Mia and I flew out of Brisbane on 23rd October at 12:15pm. I have to admit, I was nervous. I have never been nervous before a flight before (and I have taken a lot of them!!). But having Mia there and not knowing how she was going to react to being in a plane made me really nervous. We sit down in the plane and wait for take-off. Luckily the guy and his son across the aisle from us is loving entertaining Mia so that was much appreciated! Time for take-off. Mia started to cry a few minutes in for about 15 seconds but then was fine. And that is all the noise she really made during the flight. It was only SUPPOSED to be a 1hour 15minute flight but when we arrived over Sydney they advised us that due to weather all flights were put in a holding pattern. Over an hour and a half later we finally landed. Now is when the craziness began...
I had to pick up the stroller from the baggage area because they only checked it through to Sydney and not Honolulu. By the time I got the stroller I had to fast track it over to international transfer and hop on the shuttle bus to get from the domestic terminal to the international terminal. What an ordeal!!! People were packed on the bus shoulder to shoulder and here I am with Mia in her stroller and all our carry-on bags trying to get on the bus. Luckily a very nice couple helped me lift the stroller onto the bus and people squished together and cleared us some space. We arrive at the international terminal and have to go and check in...AGAIN because they wouldn't give us our boarding passes for the international flight over in Brisbane. 45 MINUTES of standing in the check-in line and we finally have our passes. It just gave me enough time to go to McDonald's, get Mia some dinner and basically run to the gate. We arrived at the gate and we were put on the plane straight away. Total craziness!! Our flight from Sydney to Honolulu left around 6pm. Another take-off and 20minutes later Mia is sleeping on my lap, exhausted from the day we already had!! She woke up an hour later and was awake for another 2 hours just playing, reading etc before I finally got her to sleep again. We were so lucky. The flight was quite empty and we had 4 seats between the 2 of us so I laid her down across 2 seats, head on a pillow and sang to her softly to get her to sleep. Finally, some peace for me!! She slept the rest of the 6 hours or so for the flight. I actually had to wake her up for our landing in Honolulu!! Everybody that sat around us commented on how well behaved she was. There was another child a little older than her that cried almost the entire flight!!
So we have arrived. It was so great to see mum and dad waiting for us outside the terminal. It had been about 1 1/2 years since we had seen them so it was so great. We hopped in the taxi and went straight to the apartment. Dad had colouring stuff (paper and markers) all ready in the apartment just waiting for Mia's arrival. Within 10 minutes of settling into the apartment dad and Mia were colouring together as if they had know each other for years. It was so nice to see. We didn't do much that first day. Just chilled out in the apartment, went for a swim in the complex pool and went for a walk along the canal down the road from our apartment. Oh and dad fed Mia some peaches...which became quite a regular occurrence our entire time there!
I might leave it there for today. I will have to do these posts about Hawaii in parts or else they will be a novel!!
1 comment:
Sounds like you had quite the adventure to get to Hawaii - good to hear that Mia flew well. I loved seeing all the pics you posted on fb. :)
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