Deathstar v2

Just a quick one - because we didn't take piccies and nothing worse than a big block of text.

So after swearing we'd never do Jetstar again, we did it.

This time, we went from OOL (Gold Coast Airport) to Narita.  So an hour's journey in the car.  We did this from Shearwater to Launceston, so not a major issue except getting up early to drive.

Jetstar bloke at the OOL counter was really nice.  We checked in online and went to the counter to grab our final tickets.  Lovely bloke moved our family of 6 down toward the front of the plane and was just really nice and efficient and quick.  He also suggested we use up our baggage allowance (we took basically 2 empty suitcases for our touristy crap  I mean, holiday treasures and had some space to spare).

We also paid for food beforehand, entertainment beforehand.  We travelled 787-9 (Dreamliner) in the LCC configuration.

Sitting in the overpriced food court of OOL

The thing with Jetstar - if we had the time available, there was a super special we could have flown for an extra $400 in total (so like $70 per family member) on a full cost carrier to HKG, had extra foot room and proper meals and flown on an A330.

So yeah, it was cheap, but LCC needn't be the only cheapie available.

I also found the food too variable, service too variable, the noise on the much-touted Dreamliner too variable.  The thing with full service is that there is a level of consistency (even if it's consistently average) that's oft-missed.

The food on the plane to Narita - pretty passable.  The offerings on the return leg - I didn't touch and as a result, we grabbed some Lawson's Sandwiches, Onigiri and drinks and ate before bedtime kicked in.

Service in OOL aiport - pretty decent, as was the service to Tokyo.  The return service - very matter of fact and minimal, not at all friendly.  I've had this in HKG Jetstar and Singapore.  It seems that the service model varies from airport to airport.

The Dreamliner - pretty quiet and I was raving about it once we'd flown to Tokyo.  On the return trip - it was wheezing a high pitched squeal that was worse than the plane noise on an A330.  Again, a variable that I didn't want to deal with.

Narita Terminal 3 (the LCC terminal) has a decent enough food court, decent directions and it is easy to get a bus to Tokyo central.  More on that in another post.

Japan on Jetstar with 4 kids and a pregnant mum

I broke my promise to myself.  I swore to myself (and likely at myself, too) that I'd never, ever, ever do Jetstar overseas or even domestically for more than 2 hours.

Never.

Ever.

Ever.

Like, don't even mention it.

Then an amazing thing happened.  Jetstar got the B787-9.  Then charged effectively $430 return per adult ticket including food and entertainment.  And there's no stopover.

That meant we waited 6-9 months less for our next holiday (and it turned out, that someone is pregnant (oops!), so lucky we didn't buy anything for later on), and it were dead cheap.  And our 11 year old is full fare in 7 months, so even better.

So 8 days before we go, we're getting excited.

Bags are packed (see the links about capsuling - Mrs Brisket has managed to get 3 children's clothes into one carry on - fantastic for hauling a small army of tired children through an airport.  Nothing worse than trying to get children saying "I'm tired, I can't keep up, this suitcase is too heavy to pull......." - a sure fire way to get a frazzled parent who's been cooped up in a giant tin tube for 9-10 hours, just that bit more frazzled.  Less suitcases, means less frazzle.

Bought money - normally not my thing.  Using the ATM overseas is far better as you get the wholesale rate plus commission of around 4% (and ATM fee).  But there has been a ¥5 per $AUD fluctuation, so I grabbed it high as insurance (and played off some currency exchangers against each other), and basically got it at a little less than wholesale rate and no commission.

Another tip - pay $5 and American Express (in selected Australia Post shops) will buy back notes up to their exchanged amount (¥82000 for us) at the wholesale rate.  That is between 10-15% better.  You have 6 months, so you could even time it for a currency drop and make a few bucks.

If not, I got a good rate, and Murphy's Law says the exchange rate will improve, so good for me.

Sorry about the lack of photos - I'll go nuts in a week time.  

7 days rushing aorund in Tokyo with a busted knee awaiting surgery, 4 children and mum pregnant - what could possibly go wrong?

Don't do it, don't fly Deathstar

So we tried our first international flight on a budget carrier.  With 4 kids.

I'll try to keep this easy-to-read.

The title says it but some details and even positives to come from this experience.

To make this easier, it was a flight from Melbourne to Hong Kong via Singapore.

The bad stuff started when I got the ubiquitous "your flight has been cancelled for operational reasons" 2 days before we leave. Closer inspection reveals that it's the SIN-HKG stretch with Jetstar Asia that got the ol' boot.

I'd seen this happen before to others. Some older couple were waiting for hours in MEL domestic getting a flight back to Launceston scheduled for 2pm. They ended up flying out at 11pm, with a lovely 3 hour drive to look forward to at midnight. Notwithstanding the fact that Melbourne Jetstar domestic sucks big time.

Anywho, this isn't a rant.

So we ring up several times and get several different stories, a theme that is the only consistent approach in the way Jetstar deal with their clientele.

Cancel all flights out, rebook the entire trip (MEL-SIN-HKG) a day later. Nope, no time to waste. Aami weren't much help either, stating we had to incur a loss to attempt a claim.

Aftet several calls, we suggested that they rebook the second leg only and whaddaya know, there was a later flight. Instead of arriving at 1pm, we'd arrive at 8pm. Okay, so we compromised.

This is another issue with Jetstar service, you need to do the thinking and suggesting for them. Don't expect them to volunteer useful information. Another theme that carries through the Jetstar experience.

Flight from MEL to SIN was nothing exciting. We got a new A330 and the seats were pretty decent though the legroom was smaller than full service. I'll pay for the extra legroom.  You have to pay lots for rubbish food and drinks.

The typical travel hack for this is pack lots of snacks for the kids and fill water bottles in the airport and on the plane. It sort of works but I find that on longer flights, being served food breaks up the flight.

Kids have tablets each. Again this helps. Stock them with movies and see if you can get them to share, so each tablet has longer battery use. It'll save you a little from the last 2 hours being "how long until we're....". It won't save you from the Charlie n Lola vs Lion King 5th time arguments.  Nothing will save you from that.

Given we spent extra time in the air over Singapore waiting for a storm to finish, extra batteries would have been fan-flippin-tastic. There were more red rings on the flight map than the haemmoroids department of the RPA.

So we arrive at Changi.  Courtesy of some astute capsule wardrobing by mummy, we only checked the pram in on the way there, despite paying for 2 extra suitcases of checked baggage.

But the problem was because the 2 legs were no longer linked together, we had to fetch our pram from baggage. Which means clearing Singapore customs.

Now the transit area of Changi is pretty good but we were outside of it with very few restaurants at 9pm with 16 hours to kill. Not fun.

So we go to the Jetstar counter and ask about what to do. Come back at 11pm. So we needed to eat, had nowhere to relax and had to kill time outside of transit.

After paying for an overpriced meal which was still pretty good we let the kids play in a playground full of other screaming kids - so much that it'd test the engineering of that floor.

11pm comes, we spend an hour in line only to be told that there's no ability to allocate seats so early on the flight, therefore no checkin. We need checkin to get back to transit and sleep. So after some polite firm insistence we get our boarding passes and go in.