The Way Home

The beautiful orchid that brightened our room for
the whole trip

The limo that was supposed to take us to the airport headed for the Hyatt Regency Perth instead, and we spent a quiet afternoon in our room. It is a very nice hotel, but the lobby was rather crowded as it was also the hotel where Crystal was ‘parking’ guests until it was time to transfer them to the airport.

Monica finished a knitting project she had bought for herself on the ship so it could be more easily packed for the flight home; Larry spent a lot of time reading, and we repacked some things. We’d had a good size lunch in the hotel’s restaurant, so we went to the Club Lounge for a snack dinner. The spread was excellent, and the view over the Swan River was beautiful.

We also had breakfast in the Lounge the next morning as we had to be at the airport fairly early.

It is easy to forget just how big Australia is: our flight from coast to coast – Perth to Brisbane – took just over 4 hours, with a 4 hour time change. Our second flight to Sydney didn’t arrive until well into the evening:

We only had the evening and overnight at the Four Seasons Hotel in Sydney; just as well as it turned out, as many of the services in the hotel had been or were about to be closed because of the coronavirus. But we still had the great view from our window:

It had been a few years since we’d flown home from Sydney towards Vancouver, and we were lucky enough to be able to see some of the islands we flew over:

And finally, back to reality with the cold and snow on the Rockies once we left Vancouver.

It didn’t turn out to be the World Cruise we’d expected, but we did have a lot of fun with our new friends and the Crystal Serenity officers and crew. We will definitely be back to try again, but in the meantime, just like everyone else, we’re staying home for the foreseeable future.

Hope you enjoyed following along; we look forward to sharing with you again whenever we can.