It was a beautiful morning in Melbourne, and we enjoyed the weather as we ate our last breakfast on the Terrace Deck. We were out of our cabin by 8am, said some final goodbyes and were off the ship about 9am. We had purchased Princess transfers for $34 AUD each to the airport. We had looked at the combination tram to Bourne St. and then walking to the Southern Cross Railway Station to catch a SkyBus to the airport option, and it was only $10 per person cheaper than the Princess shuttle. Plus it involved pushing our luggage about two blocks between the tram and railway station. Easy choice.
I can’t say that Melbourne has the most user-friendly airport I’ve ever seen, but we eventually found where we needed to be when the check in counter opened at 3pm, and settled nearby for the five hour wait. Que sera sera. Power ports would have helped, but there were none to be found until we went through security.
We did re-weigh our luggage and did some minor re-shuffling. Our checked baggage is only 0.4kg (about a pound) less than our limit, but it’s like our ‘seldom early, never late’ credo. ‘Less than our limit’, regardless of how much less, is all that matters.
We are currently plugged in and charging our iDevices by our departure gate. G is off in search of sustenance. Is there any more stark reality adjustment after one gets off a cruise ship then to pay airport prices for crap food? I don’t think so. We have another hour before boarding begins, and want to take food with us on the plane. We are flying Jetstar for a great price, but everything (even water!) costs extra. We plan to eat, take our Ambiens and hopefully sleep our way to Honolulu. We’ll be on a new 787 Dreamliner, the same plane we flew on between Papeete and Easter Island, and I know we’ll be comfortable.
Somehow, a 10 1/2 flight seems relatively short right now, and we will have the unique experience of arriving in Honolulu before we left Melbourne. Suzan sent us an article about a New Year’s Eve flight from Auckland to Honolulu that left in 2018 and arrived in 2017. Cool stuff, that.
I will publish a Season 8 wrap-up post in the next day or two. I won’t be posting a lot from Hawaii, but if I take any good sunset pics, I’ll share them to keep you all warm. Plus, I have a lot of photos to upload to the blog posts from our days on the Golden Princess. It will be so much easier using high speed WiFi and charging at the same time to keep battery levels up. That part of reality is easy to adjust to!
