Made it to Ecuador - Thursday and Friday

Just a quick update..

We had chilli's for dinner in L.A and caught our plane to Miami arrived at 5:30 am and caught a kip for a few hours and grabbed some breakfast of Pancakes, scrambled eggs, toast and sausage, whilst waiting for the bus to take us to the Dolphin Mall.

Had a look around the mall for a couple of hours, Nando grabbed some new shoes and socks, got some Hair band for the girls and then caught the bus back to the airport. Grabbed some Wendy's and Hawaiian chicken for lunch. Then slept some more.

Boarded our plane, which turned out to be broken, so they worked on it for about 45 mins before getting us off the plane and sending us to the other end of the airport to board a new plane. Had to wait for 1 hour before it was ready for us to board.

Arrived in Quito at 9:30pm line up for Customs, who didn't want to accept that Nando was Australian and was born there, she insisted on asking for Ecuadorian paperwork that he doesn't have and insisting that he give her his real name.

Eventually a team leader came over and told her to put him in as an Australian and we are clear.

Collect all our bags and Nando's is still missing so had to wait in line with everyone else who had lost bags and everyone who had missed their connecting flight due to the delay.

Registered his bag lost and now we wait.

All the family had come out to meet us and had been there since 7pm we didn't emerge until 11pm. Then the one hour drive to get to our destination and our awaiting dinner which went down well..

Then showers was the next important thing on the list and finally sleep.

Got a good nights sleep and surfaced about 10 am.

Had Toasted Ham and Cheese sandwich with narajilla juice. They are little fruits that look like miniature oranges, and smell like something that should be thrown out, the juice is green ( I will have to take pics when we make it again). It tasted soo good.

For Lunch we wandered up the street to one of Nando's Aunties house and had  serviche ( Cold seafood soup) roast pork, salad, potato patties, avocado, chicken. For desert we had a bomb cake ( again I was slack on the photos) it had an oreo base, then a chocolate and liquor mousse like filling and then covered in chocolate that was hard like ice magic.

There was so much food we ate this for dinner as well.

In the morning we are going to see if Nando's suitcase has turned up or buy him some clothes. I laid him out a nice skirt and top but he declined.

Apparently the rest of our days have been planned out, with what I have no idea.

Made it to L.A Just

So it's now 6am Local time. As we sit in the departure lounge charging my mobile at the free mobile charge station. With the rest of the family sleeping on the floor in front of me,

Our Canberra > Sydney flight was delayed by 1/2 an hour, and of course this information came 5 mins after I took my travacalm, as the dash 8 and I do not get along at all. I went up to the front desk to advise them that this delay could mean us missing the flight, and the rude desk guy said no 1.5 hours is plenty of time to get through to your connecting flight.

Because the plane is a dash 8 all carry on luggage needs to go under the plane, which means you also have to stand around and wait for it at the other end. In the rain. Bags get delivered and we rush to the international transfer point on the opposite end of the Sydney airport. Then sat waiting for the transfer driver to finish reading his paper and we are away.

Rush through to International and find where we need to be checking in, to find a massive line, so just mossied on up to the business check in person who was looking board.

Why are you so late she tells us, I explain that our flight was delayed, and we needed to get from Domestic to International. She said we need to run to the gate as the flight had closed. So run we did, busting to go to the toilet and all, line up to clear customs and Nando had chucked his toiletry bag in his carry on and not checked bag, so he lost the contents of that.

Finally clear Customs and what do we hear family XX you are holding up the departure of your flight and unboarding you has commenced. We have people yelling at us along the way to hurry up, which then caused Sarah to have a panic attack, chest pains and couldn't breathe... Great all we need, I'm starting to get cranky at the people telling us off, and tell them to back off we are going as fast as we can.

Get to the plane and request some water for Sarah, and whilst we are in the door way 3 business class passengers  slowly waltz down and onto the plane, I was not happy and told them that I found it rude and highly embarrassing that they have blamed us for the delay, I raised the fact that as they were not able to accommodate my meals, I was supposed to buy some food but didn't. tough luck.

We are seated almost all the way at the back of the plane and got lots of dirty looks from passengers, yeah what ever dudes, get to our seats and we are in the baby section. And there were sooo many. how ever we didn't hear a peep from any of them except one, the one baby that screamed the entire flight. We would get 10 - 15 minute breaks every now and again when she would doze off or get taken for a walk, but this meant no sleep, If it wasn't the baby screaming it was the people sitting next to them screeching at the flight attendants demanding to be moved, but the flight was full, so nothing they could do.

Then comes meal time and I'm given the third degree for not ordering a special meal, which I advised that I did 6 MONTHS AGO !!!!!! ok well we will see if we can find something for you. waiting, waiting and more waiting they have done 3 trash collections and a round of drinks. I pipe up and ask if I was going to be able to eat and they are still looking.

They managed to find me a 1/2 warm kids nuggets. food is food and lucky I grabbed some cup a soup sachets from woolies before I left just in case and that went down really well.

We get into L.A...

I still haven't taken a picture of the bag as Nando's is missing, the ugly orange one is the only one not to show up. But apparently it should resurface by the time we get to Ecuador. If not we will need to submit a claim. Clear declaration and recheck the bags to have the TSA folks ask me to open all our locks as they don't have a set of keys. Odd but we comply, leave the bags and go out to get boarding passes for tonight's flight.

Eventually find our way to the right terminal and line up to check in and the check in doesn't like Nando's passport, so we try the next one and get all the way through to having the assistant confirm something or other on the screens only to have the whole process fail, Sorry you will need to go over to purchasing and have your tickets reissued.

Up to the next massive line to wait, and wait... after about 45 mins we finally got to a check in desk, only to have some weird problems on AA's end something about we were supposed to be collecting the tickets in Heathrow, so that took a bit of time to fix up, but thats all sorted and boarding passes all the way to Ecuador have now been issued.

So because we only have our carry on we decide to venture to the Westfields near by $23 including tip ( I downloaded an awesome app called Tip and split) we are there, we came past a touch screen coke machine ( I will post the pics when we get to Ecuador as I will need to transfer then from my phone)

We went past a Proactive vending machine, but didn't get a picture as my phone was in the bottom of my bag. went in to check out Target, which had a star bucks, pizza hut and some other food shop in there.

Then we went to food court for some late lunch, I had a Hawaiian BBQ which was really good, the rest of the family were boring and went for Burger King, Although I must admit the "Hand Spun" thick shakes are amazing as is the whipped cream.

Run around checking out all the shops Nando needed some new sneakers, but no one had them in his size, so we have to look when we get to Miami.

I must say the cab ride in L.A reminds me of Sydney or Melbourne, and I kept freaking out cause we were driving on the wrong side of the road.

The lines for security here in L.A is just crazy, and you have to take off your shoes??? I don't quite understand that one. And Sarah in all her wisdom asked the question and followed it up with a it's not like I have a bomb hiding in there or anything, which resulted in a stern talking to by the customs staff. Subsequently she is not allowed to talk whilst in any airports.

Here is hoping the next leg of the flight is uneventful and I can just fall asleep.

W are going to grab Chilli's for dinner as its either that or Burger King in this section of the departure lounges.

Ohh and there was a  Best Buys vending machine in L.A

D day

So up early this morning to run around and throw all the final things in the bags before taking off.

It was raining, which means everyone was driving into work this morning, which made for extra traffic.

I forgot to take a picture of all the bags before we left, and vowed that I would do it at the airport, get to the airport and forgot again. So now we will take the picture when we arrive in LA.

On the good note each kid was fine with manoeuvring two large suit cases and their carry on plus backpack.

If anything I was the one who was unco trying to manage two suit cases, carry on, laptop and hand bag whilst trying to reply to SMS's for work. Nando has subsequently confiscated my phone so I won't do any work today.

I did log on and put my out of office on, reviewed a one page document and sent two emails, now I am done.

So now we sit in the airport, waiting for our little dash 8 to take us to sydney.

Qantas have been fantastic, we got ushered through to a seperate check in section at the Canberra Airport, and all our bags have been checked all the way to Quito. We do have to collect them in L.A, show customs and then chuck them back on the carosel and they will be wisked away.

I am soo thankful for this as if we did have to collect the bags at Sydney and then catch the transfer bus over to international, we would not make the two hour time frame to get from one terminal to the other. ( the horrible expedia post is still being drafted and is upto 5 word pages long and still not finished).

We have munchies and I have a variety of cup a soup packets for my trip... But I have just realised that I forgot to buy a small jar of Vegimite :(

I have filled out our departure cards, and sent the kids off with the husband as they are already bord. I think they are all having fun playing the let try mums patience game.... the next 40.5 hours will be bloody trying I'm telling you now.


Well logging off to conserve battery now. Will take a pic of all the luggage at L.A and will update there or somewhere along the line.

The packing has started

So we are now down to 10 days until we fly out and only 5-7 days of work left. We are having massive troubles with our travel agent Expedia, that is a whole other post on its own which I'm in the middle of writing. I just pray that they come good and do the right thing.

I have worked out that to get to our first destination of Quito Ecuador we will be flying and laying over for 40.5 hours.

The girls had a practice run on trying to  manage 2 large empty suitcases and a carry on and it was interesting hopefully we can access a luggage trolley.I have started to pack a suit case, with the Caramello Koalas and other presents that have been requested, as well as the empty duffel bag.

My pre trip weight loss atempt was a major fail, somthing about needing to be more active as well as eating better.... So I have put on a bit of weight meaning a good portion of my clothes no longer fit. Today was quite productive in that I was able to  fill a massive basket full of clothes that I can pack away for after I shift my weight.

We have also been going through the girls clothes and culling anything that doesn't fit, and my mother in law suggested a really go idea, in that since we are taking so many empty suit cases in anticipation of our shopping in the USA, we should take our old clothes over to Ecuador to donate rather than Salvos over here. So currently going through those massive bags also.

We are booked in for our second lot of yellow fever shots on Tuesday week, the day before we fly out, and will get my nails done and a round of lazer on that day as well.  Hair cut and colour is booked in for next Saturday.

I have booked in some internal travel for Ecuador to go and visit family in Guyaquil, and funnily it was cheaper to book it through the Ecuadorian version of LAN airlines than it was the Australian version go figure. But for $29 each, each way we are taking 4 days down there to have a look see.

Sarah is right into Geocaching, so one of her birthday presents was the Geocaching app, so she can look up caches whilst in Ecuador, and there are quite a few, so hopefully we will have some fun finding some of those.

Changed some monies

So with the dollar on its way down again. I thought I would go and change some cash that I have been hourding around over to USD.

I got $1.0220 as the exchange rate, so its just over parity so happy with that.

Now for my first attempt of loading some pics in a post....

16 days to go

Well I thought I should put in a new update now that it's getting closer to take off time. I also thought that I will put in as much helpful information that I have gathered from my travel buddies over at EB and also through trawling the many different travel sites and picking friends brains.

What a year to pick to go overseas. My count down timer is a day ahead of it's self due to being a leap year. We are down to 16 days before departure, had a few hurdles with flight changes, which are nearly all resolved.

Visa waivers paid for and approved today. 

Accommodation in Orlando now paid in full. We are staying at Mickey's World which is a fully self contained three bedroom town house with it's own plunge pool, and it is within a resort, and has access to all the resort facilities.

All our theme park tickets arrived from the UK Attraction Tickets Direct, it is great to know that using this site has saved us just over $8k to purchase the same from Aussie sites. And a good tip that I have learnt for next time is that they will ship directly to Australia, just need to email them.

Prices for Manhattan have gone up again, but it is still  two months before we get there, so plenty of time to keep an eye out for a good deal. I booked our backup accommodation for New York City, which is actually in Long Island City Country Inn & Suites By Carlson, New York , I booked the accommodation through www.hotels.com, they charge for the accommodation in AUD. So no conversion costs and they have an aussie number to call and can book over the phone as well. But this place seems pretty good with breakfast and WiFi included.

Car hire was through Travel Jigsaw. They have been great so far as well. They also charge in AUD, only require a deposit and will take the rest out two days before picking up the car. They are also great in that if the price for the rental drops, I have call them up and they have adjusted my rate to the new lower price.

Searching for the best way to get international funds I was put onto this website Mozo. From here I found a really good credit card that is fee free and doesn't charge international transaction fees or anything, so we have grabbed a couple of those to use 28 Degrees Card. I have also tracked down useful information that the best way to convert currency it via an ATM as you get the closest exchange rate and only get charged $1- $2 to withdraw from an ATM overseas.

I took out extra travel insurance as the limits for what was offered with our credit card were limited and I had to pay for an assessment for my pre existing medical condition, where as the additional just covered it without any medical. We used Compare Travel Insurance to see what policies were out there and selected the Amex travel insurance

I have been managing the holiday through Trip It which is excellent, I forward any confirmation emails that I receive and it adds it to the itinerary this includes accommodation, meals, theatre etc. I have the app downloaded on my phone that can be accessed without data once it has been downloaded. There is a free account for this service or a premium service that will send you SMS notifications if there are any changes to your flights etc. I'm just using the free version.

I have since been directed to another little gem Check My Trip that tracks your flight details and is linked directly into the Amadeus system, which is the flight system that all travel agents use, so this gives you real time updates to your flights with no costs, it also has an app for my phone, but I'm not to keen on the phone app. Much easier to just have the browser logged in.

We will be getting a local SIM Card whilst in the state and have found that T mobile will give us the best package that we need, as we will be there for just over a month. A friend sent me a link to a place here in Australia that will ship you the SIM cards that are activated and ready to go Travel Gear. Unfortunately because we are going to South America first we will just have to get a SIM card when we land in the USA. We will be picking it up from Walmart, which is on the other side of the Miami International airport.

Well that's all I can think of at the moment. I will post up a packing blog when I get around to doing a trial pack.