3go2Perth Posted August 20, 2009 Share Posted August 20, 2009 Well we are here.. arrived 3 days ago on Monday. So far I have to admit it feels like a holiday, and not a great one at that. Rubbish weather, and it's so much harder to get anything done than I expected! Anyway, here is our report of our flight & the pearls of wisdom I'd liek to pass on... We'd hired a car with Hertz from manchester Picadilly for the week until leaving, and when I tried to return it on Saturday it turned out they were shut. This worked out fine as we were able to use it to get to the airport and then (in the style of a slightly disappointed customer) refuse to pay the extra for returning a car to the airport :cute: We stayed at the Radisson at Manchester Airport for Saturday night.. this was great.. you can pull up outside in the car & unload bags, and then in the morning get a trolley from reception to head straight into the airport. (The entrance on that side is on the wallkway between T1 & T2). My brother in law helped us to get all our bags to the hotel in the afternoon and left them in the room to go & get the rest and lock up the house. We had a massive 146kg in the end to check, and all our carry on bags were over the 7kg limit! In the morning we went to check in. Smallish queue. A hiccup when the check in clerk said our limit was 30kg each. Fortunately hubby recognised the woman whom we'd paid for our tickets who was working in the check in area, and we called her over. So, here's the important bit.. apparently they have to check a system called MARS to see the extra allowance. And don't forget to quote it's 'Moving Planet'. All that got sorted and the nice ckerk even labelled our hand luggage as 7kg when it clearly wasn't. The flights were very smooth. The food was fine (though daughter was as picky as ever and wouldn't eat anything). I had pre-ordered a childs meal for her & a low-cal one for me. The main benefit being that you get your meal before anyone else & can then settle down to watch a film or sleep. On arrival - an issue with the ATM (HSBC declined the card for fraud prevention despite all the asssurances). Second card worked though and a timely minibus taxi appeared in the taxi rank to take us to the accomodation in Scarborough. Accomodation OK ish. No hot water when we got here though. :arghh: Other than that it's just so massively confusing & frustrating trying to sort anything. Trying to get a tax file number online isn't working, and I think it's because I don't have a local phone number yet. The local HSBC Premier woman was a patronising cow who didn't seemt o think we warranted accounts, or debit cards, and won't give us a credit card. Grrrrrr. I am on to HSBC in the UK to sort it out. All in all, a few hiccups, but hopefully stuff that you guys can learn from and prevent for yourselves. Weather's looking to improve next week so I reckon I'll be in a better mood then. Cheers all J Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
janine the party queen Posted August 20, 2009 Share Posted August 20, 2009 Welcome to Australia Hopefully things will get better for you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TaniaColin Posted August 30, 2009 Share Posted August 30, 2009 Hopefully things will get better for you, we applied on-line for our tax number and we are still waiting 4 weeks later Tania X Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emmaj Posted August 31, 2009 Share Posted August 31, 2009 Hope things get better for you. My TFN number took 6 weeks to arrive, i had moved house by the time it came through so i had to request a copy to be sent to our new address. I did call them to advise them of the change of address but they claimed they couldnt update the system and it was just tuff! Call for a copy after 6 weeks!! Go figure? Emma x Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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