..........after a month in Europe, visiting Paris, cruising the Saône and Rhone rivers in the South of France and the Douro river in Portugal. While the trip was fantastic, and will give many pleasant memories, the journey home was a killer. The legs were: Porto - Frankfurt (ideally 2.5 hours) Frankfurt - Singapore (ideally 12 hours) Singapore - Melbourne (ideally 7 hours) So about 21.5 flight hours plus transit time, maybe 26 hours with luck. Things were going good until the A380 was departing Frankfurt. Due to late push back, the plane got to the runway at 22:59:45. The bad news is that Frankfurt has a 23:00 no fly curfew, no exceptions. So after negotiating with the German aviation authorities for a bit of leeway, the answer came back, "Nien!". So it was back to the gate, unload about 400 pax and get them into hotels for the night. Got to bed at about 02:00. Then it was up at 08:00, only to find out that the flight had been changed to another standby aircraft leaving at 15:00, so some more terminal time before boarding a bus to take us to the boondocks where our aircraft was parked. Arrived in Singapore at 09:15 and expected to jump on the 11:00 flight to Melbourne, but instead of two tickets, we were presented with a hotel voucher and boarding passes for our flight leaving in 10 hours. A day at the Mecure Roxy (washing the only clothes we had and sleeping) and it was back to the airport at 19:30. Went through Immigration and security with no problems at all (unlike Frankfurt where the security was mind boggling) and had a short wait before boarding a Boeing 777-300ER for the 7 hour trip home. We hit Melbourne at about 07:30 and it was straight to duty free to collect 4 x 1 Litre bottles of single malts/gin/Drambuie before collecting our bags and clearing customs. Our chauffer was late so another 15 minutes waiting for him and then into the limo for the 30 minute drive home. We finally stepped over the threshold at about 09:00, so total journey time from leaving the ship in Portugal to entering home was 58 hours 8 minutes. And if you want count the 5 hours from leaving our suite to wait for transport in the ship's lounge that's close enough to 63 hours on the go. As I said, we're glad to be home! (Mission timer started as we walked down the gangway, stopped when I got to the front door at home).
The airlines should be ashamed - the trip should come with free travel vouchers for the next time you fly. Glad you made it back, but I'd be EXTREMELY upset if it happened to me.
As an Aussie that travels to Europe, sympathise with you. On the bright side at least you got to sleep in hotels in FRA and SIN. Don't know what's worse really, to get massively delayed but be able to sleep in a hotel, or less delayed and spend all the time in airport terminals and planes. For me, would rather get to a hotel than suffer sleep deprivation. We always go to Berlin and try to avoid hubbing in FRA which is a pain to get through. We've been waiting for the new Berlin airport to open since about 2012 so we might get some direct flights from Asia but as far as I know they still don't even have an opening date.
My partner is Swedish, which just happens to be one of the furthest places to go from Aus Feel your sorrow Jim, but can't say I have ever been delayed that long!
You got hotels Darwin - Sydney - New Zealand - LA - EL Paso - then drive to Las Cruces ( on the wrong side of the car on the wrong side of the road ) Hotel for 50 odd hours job called off when I went in Monday at 8am Same way back There Left home Wednesday got in late Friday night to hotel Back Left hotel Monday lunch got home Thursday 1am home. 6 days traveling 2 days in a hotel ( that had been canceled 5 hours before I got there ) Bag ripped to shreds by carousel at Las Cruces My socks and jocks amongst everyone's bags Week I will never forget ever.......