion). With no other stops it was only a touch over five minutes to the hotel. Quick check in and up to the room.

Lobby.


I always recall Will Smith in Men in Black when I see these kind of seats.


They have a fitness facility next to the pool area with some gym equipment as well as some bikes and running machines. After being seated for much the day I decided to spend an hour in the gym walking on one of the machines and listening to a podcast. Then a shower and off to sleep.

The hotel also has a couple of dining choices on site but I’ve only ever used the main The Porte restaurant. My booking had breakfast included so I had that after the first night, but didn’t bother after the second as I was leaving to the airport early.


A real carrot nose on the snowman! Not sure what Santa is carrying in his left hand.

I booked the 0430 shuttle for the second morning as I had a 0715 flight. The shuttle dropped some folks off flying domestically from T2 first, so it took about 25 minutes to get dropped at T3. Went to the ANA J counters and checked in for my flights CGK-HND-ORD-DCA. They double checked I was going through HND as they also had a NRT flight leaving at a similar time. Got all three boarding passes and bags checked through to DC.

E-gate immigration on the way out was just as quick as entering the country - zero waiting. Then down to the nice Saphire - Plaza Premium lounge for breakfast and barista coffee. Local tip: you’ll usually have to loiter at the bar area with the coffee machine, or speak to a staff member if you want a proper espresso rather then the push button machine type, as it is not routinely staffed.
Interestingly, ANA gives you the choice to either use the Garuda Lounge or the Plaza Premium. The latter is much better.

 

[Scarlett]

NH872 CGK-HND
B787-8
JA838A
Departed 5 minutes late - Arrived 20 minutes early

This was a first for me flying ANA and marked the 16th of 25 airlines in *A that I have flown with. I’ve previously flown JL, JQ and SQ to or from Japan. The ticket was booked through UA and uses ANA for the Indonesia to Japan and return legs. If my maths is correct, all six legs of the ticket should give me enough status miles in TK Miles & Smiles to requalify me as Elite (*A Gold) again.


The scratches to the paint job around the coughpit looked like an encounter with birds or hail. Or just shoddy painting.

Boarding was completed in efficient Japanese style, probably aided by the flight being quite lightly loaded. In the two J cabins I counted a total of 7 pax for what aerolopa tells me was 42 available seats.

NH Boeing 787-8 (type 3) - AeroLOPA | Detailed aircraft seat plans

Hola > ANA > Boeing 787-8 type 3This version (78M) of the ANA Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner is configured 42J 198M

www.aerolopa.com

The J seating is a regional config of 2-2-2 but was perfectly adequate for a 7 hour daylight flight.




We had three staff members looking after the seven of us in J.



Along with a PDB we were given a complimentary full flight wifi pass. Just had to scratch off the silver bit in the bottom left corner to reveal the access code.


As a flight that departed at 0715, but was scheduled to land at 1625, this was the choice for the main meal (breakfast?) after departure.


Beef teriyaki wasn’t exactly what I had in mind for breakfast, but it was good. Coffee was passable too.

 

[Scarlett]

The NH flight was fine without being spectacular. Comfortable enough seat and as mentioned above, attentive service. We overflew Okinawa and number of the other islands in the southern reaches of Japan and then as we approached the greater Tokyo area there was a clear view of Mt Fuji out the left hand side of the plane. From the south (and up sun in the late afternoon) a light dusting of snow could be seen around the upper slopes. As we came abeam the volcano and then on approach, I was able to snap a few distant photos.





Then a smooth landing into Haneda and a taxi around to terminal T2.




Scarface the B787.

My next flight was departing from T3 so needed to work out how to make that connection. Should have trusted the Japanese to make it very simple: first follow the very plentiful green signs (seemed like every 10m - if you get lost in this airport you probably shouldn't be allowed out unaccompanied!) down to a bus where the white gloved man checked boarding passes and walked you to the correct bus.


The bus then left when only two of us had hopped on board. But it didn't leave before the driver had boarded, formally greeted us with a konnichiwa and bowed, then took his seat. It was about a ten-minute drive, including descending down a ridiculously log tunnel. I guess they had to go under something else like a train line, but it felt like we were heading way too far underground. Then back up the other side and into T3. I had about 45 minutes to wait so headed into the ANA lounge and had a pork broth noodle dish, freshly made from the noodle bar and watched the tarmac darken whilst eating. Sunset must have been about 1630.





No lounge announcements, but soon enough, boarding was up on the monitors for the UA flight to Chicago.

 

[Scarlett]

UA882 HND-ORD
B787-10
N17017
On time

This was my first trip in UA J long haul for quite a few years, having done various Aus-US trips just as they were introducing the Polaris concept, so I was interested to see what the final product looked like. First impressions were that the seat was a bit of a coffin and that they'd really maximised getting the most number of J class 'pods' into the available space. It was a lie flat seat sure, but it felt a little 'battery hen' rather than a premium product.

Before the doors closed the 'experienced' UA cabin crew came around with PDBs and to confirm pre-ordered meals or to take main meal selections. The lady looking after the area of my seat was referring to her print out and greeting everyone individually as "passenger <surname>". Maybe this way she couldn't offend anyone by mistakenly calling them Mr, Mrs or Ms.

Poor quality image of Tokyo harbour as we climbed away from HND. It's a BIG city.


I had my pre-ordered fillet steak (it was good) as well as the UA sundae (not as good as I remembered) and watched something forgettable: might have been the movie Slingshot. I like a good sci-fi movie and this one was more about the psychological aspects of long duration spaceflight, but it's nowhere near the league of The Martian or Interstellar.

Even though the seat and footwell are relatively narrow I still got about six hours of sleep and awoke shortly after we re-entered US airspace.





There was a very nice caramelised apple crepe for breakfast (or a Japanese fish choice) then it was top of descent, get changed out of PJs and into a cold and rainy Chicago.

There was a little grid-lock whilst crossing runways and getting into the gate and that probably took 25 minutes after landing.



We pulled up beside this nice 'visit Petra' liveried RJ B787.


It took about an hour to complete immigration and get bags, then drop them off at the nearby 'recheck' area for my final domestic connection. Also had to change terminals and that meant going just outside the baggage drop and taking the inter-terminal shuttle from Terminal 5 to Terminal 2.



Then it was into the small T2 United Club for another short wait.