This holiday is a bit of a cheeky extra. We already had a fantastic holiday at Easter. But with loads of DVC points due to Covid. Katie’s park passes from work and a change to my work schedule which means we can travel just before the school holidays. It seems like too good an opportunity to miss.
After the 6 flights to / from Australia I am very keen to fly direct from Newcastle and the only option to do that is with Tui.
The flight is a very respectable 11am (when we fly indirect we always seem to start with a 6am flight).
We are still up at 6 and in the taxi for 6:45 as I like to be at the airport super early.
We arrived at the airport just a few minutes before check in opened and were one of the first few families to check in. I had been a nervous wreck all week stressing about passports and ESTAs etc but we were quickly checked in and through a very empty security.
We headed for the pub to get some breakfast but the music was very loud and we weren’t really in the mood so we ended up in a coffee shop for coffee and pastries instead.
We stayed in there for a while and then headed down to a small waiting area near the gates where there are some seats. I do find Newcastle has very few seats. There are plenty at the gate but they don’t share the gate numbers until the last minute. And there really aren’t many places to sit in the main terminal.
As we were waiting downstairs the Tui cabin crew walked past and one of the crew was a friend of mine. I knew she worked for Tui but I hadn’t realised she was working this flight. So it was nice to quickly catch up with her.
At 10:30 we got called to the gate and then very quickly we boarded.
We had opted not to pay for seats and had 2 together and then 2 across the aisle in the row in front. Which was fine. We were close enough and I was happy to have saved £200!
Once we were seated we realised that none of our seat back TVs were working. And in fact quite a few on the plane we’re off. After we had taken off they rebooted the whole system and mine came back to life but Katie’s and Phil’s didn’t work for the entire trip.
Once my tv was working I decided to watch Succession which I had heard a little about. I settled into a nice binge watch and worked my way through 7 episodes which helped the time pass very quickly for me. Phil read his book and Katie had some stuff downloaded on her phone. But I think they found the trip quite long.
We landed in Melbourne with quite a thump. I am becoming a much nervous flyer as I get older and I didn’t enjoy the landing at all.
We headed off the plane and the heat hit us. It was 33 degrees!
Back into the aircon and we got our bags fairly quickly but the baggage area was packed and I am sure some people had a long wait. Then we headed into immigration and eventually we were admitted to the USA and straight over to Alamo to collect the car. All told it was about an hour from landing to car.
We had hired an intermediate SUV and got a choice of a KIA Sportage or a Ford Edge. Phil chose the Kia and it’s pretty nice. Plenty of room for the bags and lots of legroom.
We hooked up the Apple Car Play so we could use the sat nav and then tried to leave the carpark. We of course took a wrong turn and ended up in the place where you return your car hire instead ! But we were eventually out of the carpark and on our way.
We’d been driving about 5 minutes when the heavens opened and it was a full blown thunder and lightning storm. The kind of storm where you can’t see the end of the car.
Fortunately we were staying in Melbourne so we took it very slowly and found our way to the hotel.
We are staying right on the beach. I had plans for a stroll along the beach and dinner in the hotel beach bar. But it was like a Monsoon so we settled into the room and then headed down to the inside bar for some dinner.
After dinner the rain has stopped so we had a brief walk over to look at the beach but we were all a bit tired by now so we just really wanted to head up to bed.
It has been a long day so we returned to the hotel room and we were all fast asleep by 8:00pm.
Until just as I was fast asleep there is a loud banging on the door. Phil went to investigate and it’s a food delivery and it’s not for us!!!
So we get back into bed to go back to sleep when we realise the floor and the bed are wet. The ceiling is leaking. And not just a little bit. It’s steadily dripping and it’s getting worse.
We ring reception and an engineer comes out to take a look and concludes that he can’t fix it so they offer us a new room.
We had all been fast asleep so even though it was only 9:30 it very much felt like the middle of the night.
I considered just staying put but we were using all the beds so Phil would have been sleeping in a puddle and I was concerned the ceiling was going to suddenly flood.
So we packed everything up (fortunately we hadn’t really unpacked ). Woke Molly who had slept through all the drama and moved downstairs to a new dry room.
What a palava!
I’m still not sure what was leaking. We had had some crazy rain but the leak was in the middle of the ceiling on the 2nd story of a 5 story block so if it was rain that’s quite odd.
Skating on Thin Ice 
Omg that ceiling looks as if it would have come through. Glad you changed rooms.
so happy you are blogging – I get to experience your trip as it happens, lovely! hope the rain lets up a bit in the next days. world weather is doing crazy things at the moment.
so happy you are blogging – I get to experience your trip as it happens, lovely! hope the rain lets up a bit in the next days. world weather is doing crazy things at the moment.