Well we have made it to LA.
Addendum to yesterday – (or is it tomorrow here ….. or still today ?) Anyway we think we may have got jinxed with our delay. We had arrived at Sydney Airport and joined the Air New Zealand check-in queue although the check-in desks hadn’t opened. There were still probably 50 or more people in the queue already.
As we stood in line, Adrienne was telling us about one of her “pals” on Dis Boards – her online chat for all things Disney – and one of these people had left the day before on the same flight number as ours. Their flight was delayed about 35 minutes and they were worried about their connection in Auckland. Just as she finished telling us this, the check-ins opened and an announcement came over that the flight to NZ was delayed and that anyone with connections to LA should go to a special counter. Here they told us that due to the delay, they were arranging for us to go to NZ on a Qantas flight instead – otherwise, with the expected delay (last we heard our original flight wasn’t due to leave till 5pm – 90 min late) we would not meet our connection.
So we then had to check in to a Qantas flight and move to the next counter where they booked us into the connecting Air NZ flight from Auckland to LA. The Qantas flight left at 4pm – about 30min after our original Air NZ flight so our connection would be tight (the original changeover connection was only 55 min). As it turned out, there were 26 people who needed to be put on the Qantas flight. By the time we got to Auckland, we were really cutting it fine. We had to basically get off the Qantas flight, walk briskly down the long corridor to the international transit lounge, go through the baggage check again, walk all the way back down the long corridor to our LA flight and board. We were just about the last people on the plane !
The flight to LA was pretty good. The seats were good – more legroom for me than usual – and we managed to get a little sleep. We arrived in LA about 2.30pm local time. The immigration queue was very long so it took quite a while to get through and out of the airport to our nearby hotel – by which time it was probably close to 4pm.
Then it was time to get all the gadgets organised using the hotel wifi ! We are all pretty tired so it was an early dinner in the hotel restaurant and back to our room so everyone can sort out their emails or blog updates and an early night.
Unfortunately we will lose a fair bit of the day tomorrow due to the 4 hour change in time zone but we should be ready and raring to go from then on !