RSD
Established Member
- Joined
- Feb 13, 2010
- Posts
- 2,080
This was a mostly business trip that was booked about ten days before departure. Quick summary of the itinerary -
BWT-MEL - overnight MEL
MEL-SYD-SIN-LHR-BLQ
3 nights in BLQ for a expo
BLQ-AMS-PRG
2 nights in PRG for a meeting
PRG-LHR-DUB
2 nights in DUB to catch up with a friend and visit the library at Trinity
DUB-BHX
3 nights in Coventry for an expo
LHR-SIN-SYD-MEL-BWT - arrived home this afternoon
BWT-MEL on a Q300 was on time and uneventful
Overnight was at the Park Royal at MEL airport - really nice room, and staying there instead of getting a 6.30am departure from DPO across to MEL to connect onwards made for a much more relaxing and less tiring start to the trip.
MEL-SYD was on time, uneventful - apart from when it came time to disembark there was a female in a window seat a few rows forward of me who loudly berated a very elderly lady in the aisle seat for not being fast enough at getting out of her seat at the appropriate time - I didn't think that the amount of time she took was inappropriate given that she was in my estimation at least 90.
SYD-SIN-LHR on QF1 - fairly uneventful, flights departed and arrived within just a few minutes of the scheduled times. Having a British cabin crew on the SIN-LHR leg on "Qantas the Airline of Australia" seemed all a bit odd but whatever I guess.
Had a nice breakfast in the BA lounge at T5, not realising that getting to T5 Concourse 3 or whatever it was called involved catching a shuttle train thingy - so when I finally arrived at the gate for my BA flight LHR-BLQ boarding was closed but they decided that letting me on was going to be quicker than pulling a can off the plane to offload my checked luggage.
Once onboard the LHR-BLQ flight was uneventful, was met on a taxiway by a "Follow Me" vehicle - which was a Lamborghini Huracan (because they can), which led us to a remote stand and then stairs followed by a long walk to the terminal - with me wearing just a polo shirt and a sleeveless vest in the balmy 4 degree weather. Cleared customs and immigration very uneventfully (welcome to the EU), got the required plug adaptor I needed so as my 3 pin Aussie appliances would connect to European 2 pin outlets (because it is illegal for adaptor manufacturers to sell adaptors in Australia that accept 3 pin plugs to fit 2 pin European sockets).
Nearly died at the cost of Uber in Italy but got to the hotel - Holiday Inn Bologna-Fiera - nothing special, but operated a free shuttle to and from the Bologna-Fiera expo centre which was quite convenient.
Escaped the expo on the Saturday afternoon to hire a car to drive about two hours north to locate the house that my maternal grandfather was born and raised in before he emigrated to Australia as a young man, then met up with some relatives that nobody in my family had ever met before to have dinner etc.
The next evening was BLQ-AMS-PRG on KLM, first leg uneventful, quick bite in the KLM lounge at AMS - the food all looked way too healthy for the average Australian but I survived. Second leg got a bit odd after we landed, lots of loudly given instructions from the flight attendants for us to all move to the front of the aircraft quickly - something to do with the weight and balance of the aircraft (a 737-800), they made quite a song and dance about it, it all seemed a bit bizarre, at one stage the captain was out on the tarmac looking at the aircraft from about the wingtip. Eventually got off and saw the captain in the airbridge so asked him what was going on and he explained that the door to the front cargo hold was U/S and so the front hold was empty, and so there was a concern that the aircraft might tip up if they unloaded the rear hold while there were still passengers in the rear.
Uber to the EA Hotel Rokoko in central Prague was uneventful, the hotel was a hotel, nothing more nothing less, did what was written on the box, location was good. I had never been to Prague before so didn't really know what to expect, but it seemed like a really nice city, some pretty grand buildings etc, dropped into a bank branch and it had to be the most lavish bank branch that I had ever seen - marble everywhere, and absolutely huge. The post office was like that too. Be warned if visiting Prague that the official currency is the local one - not Euros - even though they are part of the EU, they accept Euros, but if you need Euros specifically for something then it is best to get the Euros before you arrive as you can't get them out of an ATM or from a bank branch, and so you have to get local currency and then exchange it at a currency exchange - it was a bit of a stuff-around that took up quite a bit of time as I kept getting told incorrect information by the locals such as the bank who said "yes no problem you can get Euros from our ATM" - nope, then it was suggested that I find a particular flavour of ATM called Euronet as they dispense Euros - still no luck - certainly wouldn't do it for NAB cards anyway.
Uber from hotel to airport was a debacle - Uber driver was from West Africa and he seemed to have little grasp of how to use the map in the Uber driver app to get us to the airport, and he also seemed unable to read road signs. Did three laps of one roundabout before we exited at the wrong exit, kicking him out and jumping in the drivers seat did seriously enter my thoughts, I ended up guiding him to the airport using google maps on my phone. Finally got to the airport to find that the bag drop wasn't located at the check-in desk that online check-in had advised about three hours earlier, and couldn't find anything that resembled a BA sign or uniform or anything, and nobody I asked seemed to know either. Eventually I found something that resembled a help desk and they said that BA (Menzies) always closed check-in a few minutes early and they called someone up by telephone who came and really helpfully said that the published check-in time had now passed. I argued that they weren't there where they were supposed to be when they were supposed to be, and so then they asked if I was flying business class - no - however I was QF Gold / OneWorld Sapphire and eventually they relented and decided that they would let me on - but I would have to take my checked luggage to the gate and get it checked in there.
After that shamozzle the PRG-LHR leg was uneventful, the LHR-DUB leg was a BA codeshare on Aer Lingus, I can't remember what terminal at LHR it was but there was no OneWorld lounge there, and flying on a BA codeshare as a OW sapphire wasn't good enough to get me into the Aer Lingus lounge. So I ended up having an early dinner in a pseudo-British pub in the terminal - that wasn't able to offer fish & chips, and seemed hideously expensive - and then added some random figure to the bill at the card machine for gratuity.
LHR-DUB on Aer Lingus was also uneventful and on time. Uber driver to the hotel was really good - pointed out places to eat etc. - tipped him appropriately.
Stayed at the Iveagh Garden Hotel - really nice hotel, room was spacious, bathroom extremely spacious for a hotel bathroom - and location is great. Would recommend this hotel to anyone looking for a hotel in central Dublin.
Visiting the Trinity Library had been on the bucket list for a long time - truly one of the great libraries of the world, unfortunately my timing was off as they had removed most of the collection late last year for conservation and so most of the shelves were empty. Oh well.
DUB-BHX on a BA codeshare on Aer Lingus - was an all economy plane, again refused entry to the Aer-Lingus lounge, and no BA lounge in DUB. Flight uneventful and on time.
Birmingham airport to Coventry by train was "interesting" - quite difficult to find the eventual way to the train station - down an obscured passageway that required you to basically guess that you had to make a 180 degree unsigned turn into down a parallel passageway. Once you get to the train it doesn't get much better as clearly the train wasn't designed with air travellers in mind - two steep steps on the train to get in, then a tiny luggage rack that was never going to cope with large suitcases etc. It went downhill from there as a bunch of passengers just seemed to mill about the doorway, and so when it pulled into Coventry station I couldn't actually get off the train as they all stood around like stunned mullet blocking the exit. Ended up getting off at the next exit fifteen minutes further up the track and catching another train back to Coventry - it would be fair to say that I was getting a bit cranky by this stage.
Stayed at the "Ramada Hotel & Suites by Wyndham Coventry" - a bit of a mouthful for a hotel that turned out to be probably at the lower end of three star hotels. It seemed like it had started life as something else instead of a 16 floor hotel, the lifts were tiny, and the floors were a rabbit warren. Was OK apart from water pouring through the bathroom ceiling presumably from the room on the floor above. Management didn't seem overly concerned - almost like it was a daily occurrence, it did stop eventually though.
The expo I was going to was at a place called Stoneleigh NAEC - a bit of a bizarre setup with the expo centre being in the middle of a country estate in the middle of the countryside - no trains, buses or anything else to it. Not quite sure what the thinking was with building an expo centre there but someone must have thought it was a good idea at the time. So basically getting into it was as you would expect with thousands of people coming by car on narrow country roads and just a narrow road into it - queues for miles.
Coventry to LHR by train. Well the train experience didn't get any better, another train with undersized baggage racks etc. That took me to Euston above ground, then had to go to Euston underground to catch the northern line to Tottenham Court Road to then catch the Elizabeth line to LHR. Problem was that there was no lift or escalator to get down to Platform 2 at Euston underground, so had to carry the cases down the stairs one at a time. Discovered that the trains on the northern line seemed to be the low rounded top ones I remember from 30 years ago. Train on Elizabeth Line was a nice new spacious design though.
Check-in at LHR was a bit messy - the scanners on their bag drops aren't as sophisticated as the ones at QF check-in in Australia, and you stand behind the bag when you place it on the belt/scales instead of beside it, so the end result is that you have to grab the hand scanner and crawl over your bag to reach the tag to scan it yourself - for each bag. Basically I would rate them about a 2/10 for design and functionality. Rest of checkin was OK, found the QF pub, a couple of strange things there including that when each of the three flavoured cold water dispenser things became empty they just took them away instead of refilling them - no idea why.
QF2 LHR-SIN was uneventful and on time, and the Singapore lounge delivered its usual no fuss quality service.
SIN-SYD - one of those flights where I have to choose my words carefully. Some of the cabin crew were around retirement age, and their attitude and demeanour didn't do wonders for the Qantas brand. There was a young lady who I think was Singaporean - she was fantastic, worked hard, nothing was a problem, and really reflected well on Qantas.
Coming into Sydney things took a bit of a nose dive (not literally though). I had slept right through the breakfast service, and so I went to the galley to see if I could get a muesli bar or timtam to eat - that is all I needed as I was planning to have a decent breakfast in the QF domestic pub. The flight attendant offered me all sorts of things - a breakfast meal that they steal had, a fruit bowl etc etc. I politely declined those and just took the muesli bar. About 45 seconds after I had received the muesli bar an elderly Indian gentleman appeared and asked if he could have something to eat - but he was told that everything was all locked up and so there was no food available at all. I was a bit stunned by this as I could still see the seals sitting on the bench waiting to be placed on the carts etc. It would certainly seem like racism is alive and well at Qantas.
SYD airport... immigration worked as advertised, clearing the customs side of things was a gigantic mess - it was more like everyone trying to leave a football game through one entrance - there sort of was a queue - but everyone was just feeding into it from the sides and it was just a gigantic mess - I'm not sure how it is supposed to happen there so that it is done in an orderly fashion, but it certainly wasn't happening this morning.
Rest of the day was an uneventful blur of SYD-MEL-BWT and Qantas pubs.
BWT-MEL - overnight MEL
MEL-SYD-SIN-LHR-BLQ
3 nights in BLQ for a expo
BLQ-AMS-PRG
2 nights in PRG for a meeting
PRG-LHR-DUB
2 nights in DUB to catch up with a friend and visit the library at Trinity
DUB-BHX
3 nights in Coventry for an expo
LHR-SIN-SYD-MEL-BWT - arrived home this afternoon
BWT-MEL on a Q300 was on time and uneventful
Overnight was at the Park Royal at MEL airport - really nice room, and staying there instead of getting a 6.30am departure from DPO across to MEL to connect onwards made for a much more relaxing and less tiring start to the trip.
MEL-SYD was on time, uneventful - apart from when it came time to disembark there was a female in a window seat a few rows forward of me who loudly berated a very elderly lady in the aisle seat for not being fast enough at getting out of her seat at the appropriate time - I didn't think that the amount of time she took was inappropriate given that she was in my estimation at least 90.
SYD-SIN-LHR on QF1 - fairly uneventful, flights departed and arrived within just a few minutes of the scheduled times. Having a British cabin crew on the SIN-LHR leg on "Qantas the Airline of Australia" seemed all a bit odd but whatever I guess.
Had a nice breakfast in the BA lounge at T5, not realising that getting to T5 Concourse 3 or whatever it was called involved catching a shuttle train thingy - so when I finally arrived at the gate for my BA flight LHR-BLQ boarding was closed but they decided that letting me on was going to be quicker than pulling a can off the plane to offload my checked luggage.
Once onboard the LHR-BLQ flight was uneventful, was met on a taxiway by a "Follow Me" vehicle - which was a Lamborghini Huracan (because they can), which led us to a remote stand and then stairs followed by a long walk to the terminal - with me wearing just a polo shirt and a sleeveless vest in the balmy 4 degree weather. Cleared customs and immigration very uneventfully (welcome to the EU), got the required plug adaptor I needed so as my 3 pin Aussie appliances would connect to European 2 pin outlets (because it is illegal for adaptor manufacturers to sell adaptors in Australia that accept 3 pin plugs to fit 2 pin European sockets).
Nearly died at the cost of Uber in Italy but got to the hotel - Holiday Inn Bologna-Fiera - nothing special, but operated a free shuttle to and from the Bologna-Fiera expo centre which was quite convenient.
Escaped the expo on the Saturday afternoon to hire a car to drive about two hours north to locate the house that my maternal grandfather was born and raised in before he emigrated to Australia as a young man, then met up with some relatives that nobody in my family had ever met before to have dinner etc.
The next evening was BLQ-AMS-PRG on KLM, first leg uneventful, quick bite in the KLM lounge at AMS - the food all looked way too healthy for the average Australian but I survived. Second leg got a bit odd after we landed, lots of loudly given instructions from the flight attendants for us to all move to the front of the aircraft quickly - something to do with the weight and balance of the aircraft (a 737-800), they made quite a song and dance about it, it all seemed a bit bizarre, at one stage the captain was out on the tarmac looking at the aircraft from about the wingtip. Eventually got off and saw the captain in the airbridge so asked him what was going on and he explained that the door to the front cargo hold was U/S and so the front hold was empty, and so there was a concern that the aircraft might tip up if they unloaded the rear hold while there were still passengers in the rear.
Uber to the EA Hotel Rokoko in central Prague was uneventful, the hotel was a hotel, nothing more nothing less, did what was written on the box, location was good. I had never been to Prague before so didn't really know what to expect, but it seemed like a really nice city, some pretty grand buildings etc, dropped into a bank branch and it had to be the most lavish bank branch that I had ever seen - marble everywhere, and absolutely huge. The post office was like that too. Be warned if visiting Prague that the official currency is the local one - not Euros - even though they are part of the EU, they accept Euros, but if you need Euros specifically for something then it is best to get the Euros before you arrive as you can't get them out of an ATM or from a bank branch, and so you have to get local currency and then exchange it at a currency exchange - it was a bit of a stuff-around that took up quite a bit of time as I kept getting told incorrect information by the locals such as the bank who said "yes no problem you can get Euros from our ATM" - nope, then it was suggested that I find a particular flavour of ATM called Euronet as they dispense Euros - still no luck - certainly wouldn't do it for NAB cards anyway.
Uber from hotel to airport was a debacle - Uber driver was from West Africa and he seemed to have little grasp of how to use the map in the Uber driver app to get us to the airport, and he also seemed unable to read road signs. Did three laps of one roundabout before we exited at the wrong exit, kicking him out and jumping in the drivers seat did seriously enter my thoughts, I ended up guiding him to the airport using google maps on my phone. Finally got to the airport to find that the bag drop wasn't located at the check-in desk that online check-in had advised about three hours earlier, and couldn't find anything that resembled a BA sign or uniform or anything, and nobody I asked seemed to know either. Eventually I found something that resembled a help desk and they said that BA (Menzies) always closed check-in a few minutes early and they called someone up by telephone who came and really helpfully said that the published check-in time had now passed. I argued that they weren't there where they were supposed to be when they were supposed to be, and so then they asked if I was flying business class - no - however I was QF Gold / OneWorld Sapphire and eventually they relented and decided that they would let me on - but I would have to take my checked luggage to the gate and get it checked in there.
After that shamozzle the PRG-LHR leg was uneventful, the LHR-DUB leg was a BA codeshare on Aer Lingus, I can't remember what terminal at LHR it was but there was no OneWorld lounge there, and flying on a BA codeshare as a OW sapphire wasn't good enough to get me into the Aer Lingus lounge. So I ended up having an early dinner in a pseudo-British pub in the terminal - that wasn't able to offer fish & chips, and seemed hideously expensive - and then added some random figure to the bill at the card machine for gratuity.
LHR-DUB on Aer Lingus was also uneventful and on time. Uber driver to the hotel was really good - pointed out places to eat etc. - tipped him appropriately.
Stayed at the Iveagh Garden Hotel - really nice hotel, room was spacious, bathroom extremely spacious for a hotel bathroom - and location is great. Would recommend this hotel to anyone looking for a hotel in central Dublin.
Visiting the Trinity Library had been on the bucket list for a long time - truly one of the great libraries of the world, unfortunately my timing was off as they had removed most of the collection late last year for conservation and so most of the shelves were empty. Oh well.
DUB-BHX on a BA codeshare on Aer Lingus - was an all economy plane, again refused entry to the Aer-Lingus lounge, and no BA lounge in DUB. Flight uneventful and on time.
Birmingham airport to Coventry by train was "interesting" - quite difficult to find the eventual way to the train station - down an obscured passageway that required you to basically guess that you had to make a 180 degree unsigned turn into down a parallel passageway. Once you get to the train it doesn't get much better as clearly the train wasn't designed with air travellers in mind - two steep steps on the train to get in, then a tiny luggage rack that was never going to cope with large suitcases etc. It went downhill from there as a bunch of passengers just seemed to mill about the doorway, and so when it pulled into Coventry station I couldn't actually get off the train as they all stood around like stunned mullet blocking the exit. Ended up getting off at the next exit fifteen minutes further up the track and catching another train back to Coventry - it would be fair to say that I was getting a bit cranky by this stage.
Stayed at the "Ramada Hotel & Suites by Wyndham Coventry" - a bit of a mouthful for a hotel that turned out to be probably at the lower end of three star hotels. It seemed like it had started life as something else instead of a 16 floor hotel, the lifts were tiny, and the floors were a rabbit warren. Was OK apart from water pouring through the bathroom ceiling presumably from the room on the floor above. Management didn't seem overly concerned - almost like it was a daily occurrence, it did stop eventually though.
The expo I was going to was at a place called Stoneleigh NAEC - a bit of a bizarre setup with the expo centre being in the middle of a country estate in the middle of the countryside - no trains, buses or anything else to it. Not quite sure what the thinking was with building an expo centre there but someone must have thought it was a good idea at the time. So basically getting into it was as you would expect with thousands of people coming by car on narrow country roads and just a narrow road into it - queues for miles.
Coventry to LHR by train. Well the train experience didn't get any better, another train with undersized baggage racks etc. That took me to Euston above ground, then had to go to Euston underground to catch the northern line to Tottenham Court Road to then catch the Elizabeth line to LHR. Problem was that there was no lift or escalator to get down to Platform 2 at Euston underground, so had to carry the cases down the stairs one at a time. Discovered that the trains on the northern line seemed to be the low rounded top ones I remember from 30 years ago. Train on Elizabeth Line was a nice new spacious design though.
Check-in at LHR was a bit messy - the scanners on their bag drops aren't as sophisticated as the ones at QF check-in in Australia, and you stand behind the bag when you place it on the belt/scales instead of beside it, so the end result is that you have to grab the hand scanner and crawl over your bag to reach the tag to scan it yourself - for each bag. Basically I would rate them about a 2/10 for design and functionality. Rest of checkin was OK, found the QF pub, a couple of strange things there including that when each of the three flavoured cold water dispenser things became empty they just took them away instead of refilling them - no idea why.
QF2 LHR-SIN was uneventful and on time, and the Singapore lounge delivered its usual no fuss quality service.
SIN-SYD - one of those flights where I have to choose my words carefully. Some of the cabin crew were around retirement age, and their attitude and demeanour didn't do wonders for the Qantas brand. There was a young lady who I think was Singaporean - she was fantastic, worked hard, nothing was a problem, and really reflected well on Qantas.
Coming into Sydney things took a bit of a nose dive (not literally though). I had slept right through the breakfast service, and so I went to the galley to see if I could get a muesli bar or timtam to eat - that is all I needed as I was planning to have a decent breakfast in the QF domestic pub. The flight attendant offered me all sorts of things - a breakfast meal that they steal had, a fruit bowl etc etc. I politely declined those and just took the muesli bar. About 45 seconds after I had received the muesli bar an elderly Indian gentleman appeared and asked if he could have something to eat - but he was told that everything was all locked up and so there was no food available at all. I was a bit stunned by this as I could still see the seals sitting on the bench waiting to be placed on the carts etc. It would certainly seem like racism is alive and well at Qantas.
SYD airport... immigration worked as advertised, clearing the customs side of things was a gigantic mess - it was more like everyone trying to leave a football game through one entrance - there sort of was a queue - but everyone was just feeding into it from the sides and it was just a gigantic mess - I'm not sure how it is supposed to happen there so that it is done in an orderly fashion, but it certainly wasn't happening this morning.
Rest of the day was an uneventful blur of SYD-MEL-BWT and Qantas pubs.
