A place where dreams come true, well maybe not today but most days they do come true. At the beginning of the day, I was leaving Josh behind for a girls-only schoolies trip that I have been waiting for ever since the year 2020, the trip has been pushed back again and again due to the restrictions of COVID-19 but then it happened. I left my home bright and early, said goodbye to Josh and I was on my way to the Melbourne Tullamarine airport, I took the train from my suburb in Melbourne to Southern Cross then I was able to take a Skybus to the airport at roughly 6 hours prior to my flight departing to meet a few of the other Melbourne girls that would be on this tour with me. And that is when the real fun began.
First Flight: Melbourne to Auckland
This was my first international flight in a few years so I was incredibly nervous, I flew with AirNewZealand and they were honestly fantastic, all the members on the flight that day were super friendly and helpful which made this 4 hours flight easy to handle. I got randomly assigned my seat and it honestly wasn't that bad, the flight was pretty full but the 4 hours did go fast which was nice.
Arriving in New Zealand and getting off that plane filled me with some nerves but mainly excitement. When I was able to get my service and airport wifi working I was able to text my good friend Sophia whom I meeting for the first time on this trip as well, as part of the tour we were both solo travellers so the Leader of our group Samantha put us together and we quickly became friends. Here is her YouTube channel if you want to follow her as well https://www.youtube.com/@yourlocalsophia.
As I was texting Sophia to see if she had made it to Auckland yet (She was flying from Brisbane Australia so we were meeting in Auckland) we had to go through another lot of security at the airport and this was the smallest security screening I have honestly ever seen in my life. It was 2 conveyor belts and only 4 workers, it was very tiny so the line was very long but it did clear relatively fast. Getting out of the security, Rachel, Tanya and I made it our mission to find Sophia who was waiting for us at one of the tables in the cafeteria. We introduced everybody and took a few photos before we basically just went to sit at the gate until our long-haul flight to LAX airport at 8 pm. As we waited we just did the general airport things, fill up drink bottles, chit chat, check that we had our passport for the 50th time, try and find a bathroom, and make more small talk. You know, the normal things. Then it was time to board our big flight.
Second flight: Auckland to Los Angeles
Sophia and I started to walk onto the plane together, we made sure to assign seats together so we were able to talk to each other more. It was at that moment though that I knew we would be good friends, Sophia is a vlogger so she carried her camera around almost all of the time, it didn't bother me but to see how crazy that chick got with and without the camera around whenever Disney was mentioned it was great. Getting to our seats on the plane was easy, we were sitting in the middle of the middle seats of the plane for 12 hours. But since it was such a long flight we did go back in time and we also got the amazing experience of flying through the night and into the day, it was spectacular to witness for the first time.
Overall on the flight Sophia and I only had to get up and wake the people beside us a few times but we still felt terrible about waking them. On this flight, I don't think either of us slept very well, even though we had both been up early at this point and travelled into the future at Auckland we were too tired to actually be tired. After a full 12 hours of flying and trying to sleep upright and constantly checking on the flight map, we made it to the LAX airport in Los Angeles California the exact same day that we left, we gotta love time travel right?
Arriving in Los Angeles and going through customs was something I had never done before and that was scary. The lines to go through customs were long and very quiet, could definitely tell we were Aussies when we walked in the room, we were the only ones talking. The total wait time in the line to go through USA customs was only 3 hours and to my surprise it didn't feel like 3 hours, talking to the girls and scrolling through the day's worth of social media that I missed helped speed time up.
First night in the United States
After a few hours at customs plus baggage claim we went on our way to try and find our tour guide, Samantha, she was going to be waiting for us at the airport but instead, we were greeted by one of her friends Natalie and she was lovely. Very kind and happy to meet all of us, we took a bus from the airport over to our hotel, we are staying at the Cambria Hotel.
Getting to the hotel from LAX took roughly an hour so I think the majority of us took in the sights then slept for the rest of the journey. Upon arrival at the hotel, we checked in smoothly and took our bags up to our rooms, the view Sophia and I had from the room was amazing. After we all settled in Natalie took us out for lunch at the cheesecake factory, I got a pizza and Pepsi which came with free refills. Our server was the nicest lady, she was always happy to help us or get us more drinks or food. It made the experience so much nicer, oh and it was also my first time tipping. That was just an experience in itself because we don't tip in Australia.
After the cheesecake factory, we were given the option to go back to our rooms early or to go to Downtown Disney. So of course I went with going to downtown Disney. The group walked the 40-ish minutes to downtown, by this point it was dark but it was still warm. Getting downtown we were greeted with so many different foods and so many people, the place was incredible though. I ended up taking the free shuttle bus home with Rachel and Tanya at about 9 pm where I went back to my home to eat cheesecake with Sophia.
The next day we start bright and early at the one and only, Disneyland!
