Ayers Rock to Cairns
April 18 was one of our horrible travel days. We originally had a Qantas flight from Yulara to Brisbane to Cairns but Qantas cancelled the first leg and after some struggle, we were booked on Jetstar flights from Yulara to Melbourne to Cairns which was really a long way to get where we were going.
We started with breakfast in our hotel, which was a nice buffet, then went to our room to chill until 11:15 when the shuttle to the airport was scheduled. The front desk called us shortly after 10 to ask if we needed any help vacating the room since checkout was at 10. So we gathered up our stuff and went to go sit in the lobby for an hour. As we told the front desk, if checkout is at 10, then there was no excuse for our room not to have been ready at 3 the first day. On top of that, the clerk refused to provide us a receipt for our stay so we could not check for charges.
Ayers Rock airport is small with only a few flights, which meant the check in lines were long. We ran into another couple who would be on our cruise and chatted with them. We discovered Jetstar is the Australian equivalent of Spirit Airlines. They could not check our bags all the way to Cairns, meaning we would have to claim them in Melbourne, recheck them and go through security again. It was only after we passed through security in Yulara that we learned they were very strict on carry-on weight and our hand carry luggage was way over the 14kg allowed for the two of us. We threw away some snacks that had been opened and finished off some others and prepared to pay the huge fee for overweight luggage. But luckily they did not weight the bags at this airport.
We ran into another issue because somehow when J. R. scanned his mobile boarding pass, it also scanned Janie's. (The same thing had happened at bag check, because Janie was wondering why the agent had not asked to scan her pass there). The agent at the gate had to check Janie in manually. We decided we would get paper passes in Melbourne.
The flight was not bad. We did have a food and beverage credit from the extras package we had purchased to cover our checked bags, so J. R. enjoyed a toastie and Janie had some Pringles and a candy bar. We landed on time in Melbourne and picked up our luggage and moved a few items from our carry-on to Janie's bag to reduce our hand carry weight. We had to wait around for awhile at check in as the baggage check did not open until 90 minutes before our flight departure. We wondered why they told people to be at the airport two hours early then.
After security, we stopped for food. Janie went for Subway and after originally just going to McDonald's to get fries, J. R. decided on a full meal. We had to wait around for a gate assignment, which came 15 minutes before boarding at a gate 10 minutes away. We saw the Jetstar agent walking down the line for the Sydney flight with a portable scale so after finding the line for our flight, we removed some items from our bags to our pockets, but again, they did not weigh for our flight.
We used our flight credits for some more snacks and soon we were in Cairns airport to claim our bags. We tried to get an Uber to our hotel, but after three tries, we joined the long taxi line. The taxi ended up being cheaper and soon we were at the lovely Crystal-brook Flynn overlooking the harbor in Cairns.
