Getting to Switzerland

BigTrip2 is well underway and we're in Zermatt, Switzerland at the moment.  For those that don't know, Zermatt is the town closest to the Matterhorn (The mountain on every Toblerone box)

A long way!

Because of award availability, we had to take a rather long winded route to get to Zurich - Melbourne - Sydney - Tokyo - London - Zurich. For me, the flights were ok, but long. I certainly valued the business class seats over my normal economy seats.  The same can't be said for Sharon - she hardly slept on the flights and is still struggling with tiredness and jet-lag.

The crew on out first flight were fantastic. One of the cabin crew recognised Charlie - our Elf on the Shelf who is coming for a holiday with us.  She took Charlie into the flight deck and got some photos with the Captain and around the cabin.

Charlie making sure the Captain know where to go.

Charlie showing the Economy passengers where the Business cabin is!

On our Sydney - Tokyo flight, it didn't start well with an aircraft replacement meaning we didn't get the first class seats in the nose of the 747 that we should have, rather we ended up with business class sasts  (which are not bad in any case) but it meant that we ended up with four windows and none of us sitting together. Fortunately, one gentleman swapped with one of the kids so the kids could sit together at least.  Sharon and I ended up with windows seats apart from both the kids and each other. The Qantas crew tried their best to get Sharon and I together but to no avail. What I can say is that the kids behaved brilliantly and upheld our faith in them being great kids, especially when (effectively) unsupervised.

Jemima and Charlie en route to Tokyo

Out flight to London was smooth and comfortable - while I really like their business class ying-yang seats , they really are starting to show their age - no USB charging points and an entertainment system that is sadly lacking - both in TV content and the (poor) quality of the screens.  Regardless, we arrived safely and transited at Heathrow smoothly. The short hop to Zurich was uneventful other than Sharon and Jemima struggling to remain awake - neither of them getting much sleep on the flight from Tokyo.

Cats Cradle

Rowlet with Max

Charlie enjoying the Japanese newspapers at Haneda airport

Max flying backwards to London

After approximately 40hrs of travelling, we arrived into Zürich - only to be subjected to a very odd checkin process at the Crowne Plaza  - the agent wanted me to go up to inspect the rooms before getiing the rest of the family to come up - one of the room keys wasn't working so I asked the agent to re-code the room key, but he said no - he would give us two new rooms and insisted on coming up to the rooms with me to make sure they were both adequate. In the meantime, Jemima had fallen asleep on the couch in the hotel reception and Sharon was struggling to remain conscious.

Ice Pack north of Russia

Shortly after sunrise over the Nordic countries