Brisbane to LA

This was a very short holiday, organized specifically to see my Step-Daughter dance at Disneyland with her dance school. We weren’t able to get away from work for long due to it being school holidays, and we weren’t even sure that I could make it at all.

We booked Dom’s flight first, on Qantas, and by the time that we could guarantee my trip, that flight was too expensive for just a 4 day trip. I bought a ticket on Virgin Australia, and departed on Wednesday via Sydney, then onto a Delta operated flight.

The Sydney transit is something that I have purposefully avoided for at least a decade due to the hassle of changing terminals. I approached this trip with optimism, but found that the two hours allowed by the company was barely enough. There was a transit bus waiting as I disembarked my domestic flight, which took us onto the public road around to the international terminal. I checked in without hassle, but with just over one hour to go to departure. The immigration line was very long and very slow, so definitely no time for duty free shopping.

It was a very full B777, but the crew were friendly and efficient. We departed on time, and arrived at about 6.30am local time in LA. I made it quickly through the immigration process and wandered out into the airport to locate Dom. He had arrived earlier than me, but his terminal was very busy and therefor exited about 30 minutes after me. We were very happy to see eachother and relieved that we’d both arrived on time.

We caught a shuttle to the Alamo car rental place, where a very friendly attendant gave us a Cadillac SUV.

My cousin had recently introduced me to the benefits of having a GPS so we hired one this time, and were immediately glad. It made navigating very easy. I had been a little concerned about getting around in LA, but we really didn’t have any problems.

We found our way to the Hyatt The Pike at Long Beach http://thepikelongbeach.hyatt.com/hyatt/hotels-thepikelongbeach/index.jsp?null through the cool and foggy LA morning. The traffic was mild at that time of day. They allowed us to check in at 9am without extra charge (impressive!) and so we elected to have a nap. There was a mild danger in this – would we want to get up again?! Luckily the threat of only having 4 days here had us up and into the car on our way to Ontario Mills, a huge outlet centre north east of Long Beach. The fog had dissipated and left a sparkling, hot blue sky. It was around 30 degrees.

The food court lunch was surprisingly excellent – I had the best chicken burrito I’ve ever tasted and Dom chose some very tasty blackened chicken.

After a couple of hours, we returned to the hotel (parking was only $7 a day) and then walked across to Shoreline Village where we ate at the Yard House. It was similar in all respects to the one we’d frequented in Hawaii. Great beers, friendly staff and tasty food. This one had a great view, right next to the marina.