Home Sweet Home
We arrived in Sydney late Sunday evening, March 22nd. Our flight back to the USA wasn’t until the 25th. This gave us two full days to hang out around the Sydney Airport until our United Airlines Flight left on the 25th.
Sydney Day 1
Even though we were close to Sydney and everything it has to offer, we didn’t venture out of the airport area. Sydney wasn’t on a lockdown at the time, but things were closing up left and right and we wouldn’t have been able to enjoy very much even if things were open.
After a lazy morning in our room, I headed over to the airport to see what was open. As it turns out, everything was open even though the airport felt like it was closer to midnight, rather than the middle of the day.
While the restaurants were open, they had closed all of their inside seating which made everyone sit at a few tables outside the restaurants or take their food, as in our case, back to our hotel room.
Some of the retail shops were not taking currency but only accepted credit cards. I guess they wanted to minimize the number of external items introduced into their stores.
Later on in the evening we ran into John and Diane from the cruise as they were checking in to the hotel. They were on the same United Flight 870 that we would take on Wednesday, only they were able to get seats a day earlier.
Sydney Day 2
Today was Groundhog Day. After a lazy morning watching local news and old sitcom reruns, we headed over to the airport to get some lunch, finding the situation about the same as yesterday.
I bought some Vegemite flavored crackers to see if Vegemite tasted better when served in the correct proportions. While the crackers were OK, and I ended up eating the whole box. I don’t think I will ever become a fan of this Australian favorite. It’s definitely an acquired taste.
We spent the evening watching some old sitcoms and editing the video of Emilio’s spotlight performance which has been posted here.
Sydney Day 3
Our United 777 that was scheduled to take us to San Francisco landed around 7:30 this morning.
Our flight, United 870, was scheduled to take off at 1 PM. We managed to get seats in Premium Economy, which gave us priority check-in meaning we didn’t need to worry too much about a long check-in queue. The seats, while not lie-flat, are closer in size to domestic first class with plenty of legroom, and the seating configuration is 2-4-2 so there wouldn’t be a stranger we would have to crawl over to get out to the aisle.
We checked out of the hotel at 10:30 and were at the United check-in counter at 10:40. There wasn’t much of a line with Security or Immigration and we were inside the terminal around 11:00 AM.
There are dozens of high end shops once past Security and everything was open. This was probably the only shopping mall still open in Sydney. We had an Australian Tax refund coming and the office where we could make our claim was empty. It only took a few minutes to process my refund.
After buying more TimTams we headed down to our gate and boarded our flight about 12:15 PM. We left early, pushing back around 12:50, ten minutes early.
THE LONG FLIGHT
The flight was scheduled for 13 hours and 40 minutes, but with our early start and favorable tail winds we landed in San Francisco almost 1 hour early.
We have Global Entry, which worked like a charm and we breezed thru Immigration in San Francisco. There weren’t any obvious health checks or questionnaires.
After we claimed our bags we cleared Customs without stopping to talk to anyone. Then we rechecked out bags thru to San Diego.
Now that we were back in the USA, we were able to use TSA PreCheck and cleared back into the domestic terminal for our flight to San Diego.
EMPTY PLANE
Our flight to San Diego had about 10 people on board. We left on time and arrived early.
We have been using the same driver service in San Diego for 12 years. Our usual driver picked us up and told us we were his first trip in a week and had nothing scheduled for the next 3.
On the way to Imperial Beach, we stopped by a grocery store and picked up some food and supplies in preparation to hunker down.
HOME SWEET HOME
Once we were back in our condo, we were pleased to discover everything was has we left it. The quarter I left on top of a frozen cup of water in the freezer was still on top of the ice meaning our freezer never lost power.
And so it goes, another world cruise is in the books.
I will complete the missing ports over the next week or so and put together some final thoughts later.
Glad you’re home. I am working on my final post. I have decided not to contemplate the missed ports, it will just make me sad. Take Care and I hope our paths cross again, — Rich
To be clear, I will complete my posts of the ports we visited but didn’t have time to complete my write ups. I won’t be covering ports that were cancelled.
Another adventure in the books.
Glad you are home safe and sound.
We would like to get the name and number of your driver as we frequently cruise out of San Diego.
Many thanks.
It must feel so good to be back home but I know it has to be a little weird, too. Nothing here in the US is exactly how you left it even though that quarter on the ice was reassuring.
You had access to global news, I’m sure, while on the World Cruise but it would be interesting to hear your thoughts on how life in California feels to you now after almost three months of being in the protective bubble of a HAL Grand Voyage.
HAL has had a rough go through the beginning of this pandemic. The Westerdam, the Amsterdam, the Maasdam, and now the Zaandam struggling to get its passengers home. The story of the 4 deaths on the Z-dam, its rendezvous with the Rotterdam, and the difficulty in getting Panama Canal transit permission has an almost Hollywood quality about it. Who ever would have guessed that cruising would now be characterized by critics as a really bad, irresponsible decision on the part of the passengers. How the cruise line industry will recover from this will be interesting to see.
Has it gotten too big? Is it sustainable? Will the ports that have been cruise line-free for a few weeks prefer to stay that way now that they have realized their air and water are cleaner?
For those of us with long trips scheduled in the next 10 months, what is this cruise line meltdown telling us? We are studying our itineraries and cabin selections and trying to assess how we would hold up physically and mentally if all this happened to us.
Thank you for sharing your experiences and I look forward to reading your closing comments.
I am cautiously optimistic that the cruise industry will be back to normal operations by summer. There are so many people involved with the cruise industry and it means too much to too many economies for it not to come back.
The traffic is definitely less now, and the grocery stores are out of many paper products, but aside from that it doesn’t “feel” different at the moment. It will sink in more as time goes on and I miss going to live theater and live music.
Looking for a big rally in May!
Stan with San Diego Transporter find him at https://sandiegotransporter.com/
+1 (619) 203-9605
Thank you so much for taking the time to publish this blog. I have so enjoyed it. I will never get to make such a world cruise so i can dream via yours.
I’m sorry your trip was cut short but so glad you are home safely
I look forward to reading about your future trips.
Thanks for following!
Sensational blog! Have completely enjoyed your post and photos. This has been a memorable cruise 🙂 I will look forward to your coming posts and hope you both will be safe and well back home.
Thanks for following. I appreciate it very much
Glad that you’re home safe, sorry that your adventure turned out this way. But, on to the next one!
We are looking forward to 2022!
Sorry for the late post. Glad to see your home. Well to lockdown. I guess you can still go for walks on the beach.
Unfortunately, the beaches are closed here. Everyone is on the sidewalks