Today we'd be flying out of Kuala Lumpur heading to Sydney. We'd be landing in Sydney in the evening.
We were booked on a Malaysian Airlines flight due to leave at 9:10am. Most of the time we prefer to travel business class using Qantas Frequent Flyer points but in this case we were paying money to fly economy class.
As usual for an international flight, we had to be at the airport three hours before departure and so we planned to take advantage of the hotel's shuttle service bus to the airport at 6am. It would be a long day with an early start - I set my alarm for 4:30am.
It didn't start well because there was almost no hot water in the shower.
It got worse. Last night, we'd ordered breakfast to be delivered by room service at 5am but it didn't arrive until 5:30 and there was not enough time to have more than a few bites before we checked out at 5:45. Our opinion of the Movenpick hotel was going downhill.
The shuttle bus worked well and we reached the airport by 6:15am. The queue at the economy class checkin wasn't as bad as it can be. Although both bags weighed the same (25.4kg), which was above the 23kg limit, the lady at checkin seemed quite relaxed about it.
Once again we had to walk through the building and get a bus to another building. After passing through customs and security, we found a Starbucks for a coffee and muffin for breakfast. Then another long walk to the departure gate.
I was limping and so it was slow progress. At the departure gate, Suzy organised for me to board early at the same time as the people on wheelchairs.
The plane departed at 9:30am and it was almost a full flight. For some reason, most of the people onboard seemed to be Indian.
They served a breakfast at 11am and another light meal at 4pm (KL time).
I was surprised that they provided free wifi onboard. I've seen wifi onboard some other flights but it is rare for it to be free. Unfortunately, it wasn't very reliable.
The captain seemed to be very cautious about turbulence because he put the fasten seat belts sign on several times and for a long time – even though there didn’t seem to be a problem most of the time.
We landed in Sydney just after 8:30pm Sydney time (5:30pm KL time). It was an anxious wait for our luggage because our airtags showed them as last seen at KL. Eventually it showed them in Sydney and they emerged on the carousel soon after.
Customs at Sydney airport was very quick and efficient until the last step. When we had collected our bags and we were heading for the exit, the nothing to declare exit had a long queue that wasn't moving. We tried the other queue.
The taxi got us home at about 10:40pm where Philip and Milo were waiting to welcome us home. It was midnight before we got to bed.
We were home safely and our big overseas adventure had come to an end.
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