The Long Day Home

 January 5, 2024 Sydney, AU

Friday, Jan. 5, 2024 we docked early back in Sydney, AU. It was a little strange seeing buildings, like the Opera House, that now seemed familiar and like coming 'home.'  From the dining room at breakfast, I could see a carnival set up along the harbor, with a great big sun sculpture. Seemed a good omen (ha!) for our trip home.

Carnival at Sydney Harbor

After breakfast in the Allegro Dining room we reported to the Princess Theater to wait for our luggage group to be called. Brown 2 was the group for those with a Princess transfer to the airport, Apparently, the buses were delayed because of downtown traffic (not surprising for Sydney) and it was close to 10 am before we got off the ship.

Before boarding the buses we had to clear AU customs and claim our luggage. Both went surprisingly smoothly.

The bus ride to the airport took 20-30 min. and suddenly we were back where we had arrived 3 weeks ago!  There were hundreds of us all needing to find our flights.  Before we could do that, I had to find the AU "TRS" - Tax Relief Service - desk to get reimbursed for the AU taxes I had paid on my purchase of opals I made on our last day in Sydney before we got on the cruise.  The lines for the TRS were very long, but I finally made it to the counter, and presented my paperwork. Hopefully the taxes will be rebated to our credit card.

We still had some time to burn before boarding our 2:15 pm flight to LAX so we went in search of lunch and Carl went off to a convenience store in search of more OTC cold meds.  He came back with candy bars & snacks but not much in the way of meds!

One of the strange things about flying from Sydney to the U.S. (LAX) is the time change. We left at 2:15 pm on Jan 5, 2024 and arrived at LAX at 9:10 am on Jan. 5, 2024!! Suffice it to say, the flight was long, with little sleep, and this trip we had alot of screaming babies & small children!

Arriving jetlagged & crabby, we then had to spend 45 min or so in a very slow-moving line to clear US Customs. There must have been several international flights arriving at about the same time, given the number of people in line!  All that standing was torture on Carl's knee and made his sciatica flare up too!  Neither of us was particularly happy by the time we cleared customs, claimed & dropped off our bags again, and made it to our gate for the 4-hour flight from LAX to Atlanta.

Flight to Atlanta was uneventful - except for more screaming babies (sigh) and of course the time change flying east meant we didn't arrive until about 7:30 pm. We scouted out an airport fast food chinese place for dinner and sat at our gate munching chicken with fried rice.

Last leg back to Harrisburg, PA left just before 10 pm and we landed at Harrisburg around 11:30 pm. EST. At this point we had been traveling (starting with bus ride from ship to Sydney airport) for about 28 hours!  Took a little while to get our luggage and then we walked with our luggage over to the Fairfield Suites hotel - about a 2-3 block walk from the terminal. I had called the hotel from LAX in the morning to confirm our reservation and let them know we would be arriving VERY late! We checked in around 12:15 am, stumbled up to the room and after a quick shower for each of us we tumbled into bed!

Our friends, Beth & Tom picked us up on Saturday morning (Jan 6) for the hour ride home. We got picked up so early because we were expecting (and did get) snow later in the morning.

We made it home sweet home around 9:45 a.m. on January 6, 2024.  Oh, what an adventure!