The 3:30am alarm starting whining. I popped out of bed ready to get the 31 hour travel day going. We changed, ate some yogurt, and the pre-ordered 4am Uber pulled up just as we were rolling out our suitcases. A pademelon bounced by right on cue.
There was no traffic on the road, and the time from arriving at the airport to getting to our gate was 15 minutes tops. A perk of a 4 gate airport. I should have appreciated the simple start to the travel day, because by the end it was anything but easy…
(My journey over to Tasmania was chaotic as well. Get the full scoop HERE!)
Let’s dive into our 31 hour journey from Hobart to Richmond with a review of the Qantas economy class food along the way.
Flight One: Hobart to Sydney, 2 hours
The flight from Hobart to Sydney is an easy breezy two hour journey that’s just long enough for a drink and snack service. As soon as the “fasten seatbelts” sign was off, the cabin crew began rolling the carts down the aisle. The snack was banana bread, and I opted for coffee as my drink. The banana bread was perfectly tasty with a soft, moist texture. An addition of coconut added a little something extra. Coffee on planes is never good. But when you have a 6am flight… you take what you can get! So far so good with our Qantas economy class food journey.
Layover 1: Sydney Airport, 5 Hours
We landed, de-planed, and found a semi-quiet area to settle into for a few hours. SYD may be Australia’s biggest airport, but the International terminal is small compared to other major hubs. It doesn’t take too many steps to explore each wing, and there are seemingly more luxury stores than food options. In fact, the better lunch choices are in a food court before security that you can gaze into through a window in the International terminal.
I got a salad, Jeremy got his beloved Zinger from KFC. (KFC in Australia is superior to KFC in the USA. Read my Aus vs USA KFC Showdown HERE!) Wasn’t too shabby and it wasn’t too expensive.
Flight 2: Sydney to Dallas, 14 (ish) hours
The Qantas team loaded up the behemoth Airbus A380 quickly and efficiently. Our seats were conveniently located right off the jet bridge. Excellent news to ease my already blossoming anxiety over making our connection in Dallas. (Which turned out to be a disaster. More to come soon…)
Snack 1: Crunchy Mix
The huge plane lumbered into the sky. As soon as we reached max altitude, the flight attendants dashed into action. They handed out little water bottles to start, and a snack and drink of choice followed soon after. The snack was a delightful salty bbq crunch mix, and I got a sparkling water. A pleasant snack to enjoy whilst deciding on what movies and tv shows would keep me occupied for the next 14 hours.
Meal 1: Dinner
45 minutes after the snack, it was dinner time. The menu was displayed on the seat TVs, and there were 3 options to choose from: salad with chicken, pumpkin tortellini, and braised beef. Both Jeremy and I got the chicken, and it was surprisingly excellent.
The salad had some greens, a whole-grain rice mix, strips of roasted chicken, edamame, and pickled ginger. A soy dressing tied everything together. It had a nice balance of flavor, and I appreciated the fact it had protein and complex carbs to make it a nutritious option. A warm focaccia was served on the side, and it came with a little pack of crackers and cheese which was actually delicious.
Dessert was a Bulla Murray St. chocolate salted caramel slice. Bulla Murray St. is a popular ice cream brand in Australia, and we’ve enjoyed various pints over our time in Australia. The ice cream bar was delicious, and something I’d buy for the freezer!
Various Sleepy Time Snacks
During the lights out sleepy time period between dinner and breakfast, they periodically served snacks. For snack #1, I awoke to see a tray with various options that I couldn’t quite comprehend due to my Advil PM induced stupor. I just grabbed something, and it turned out to be crackers and carrots with an onion dip. Nice! Snack #2 was the “big snack“, so to speak.
Usually, snack #2 on a long-haul flight is some sort of boxed savory pastry that they can hand out in the dark because most people are sleeping. And usually it’s horrible. For this Qantas flight, it was a bbq chicken sandwich of sorts. The bread had a nice crunch and decent flavor, but the mystery chicken filling was quite saucy and little suspicious. It didn’t taste bad, but it didn’t particularly taste good. My least favorite bite of my Qantas economy class food journey, but not horrible in the grand scheme of airplane food.
I was shocked that a couple hours later there was yet another snack of a little bag of sliced apples.
I was wildly impressed with this Qantas economy class food snack game. I’ve done many a long haul flight, and none of them have had this many snacks served.
Meal 2: Breakfast
Ninety minutes before landing, breakfast was served. The options were a frittata or a fresh fruit platter. Personally, I think offering a fruit platter as a breakfast main is odd. But hey… this is economy class baby! I chose the egg dish, and it came with a potato frittata, baked beans, some greens, and a couple sausages. It was fairly tasteless and textureless. The mini bran muffin on the side was average. But the greek yogurt with a seedy granola saved the day! Of course I got coffee, which was served from a french press. Australians mean business about their coffee, and drip coffee isn’t really a thing. So leave it to the Australian airline to serve coffee via a french press!
Layover 2: Dallas, 2 hours (yet we were the last ones who RAN onto the plane….)
Transferring to a domestic flight is a pain. You have to go through immigration, collect your suitcase, go through customs, drop your bag off again, and go through a security check before you can go to your gate. Suddenly, a seemingly comfy 2 hour layover turns into cutting it close.
We were well positioned to be almost the first off the plane, meaning we were almost first to immigration, which took 5 minutes, tops. But our time advantage was totally wiped away at baggage claim. It took 40 minutes to get our bags, giving us a little over 30 minutes until boarding began. Close, but possible.
Then chaos struck.
At the Hobart airport, I was told I had to get my final boarding pass at the Dallas Airport. After anxiously waiting in line for 10 minutes at the American Airlines transfer help desk, I was informed there was something wrong with my ticket. I watched the lady and her manager furiously type away with furrowed brows. “Ma’am… you were taken off the flight and we will have to either put you on stand-by or on a later flight.” WHAT?!?!
There was no time to start a fight. If there was any chance of even getting on the flight we had to move. Jeremy and I sprinted up the stairs, through security, and over to the airtrain. It took excruciatingly long for it to make the 5 stops to our terminal, then we bolted out making a bee-line for the gate. As we were running, the person at the desk said, “Askegaard? I have your boarding pass!”
We were the very last ones on the airplane.
Flight 3: Dallas to Richmond, 3 hours
As I took my seat, I exhaled the breath I didn’t know I was holding. Thank god I made it! I was in a daze for the entire flight, but not so far gone that I didn’t notice the abysmal service. The cranky flight attendant with a permanent frown begrudgingly handed me a bag of pretzels and looked visibly disdained at my order of coffee. Everyone around me got their drinks, but turbulence hit and the captain announced that cafe service would be suspended. My coffee never made an appearance.
This flight was operated by American Airlines, and I certainly noticed a huge difference compared to the flights on Qantas. Luckily, it was short and over before a knew it.
But wait…. there’s more!
I turned on my phone service and was greeted with a, “We are sorry your bags are delayed” email. We filed the report and the luggage was miraculously delivered to Staunton 40 hours later.
