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We had said some time ago that our days of getting up in the middle of the night to go on holiday should be over but we broke that unofficial rule to go to Munich for the Christmas markets last November by leaving at 2am and so it was that we found ourselves getting up at 1.30 am to leave once again by 2am to drive to Manchester for a 7.45 flight.
Because Graeme had booked airport parking at Birmingham Airport in the mistaken belief that we would be flying from there, it was quite late on by the time we booked parking at Manchester instead. The parking charge at Birmingham was thankfully fully refundable – phew! As a result of booking late we had been unable to park in our favourite car park of the multi-storey next to the terminal building and had to park in Jet Parks 3 instead.
It was a bitterly cold morning and we shivered as we waited for the bus transfer. When it arrived we were amazed that it was full even at 4 am! This meant we had to stand for the 15-minute journey to Terminal 2.
We soon found our way to the Qatar self check-in, which was
remarkably straightforward. We then joined the massive queue for bag drop.
After an hour we had got rid of our cases. Security was painless as we didn't
have to take anything out of our bags. We then headed to our usual eating
place for a drink and porridge. Plenty of porridge but it was cool rather than
hot.
We found our gate and boarded the plane. Our seats were next to the emergency
exit with loads of leg room (at extra cost!) and no-one next to us - bliss! As
is fairly usual, we were late taking off because of something to do with London
ATC and finally left an hour late. The 6-hour flight passed fairly quickly and
we landed in Doha, Qatar. We had heard excellent reports of Doha airport
and it certainly was light, airy and enormous, but not as good as Changi,
Singapore in our opinion.
Not without difficulty, we eventually found Starbucks to get a mug for
Catherine, but unfortunately they only had tiny mugs to hang on a Christmas tree,
so a fruitless journey.
We then found our gate and were irritated to find that we had to go through
security yet again (as required by the Australian authorities it appeared) and
that bottles of water were being confiscated even though they had been bought
in the departure area or given to us on the previous flight. One couple in front of us were made to surrender drinks they had clearly only just bought. Elizabeth was given the third degree check having to
remove her tablet from its cover and bring swabbed for drugs. We were in
a bit of a mood as we boarded the aircraft.
For the first time ever we were seated on an upstairs deck. Again, we had
plenty of leg room. The flight was and seemed very long (just under 14 hours)
but we listened to music and managed to get a bit of sleep.
For jnfo we couldn't pair headphones to entertainment system like the first
flight. G paid for Wi-Fi ($10) which E was able to piggyback on which was good.
Immigration in Sydney was slick. Very sophisticate face recognition scanners on the e-gates and the machine then gave us a ticket with our photo and data on. The tickets scanned on the turnstile and we were through.
As we left eh baggage claim are there were customs officials collecting in our declaration forms (reminiscent of the US in the old days) and they took the ticket from us and it was then a case of looking for a taxi. That was all very organised with a taxi concierge managing demand and we and bags were soon on board and SUV heading for the hotel.
The driver was from Pakistan so was more than happy to talk cricket with us and we were soon whisked of to our first place of stay.
The Sofitel Wentworth Sydney was a welcome surprise. We knew
that the Sofitel brand was the top brand in the Accor Hotel range (mainly
Novotels) but, it was definitely upmarket. There was a bell boy on the door who
took our bags from the taxi and invited us to check in saying that he would be
waiting for us by the lift on our floor.
We checked in and went to our room on the 17th floor and there he was, ready to put our cases in our room for us. We’re in Sydney’s CBD (Central Business District) so it was high rise all around us. Then we unpacked to some extent but there is a woeful lack of storage space in our room which left us challenged!
We then saw the Concierge who told us about the benefits that come with our room – separate dining place, afternoon tea every day and a cocktails hour each evening – rather like already being on a cruise!
So with no idea what time our bodies thought it was and what the real time was we headed back to our room, watched the latest episode of ‘The Traitors’ and finally hit the sack.
Needles to say, tomorrow is down as a rest and recovery day!
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