Leaving Adelaide for Southern Islands Explorer

Saturday 12th May 2018

I am travelling with my friend Jill, who I had sailed with last year on the Majestic Princess from Rome to Dubai. This time we have decided to fly to Kobe, Japan and board the Diamond Princess for a 14 night cruise (2 seven day cruises back to back).

The cruise sails from Kobe to Okinawa, Ishigki, Port Keelung (Taiwan), Kobe, Kochi, Hiroshima, Beppu, Kagoshima, Busan (South Korea), a sail through the Kanman Straits returning and disembarking in Kobe. 

Our day of flying out of Adelaide started well. Jill arrived at our house in good time for Paul to drive us to the airport allowing plenty of time to check our luggage in, highlight with Qantas check-in staff that we were connecting with our international flight in Sydney with as little as 65 minutes to transfer from the domestic to international terminals. We were assured we would not have any problems if we notified all the ground staff, mini bus driver and flight crew of our limited transfer time.

It sounds pretty cruisy...hey? Well it was until about 30 minutes before boarding, the departures' sign showed our flight was cancelled!. What the? It transpired that a severe storm in Tasmania the night before delayed or grounded a lot of flights to the mainland. This disrupted domestic flights around Australia the next morning, in effect our plane did not leave Sydney to fly to Adelaide for the turn around we were booked on. I tell you now, I started to feel some anxiety levels rising. We don't have to worry about the short transfer time in Sydney when we are still waiting to get on the next available plane out of Adelaide!

Praise for the Qantas ground crew in Adelaide who prioritized us and our bags on the next plane with what worked out to be a dozen other passengers who were connecting with other international flights. Once in Sydney we were escorted to the inter airport bus gateway and managed to squeeze onto a bus which had been radioed to halt its departure to wait for us. Then it was a quick, almost trot to our departure gate. When we walked onto the Qantas plane to Hong Kong we had virtually all the seated and buckled passengers glaring at us. I think they had been siting there in the plane for over 40 mins wondering why the plane wasn't moving out. Apart from the disruption caused by the storms in Tasmania the night before, that Saturday Sydney experienced strong cross winds leaving one runway operating, which delayed a lot of air traffic in and out.

We had an uneventful flight to Hong Kong for our connection with Cathy Pacific flight to Osaka, Japan. Only drawback being the 3 hour and 45 minute layover. When we landed at 10 pm most of the duty free shops were in the process of closing up for the night. By the time we boarded our flight, even the travelators in the airport had stopped for the night! Jill and I managed to find a bench each of three seats which did not have any arm rests which enabled us to lay down and maybe get a few minutes sleep. I say, maybe ,'cause there were so many announcements going over the pa system it was a little hard to ignore and zone out.