Travel Seattle to Brisbane

Getting to Brisbane from Seattle is problematic because there are no direct flights and connecting flights have their problems. If you want a short time in the air, Hawaiian is the only choice but , if you are prepared to go via some exotic locations, there is more choice.

The least exotic transit location is Los Angeles. Fares do change continually but the attraction here is that QANTAS fly 380s to Melbourne and Sydney which require another flight up to Brisbane. The flights up to Brisbane are no problem as they are run by QANTAS but the flight from Seattle to Los Angeles costs over $700 on top of the cost of going from Los Angeles to Brisbane plus you have to wait over nine hours for the connecting flight. I rang QANTAS to find why this is so and they said that Alaskan Airlines only allocate certain flights to them and charge much more to them than they charge their own normal customers.

The airline which had one of the most exotic transit points was also the cheapest!! (Obviously prices change by the hour but this was the case when I went online) Emirates would fly me directly to Dubai and then onwards to Brisbane. The attraction of this route was that Emirates uses modern planes and I would be flying on their 380 direct flight from Dubai to Brisbane. The only reason I rejected this route was because it seemed too silly to spend so much time in the air. As it happened, I spent more time completing the direct route than I would have spent using the Emirates route. In addition, I would have spent the time in the air enjoying the excellent service which Emirates offers instead of a time in a rather grotty hotel room whilst waiting for an onward flight in Honolulu.

I choose Hawaiian Airlines.

The trouble with flying Hawaiian Airlines to Honolulu is that the flight actually reaches cruising elevation after breakfast and arrives before lunchtime at 11.30am. I’m sure that Hawaiian Airlines are aware that the flight takes five and a half hours and clients deserve a little more sustenance than one and a half tiny snacks. “After breakfast’ consists of a tiny piece of cheese accompanied by two tiny biscuits (the size of those things you throw into soup) with a grand finale of a few slices of melon and four grapes. The ‘before-lunch’ is simply a tiny bag of crisps (‘chips’ in US speak). The problem with all this is that passengers have been imprisoned in the airport terminal doing all sorts of unspeakable things with TSA and simply waiting for the plane before boarding so, although the flight may take only five and a half hours, passengers have been around for over eight hours. People from the US of A seem used to this but Australians I speak to wish that they had brought their own sandwiches as they didn’t fancy the snacks that were on sale.

I turn up almost three hours before takeoff and am greeted by Bruce who has an incredibly outgoing personality. Because I had damaged one of my feet while playing golf, I need a seat with more space but this has not been given to me for the second leg of the journey. Bruce jumps up and down, waves his hands around, smiles a lot and is extremely helpful  but he doesn’t solve the problem. I go the gate and there is Bruce again smiling and checking our boarding passes before we go down to the plane. Before the cabin crew shut the door, Bruce appears yet again to wish us an enjoyable experience on behalf of Hawaiian Airlines. What a jolly person he is!!!

But we are delighted because this flight uses an Airbus 330, a plane which is modern and has all the appurtenances which Australians have become used to flying with Emirates, Etihad and of course QANTAS. We are very happy as the plane zooms up to 39,000 feet and cruises smoothly to Honolulu with very little turbulence. The only sad feature of the flight is that the Australians get very hungry and are mystified by the paucity of food during the flight. Nobody has complained or brought sandwiches like we do flying Easyjet from Britain. Everybody is very polite and of course we arrive in Honolulu in time for lunch!!!

The walk from the arrival gate to the baggage claim seems almost half a mile but I am assured there is a shorter way around the airport. We are not allowed to check our luggage right through to Brisbane because Honolulu is the port of entry and exit for this flight.

I have booked a hotel which is fairly near the airport and has a free shuttle. The problem with these free shuttles is that you have to call the hotel before they will send the shuttle to pick you up. I have had this problem before when travelling to foreign lands. You are stuck if you have no local cash or a mobile phone. I am still in the USA so I can luckily use my US money to ring the hotel. They call the shuttle immediately and it appears only one minute later much to my surprise. The shuttle has been stuck in a traffic jam for the last half an hour and my call had come just as he was able to unjam the shuttle bus.

The hotel is just beside an extremely busy freeway and there are people people drilling into the ground on one side. The main building looks quite nice but I am given a room on the ground floor of a building which looks like an ancient motel and adjoins the freeway. It is utterly horrible so I reject it. Then I am given a room on the second floor of the motel block facing the drilling men. I obviously reject this room as well. I then return to the lobby and tell the desk people that I will sit here until they give me a decent room in the tower block of the hotel.

One of the desk staff says, “I’ll have a look to see if we can find something for you”. She makes a show of searching her computer list and surprisingly comes up with a room on the seventh floor. I am suitably delighted. I inspect the room and it has the six foot wide bed I expect of a US hotel but the coating is peeling off the bath.

I go downstairs to ask how to get to Waikiki. They point to a bus stop outside and I dash outside to catch a bus which I see approaching. Before I get to the stop, the bus moves off but it only moves to my position to let me on!! It costs one dollar to travel anywhere on the island so I feed my dollar into the machine and sit back to enjoy the ride.

Everybody on the bus wants to know who I am and where I come from. They tell me how expensive life is on the island and all sorts of interesting information that is NOT on Google. I have the impression that Waikiki is nearby but I am told that it will take almost an hour to get there. First we travel through a docklands area then a commercial part of town. Then come large supermarkets followed by some rather down-at-heel areas. Soon we get into the city itself with enormous tower blocks facing the beach. But, like my hotel, some of them have left the old motel units standing behind the towers, a reminder of times past.

As we proceed into the city, more people get into the bus. The driver shouts to everybody, “Squeeze Up!! More people want to get onboard!!” Eventually the bus is so full that only a few people can get on at each stop. Then, as we travel through the city, people get off the bus until, at the end of the beach, there are hardly any people left.

Today there is no surf and there are surprisingly few people on the beach. I see that there are wide expanses of grass at the very end of the beach where locals have parked their cars. The bus comes to a stop in this area and waits about 20 minutes to give the driver a break. Soon another bus turns up and the people from that bus get on the first bus to continue their journey. When they are all on board, the bus sets off on the return journey.

As I have now been awake for 17 slightly uncomfortable hours, I decide to return on the next bus. I take a window seat on the sea side so that I get a better view of the scenery. I manage to recognise the hotel as we approach the bus stop and I pull on the wire to signal the driver to stop. I thank the driver for a good drive through town and walk back along the road to the hotel. The traffic is horrific but the traffic lights work well enough to enable me to cross the road safely.

I enter the hotel and find that the restaurant is permanently closed. This is a problem because I am very hungry. I consider travelling back to the airport for food but reject this thought (wrongly as it turns out!!!) I have never been in any corner of the USA which does not have a chain restaurant in the vicinity so I set off towards a nearby shopping center (centre in English). It is a very shabby place but, on the right, I see “Wong’s Chinese Buffet”. It does not look very upmarket and normally I wouldn’t have dared enter the place but I am really very hungry by now so I go in. The manager smiles at me and says, “I think you should look round to make sure you will enjoy this food”. I take her advice and recognise  enough hot dishes to satisfy my hunger. I eat my first substantial meal of the day.

Returning to the hotel, I buy supplies in their store for tomorrow’s breakfast and packed lunch in case Hawaiian starves us again on tomorrow’s journey. I use the coffee machine in the room to make some tea before retiring to bed in my traditional US six foot wide bed.

In the morning I wake early just before my wake-up call and have coffee. I catch the shuttle to the airport and find the automatic check-in point for Hawaiian Airlines. It’s a DIY operation but there are helpers around. In fact there are so many helpers around that I have the opinion that it would be better to use them all to check us in using the traditional desks as they did on Seattle.

I line up behind a man who is weighing a magnificent GRP golf club container which the machine accepts without a murmur. But, when he finds that one of his cases is over weight, the helper advises him transfer some stuff to his wife’s case. He is so exasperated that he simply sticks his credit card into the machine to finish the whole process as quickly as possible despite my assurances that I am definitely in no hurry.

I weigh my case and another helper appears. She offers to take the case for me and directs me to the service desk who will help me get a better seat than the one I have been allocated. I join a very long line of people who have failed to check in using the machines. I explain my situation and they put me on the list for preferred seating which will give me more leg room.

Having completed the whole check-in process in a very reasonable time, I join the extremely long line for the TSA. There are only two lines for  Hawaiian international and one of the lines has broken down so there is a long wait to get through.The operators are extremely jovial which makes the whole process very bearable. At last, I finish the process and head for the departure gate.

Having obeyed the airline by arriving umpteen hours before departure time, I now have to wait for the flight boarding with a couple of hundred Australians. I talk to one Australian who is a professional firefighter. He usually pilots the helicopters that pick up water in lakes and drops it in fire zones. This is dangerous as fires devour oxygen which is essential for the helicopter motor to run. He loves his job but his wife is not so keen on it!! One consolation is that he is able to pilot the aircraft we are about to board.

I talk to the people in the Departure Gate desk and attempt to get my USA visa included in my departure details. They begin by saying that it is impossible then, because I refuse to go away, they spent ten minutes tapping away at their computer then tell me they have done it. I also attempt to claim a “preferred seat” at the bulkhead and ten minutes before boarding I am given a new boarding pass with the seat I have asked for. I note that of the six “preferred premium seats” only two have been allocated so I have two seats to myself on the right hand side of the first row of the cabin.

When we board the aircraft, we are all amazed. It is though we had been transported back in time. Even the first class cabin has those old tiny monitors which were the latest thing in the seventies. Unfortunately, the cabin crew are unable to get them working so we are able to rent small tablets instead. Unfortunately there are not enough to go round. About half way through the flight, the monitors splutter into life and those who have not been able to rent tablets stick tiny ear things into their ears and watch the tiny monitors to enjoy a Spiderman movie.

We wait with trepidation for the meal and are surprised to be offered a pre-lunch drink. I request a gin and tonic but I am told that they only have whisky. I reply, “Then I’d better have a whisky then”. When the gentleman behind me asks for the same, he is given the tiny bottle with the comment, “That’s the last one”. Remember I am sitting in the first row of the economy class!!! Later I go down to the galley and I learn with some disbelief that they really have run out of whisky. When I ask why they have run out, the lady says’ “They have drunk it all!!” But I do score a second glass of wine for my trouble.

I really miss that map showing the position and other details of our flight. I loved the Lufthansa Google Earth ground view as we flew over Canada last year. I even liked the map and flight details on the Airbus we used to fly from Seattle. On this flight I have no idea of our altitude or our position. So I sit there as we bump our way across the Pacific.

At last we are glad to see that “tea” is being served in the first class cabin and soon after we are each given a box containing one round of sandwiches and a biscuit plus a welcome cup of tea. For some reason I have been transfixed in my seat for the last eight hours and haven’t touched my packed lunch so the white bread is actually very welcome.

We approach Brisbane Airport by flying south along along miles of deserted Moreton Island beach and then flying up the bay looking at the other side of the island also deserted. What a beautiful way to greet Brisbane!!!

On arrival in Brisbane we are trapped in the plane until a man arrives to supervise the spraying of our luggage and us! We are assured that the spray is safe but we don’t believe it. Eventually we leave the aircraft and go through passport control. There are DIY passport control machines but I choose to deal with a real human passport officer. After this we have the usual wait for the luggage to arrive and mine comes last of course. I am worried about importing my packed lunch into Australia but an official tells me that I can dump it in a bin.

I’ve arrived!!!