A little background on this trip, then I’ll go into detail. This trip was supposed to happen in April/May 2020, but we know what happened then. A lot happened, so we finally decided to plan it again. However this time, we were going to cruise. Our first back to back (B2B) cruise. in total 16 nights on the Celebrity Edge. We were gone for about 3 1/2 weeks in total.
We are a Peloton house and have been to both the New York and London studios. I had the most fantastic idea, that we should fly up to New York to do a Peloton class, the fly to LA from there. Wee left home on a Thursday afternoon and flew to NY/LGA. We stayed near the Peloton Studio since we were there for two classes and then off to LA Friday afternoon.
Now for the cool part, at least for us. As some may know the ride from downtown NY to JFK can be unbearable, especially if you get carsick. So I made plans to take Blade Helicopter from downtown to JFK. I used the service for theme to come to the hotel to pick up our checked bags. All very reasonable, for the service. Our flight to LA was at 7pm. We scheduled our helicopter for around 3pm. Blade has a cool lounge to wait in, with beverages available while you wait. The helicopter came in, they loaded 4 of us up and off we went. 7 minutes later we landed at JFK. Our checked luggage was already in a SUV, they were just waiting on us. 5 minutes after that we were walking into the airport lounge at JFK. That’s right, less than 15 minutes we flew from Downtown to JFK and were checked in, bags checked, thru security and at the lounge. WORTH EVERY PENNY. We flew to LA, spent the night at the Ritz Carlton Marina Del Rey. Close to the airport, but far enough away. Since we landed around 10pm and our flight didn’t leave until the next day at 11pm. We could have flown it all the way thru, but if you’ve done it before you know coming from the east coast, it’s too long of a trip for one day. We had a great stay at the Ritz Carlton and just felt rested the next evening for our flight to Sydney.
We arrived in Sydney and we stayed at The Langham Sydney. We were staying there for 5 nights until we caught our first cruise. We had an activity planned everyday to see Sydney because when wee got back, we were staying one night and knew we would be ready to get home from there. So we did the Opera House, Bondi Beach, the Zoo and a private Blue Mountains tour.
Our first cruise was a 4 night cruise to Tasmania and back to Sydney. When we got back to Sydney, we had our same suite, so wee didn’t have to move anything. Our next cruise was 12 nights and did Australia and New Zealand. We had stops in Bay of Islands, Auckland, Tauranga, Christchurch and Dunedin. Wee sailed the Dusky, Doubtful and Milford Sounds.
When we arrived back to Sydney we had a hotel booked very close to the port. We just walked over to the hotel, our room was ready. We stayed at the Pier One Sydney Harbor. The picture below is from the balcony of our room.
The next morning we were off to SYD airport. Wee flew SYD to LAX to TPA. We were happy to be home, but the trip was so AMAZING. Saw places and did things that just made the trip that much better.
I will do another post on the cruise and the ports and excursions we did.
JD's Passport 