Would appreciate advice about travel plans in Australia

Hi

 

Three of us - adults 55+ - will be travelling from the east coast of North America to Australia. We are booked on the April 3 Celebrity Solstice Sydney to New Zealand back to Sydney.

 

Because this may be our only visit to Australia, we'd like to do as much as we can. I'd appreciate comments about the feasibility of these ideas:

March 17 Leave North America

March 19 Arrive Sydney and fly on to Cairns

March 20 A day to start to get over jet lag

March 21-23 Tours - Great Barrier Reef, Daintree Rainforest, Kuranda Rail

March 24 Fly Cairns to Perth (to visit a cousin over the weekend and sightsee)

March 27 Fly Perth to Adelaide

March 28-29 Adelaide (sightseeing, possibly Cleland Wildlife Park)

March 30 Fly Adelaide to Melbourne

March 31 -

April 2 Sightseeing, including Great Ocean Road

April 3 Fly Melbourne to Sydney; embark Celebrity Solstice

 

There seem to be a number of flights between Melbourne and Sydney - would it be a problem to fly to Sydney on the day of the cruise?

 

Thanks in advance for any comments or tips you might have.

 

Bev

Edited January 1, 2017 by Bev
typo

Hi

 

Three of us - adults 55+ - will be travelling from the east coast of North America to Australia. We are booked on the April 3 Celebrity Solstice Sydney to New Zealand back to Sydney.

 

Because this may be our only visit to Australia, we'd like to do as much as we can. I'd appreciate comments about the feasibility of these ideas:

March 17 Leave North America

March 19 Arrive Sydney and fly on to Cairns

March 20 A day to start to get over jet lag

March 21-23 Tours - Great Barrier Reef, Daintree Rainforest, Kuranda Rail

March 24 Fly Cairns to Perth (to visit a cousin over the weekend and sightsee)

March 27 Fly Perth to Adelaide

March 28-29 Adelaide (sightseeing, possibly Cleland Wildlife Park)

March 30 Fly Adelaide to Melbourne

March 31 -

April 2 Sightseeing, including Great Ocean Road

April 3 Fly Melbourne to Sydney; embark Celebrity Solstice

 

There seem to be a number of flights between Melbourne and Sydney - would it be a problem to fly to Sydney on the day of the cruise?

 

Thanks in advance for any comments or tips you might have.

 

Bev

 

Waaaay to much jammed in there for me (but I can understand why you'd want to) Cairns to Perth is, I think, about a four hour flight alone.

 

Not familiar with that wildlife park.

 

You won't see much of the Great Ocean Road in one day.

 

I'd never fly into Sydney the day of my cruise, too much that can go wrong. (I live a 2 1/2 hour drive and still try to go down the day before).

If you were to fly Mel to Syd , use qantas and take a really early flight 6am ish , that way they can put you on another flight ( not Jetstar or tiger air). Your plan is very full . Australia is a big place and you may be trying to do too much.

 

I would miss cairns, spend more time in Perth ?

 

John

 

 

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Hi

 

Thanks to both of you - I really appreciate your advice and you taking the time to help. I wondered if we were trying to do too much.

 

We'd like to see the Great Barrier Reef, that's why the visit to Cairns. I know the trip from Cairns to Perth is long, somewhat like Toronto to Vancouver (I'm from Canada) but I feel I should try to visit my cousin if I can. If we were to spend more time in Perth, what would you think of going from Perth straight to Melbourne?

 

Another thought - we have not yet purchased our flights so we can change the departure date from North America to an earlier one - if we wanted to keep the original itinerary - Cairns, Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney - how many days forward would you recommend we move the departure?

 

Generally speaking, how much time before a domestic flight are you expected to check in? In Canada, it's a minimum of 1 hour, preference is 2 hours. If it is the same in Australia, that would mean check-in for a 6 am flight would be incredibly early! Given that, I would prefer the idea of flying to Sydney the evening before.

 

Thanks again for your advice!

 

Bev

Edited January 1, 2017 by Bev
clarification

I agree with the other replies, this is way too much flying in a short time. Either allow a few extra days or skip either Perth or Adelaide. Certainly you could fly direct from Perth to Melbourne, which has a lot of great tourist sights including the penguins on Philip Island, where you can also see some other wildlife. I would definitely fly to Sydney the day before your cruise departs - at that time of year you begin to get the risk of morning fog at either Melbourne or Sydney airports, with lots of flight delays.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

Because this may be our only visit to Australia, we'd like to do as much as we can.

I wondered if we were trying to do too much.

I'm glad that you recognise the danger of falling into a mental trap based on "this may be our only visit to Australia". The country is so big that doing too much will just expose you to a great deal of Australia's transport infrastructure but to very few sights. The basic thing to remember is that Australia is physically about the same size as the US. If you only had two weeks in the US, would you be trying to see sights all up and down the East Coast as well as popping over to the West Coast for two days?

 

With the time that you have, you'd be best picking two places (or three at most) to spend a decent amount of time in. That way you'll actually get to see the sights on offer there, and waste less time in travelling from place to place.

 

And to be honest, if you've never been to Australia before you could actually spend your entire time in and around Sydney and have a very worthwhile time there. I know that you're planning to have a week in Sydney post-cruise so pre-cruise is the sensible time to see other parts of the country, but that should give you an idea about why you shouldn't be frightened of staying put in one place for a good few days at a time.

 

As for flying from Melbourne to Sydney, you would be taking some risk from weather delays even if you pick a very early flight. I'm not in Melbourne very often, but I've had several experiences of turning up for morning flights to Sydney and finding the airport completely fogged in with no aircraft movements until 9 am or 10 am (by which time the management of displaced aircraft, crew and passengers is verging on the chaotic). I don't know what time you'd need to be at the cruise terminal on departure day. These delays have never bothered me personally because of why I'm in Melbourne, how I'm travelling, and why I'm getting back to Sydney - and the risk on any particular day is small; but if it happens and if you're seeing an approaching deadline and there's no news of when your flight might actually go, stress levels could rise.

 

This is a reason why, whatever your schedule for your time in Australia, you're probably best to plan some Sydney sightseeing time at the end of the touring time so that you can naturally be in Sydney the night before your cruise departure.

Another thought - we have not yet purchased our flights so we can change the departure date from North America to an earlier one - if we wanted to keep the original itinerary - Cairns, Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney - how many days forward would you recommend we move the departure?

 

If you want to keep the original itinerary--Cairns, Perth, Adelaide and Melbourne with a flight from/to Sydney on each end--then you should allow for at least 18 days in country before your cruise. (This recommendation is based on multiple trips to Australia combined with several years of living there.)

 

You'd have an itinerary like this:

 

Day 1--Arrive in Sydney. Fly to Cairns

Day 2-5 -- Cairns (or Port Douglas, which I prefer)

Day 6 -- Fly to Perth

Day 7-9 -- Perth

Day 10 -- Fly to Adelaide

Day 11-13 -- Adelaide

Day 14 -- Fly to Melbourne

Day 15 - 17 -- Melbourne

Day 18 -- Fly to Sydney

Day 19 - Depart on cruise

If you want to keep the original itinerary--Cairns, Perth, Adelaide and Melbourne with a flight from/to Sydney on each end--then you should allow for at least 18 days in country before your cruise. (This recommendation is based on multiple trips to Australia combined with several years of living there.)

 

You'd have an itinerary like this:

 

Day 1--Arrive in Sydney. Fly to Cairns

Day 2-5 -- Cairns (or Port Douglas, which I prefer)

Day 6 -- Fly to Perth

Day 7-9 -- Perth

Day 10 -- Fly to Adelaide

Day 11-13 -- Adelaide

Day 14 -- Fly to Melbourne

Day 15 - 17 -- Melbourne

Day 18 -- Fly to Sydney

Day 19 - Depart on cruise

 

 

That gives you no time in Sydney.

 

In my opinion you could probably knock one day off and/all of cairns, Perth, Adelaide and Melbourne, especially considering you are allowing a full day for each flight.

Although I live in Victoria, Adelaide is much closer to my home and is 'our' capital city. It is very pretty but seriously you could safely miss it other than it is a pretty city and it has a nice beach front. Everything special about SA is out in the country, the wine district, the penguins, the volcanic lakes, the desert. Spend more time in WA and Melbourne and visit Rottnest Island, Healesville Sanctuary, and Phillip Island to see wildlife. St Kilda pier also has penguins too if you are lucky.

That gives you no time in Sydney.

 

In my opinion you could probably knock one day off and/all of cairns, Perth, Adelaide and Melbourne, especially considering you are allowing a full day for each flight.

 

As I understand from other posts by the OP, they are spending a week in Sydney post-cruise. So no need to include Sydney in the pre-cruise travel.

 

Also, I allowed a full day for each flight as that's what the OP did in her original itinerary.

Edited January 2, 2017 by GradUT

Wow! Thanks to all of you for all this information.

 

It's always good to check with people that are close to things, because one just never knows how much you don't know. For instance, I would never have thought of fog problems in Melbourne and Sydney. You've given me "food for thought" about the amount of travel and I'm beginning to think that less might be best. Definitely back to the drawing board now!

 

Thanks again - I really do appreciate your advice.

 

Bev