am i crazy????

Cara,

I hired a campervan to do W.A. last year - probably travelled the same distance you are planning to do on the East coast.

I found the camper really easy to drive and park after the first day, and i was used to an automatic small car (camper was manual). They all have great power steering.

We had a fantastic time and it was great to be able to pull over anywhere and have everything at your fingertips, especially a fridge! Most campers have spare batteries that will last if you are unplugged for 12 hours, then recharge as you drive the next day.

By the way, we hired a pretty cheap and nasty camper, and it was still great - but there are some amazing ones available. The volxwagon ones looked the best for families.

Whatever you get, budget for the full insurance options - well worth it if you run into any trouble.
 
If you are crazy, so am I. We will be flying from HK to the US with our (then) 19 month old on our laps, and that flight door to door is about 20 hours, daytime/afternoon flights. Unfortunately we will not be able to afford to buy her a seat so we will have to take turns - and she is a handful and a half these days.

Good luck to both of us!
 
It sounds AWESOME - the weather should still be a little "cool" - but nice enough to get some good days and even to be able to go to the beach and stuff - particularly up towards Brisbane.

Campervans are great too. When I was 6 and my brother was 4, my family did that all over New Zealand for two weeks, had a great time! Yes, there'll be a bit of driving - but it's not that bad! Both Brisbane to Sydney is only about 12 hrs - I've done it overnight many times. And you'll probably be stopping at a few places in between as well - so it's not going to be 12 hours straight up. Then Sydney to Melbourne is probably around 10 hours or so - but again, you can be stopping along the way and everything.

I remember my campervan trip to NZ so clearly, even though it was 20 something years ago now! I've always wanted to do it again. It was great being able to pull over on the side of the road and still get a decent nights sleep!! And not to have to worry about finding bathrooms on the road! (that can be a pain a lot of the time!!)

Is this your first time to Australia, or have you been before??
 
nope, both hubby's and my first time. my brother was there for a year about 10 years ago and met his wife there (she was also on a holiday)


argh!
now, i'm stumped....i've read some HORRIBLE reviews of quantas and virgin atlantic...

anyone have anything good to say about these airlines???

we are trying to decide now... do we go for 3 seats and lapping our girl in premium economy? or do we go for 4 seats in plain old economy???

anyone have any suggestions?
 
My theory on (most) reviews is that you only ever hear from the whingers. And lets face it, there seem to be a lot out there :)

Air travel outside of business/first class is always going to be challenging, especially with kids.

I have never had a major problem with Qantas, I no nothing of Virgin Atlantic. Virgin Blue, which flies a lot of cheap domestic routes in Australia is okay, but I would prefer Qantas any day (but would usually expect to pay a little more). You may find yourself on a Cathay flight anyway as they code share out of HK.

Personally, if I found myself in your shoes, I would probably not buy the extra seat (we are living on a very real tight budget) and then spend the whole flight kicking myself over it (and having my husband kick me for it too!). You might need to file the extra expense under "Life is too short not to....."
:flower:
 
that's what i'm afraid of...

i know if we buy the seat, then the flight is going to be empty and we'd have the seat anyway...

if i don't buy the seat, then it's going to be packed and i'll be grumpy the whole way for not buying the seat...

i think that we might suck up the cost (we don't do this very often) and get 3 premium economy seats... hopefully they won't be full and we will get an extra seat anyway....
 
Hi Cara - I would personally take the three seats and hope for the best. I did a 10 hour flight recently and though it was not the best of times, it had to be done and we got through it fine. Tired and crabby but we were so over it the next day! I had a stop over for four hours too which I would not recommend just to get the four seats.

I have only flown Cathay and Thai with our daughter and they are wonderful. On a recent short haul flight they had extra seats and blocked it off for us so that we had more space. I would recommend requesting the staff at check in rather than the office as they seem to be much more in tune with what parents need! Also don't forget asking for priority tags on all luggage so that you don't have to wait around too long at the other end.

The way I look at it, I had more money to spend on doing some extra nice things on the holiday.
 
I've never flown with kids but I've flown home to Sydney on both QANTAS and Cathay and can't complain about either. I usually find the QANTAS flights cheaper than Cathay. Look for flights on www.zuji.com.hk

For domestic airlines i've flown both virgin blue and Qantas and again no problem for these short haul flights.
http://www.virginblue.com.au/
http://www.qantas.com.au/regions/dyn/home

This Australian website http://www.whereis.com/ has maps of Australian cities, towns and travel destinations with driving directions and traveller information.

Enjoy your trip!
 
thanks for all of the advice folks...

last night after hours of searching the internet, i realised that if we sprung for the premium economy and we are springing for the nice campervan.... this will cost us almost $100K!!!!!

that's just to ridiculuos for us...we've decided to suck it up and go for the night flight, direct on virgin with only 3 seats in economy. we'll see when we get to the airport if they can block a seat and failing that try to upgrade then (i've heard it's MUCH cheaper to do it that way...we'll see)... if not, we'll suffer for 9 hours and then be done with it!

thanks again for all of the sage advice. i appreciate the time you have taken to respond!
cara
 
Cara, in the many many many flights we did before daughter no.1 turned 2, we never paid for a seat and always got one so fingers double crossed for you as well. I adore the service from Virgin Atlantic, find Qantas' service a bit on the rude side but mostly ok as well. If you get to the airport on the really early side, you have more of a chance of them blocking a seat for you as well. I always do my best to be holding at least one baby under the arm at check-in and look a bit harrassed at the same time...they sometimes take pity...lol...you'll have a great time, its a lovely time of year to go to Australia.
 
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