Now - back to Oz Fest after our alleged medical "expert" has impressed us so greatly with his reading skills.

We had a near disaster this week with the Sydney Airport Tarmac Tour.

I phoned Monday to organise the booking, waiting until we had over 30 folks 100% confirmed, to try this year to secure our OWN FlyerTalk private bus due to the large number. (Last year we needed to share with another bunch of folks, far less aviation interested than us as all will recall.)

Phoned Monday and ask for the same guy as last year - Ian, who all agreed was superb as a guide. Said we were looking to do a private tour for 30-35 folks at 11am on Saturday May 28.

He said - "too bad about that date, but we can do that for you Saturday June 4 or in the mid week."

Seems they had another large special group already booked in the spare bus, and the general public bus was also near filled up, and they do a REX "Mystery Flight" early afternoon in conjunction with a quick bus tour, and that is their work day 100% filled up. They only have 2 vehicles, and their airport assess permission extends to those 3 trips a day I understood him to stay.

Gulp.

Pointed out gently that a pretty large bunch of these folks were flying in for that weekend - from 5 or 6 countries and also interstate .... and Saturday was IT. Immovable.

He first said it was just impossible to do anything, but as he knew who we were, and had I think signed up himself to FlyerTalk last year on the urgings of some folks, said he'd take it to the Boss on their Thursday meeting, and go bat hard for us.

Get a call Friday to say he had managed to juggle things around specially for us.

See post #1 of this thread for the new detail.

In short we now have lunch FIRST, he collects us from lunch venue, right out front, THEN does the Tarmac Tour, and then he will drop us off right at entry to Qantas Club, exactly the time as originally planned. ^ ^

So whereas last year we had the time and cost of getting from It'l to domestic, this year he does the transport for us.

This meant they needed to move back their Mystery Flights on the day, so they did move mountains to get us on. And I presume got airport clearance for an extra Tarmac Tour.

A pretty much perfect outcome for us, and I was going to type the (then) bad news Monday, but Lynn advised me to cross my fingers and wait, in case he could swing a miracle for us, and shoe-horn us in somehow.

It was ONLY as I could guarantee them a 100% firm pre-paid up front booking of over 30 folks this was able to be set in cement. So once again, many thanks for folks for confirming things so quickly, so far out. Had I still been "guessing" at final numbers he'd have been far less likely to have swung in our own bus IMHO, and moved so much around for us. This guy deserves a decent tip, as us doing this tour on this Saturday stems directly from his inside work on our behalf.

I might point out that these personalised pick-ups and drop-offs are 100% unusual. Their normal assembly point is their office out near Helicopter Base area, or the REX terminal we met him at last year. That's it. If we needed a large group to get to either point under our own stream from It'l were looking at 15-20 wasted minutes.

So if this slight change of plans messes anyone up please contact me ASAP, hopefully not, as in essence it is just swapping the lunch to before TT, and not after it as first planned. Qantas Club time remains the same. So all 3 things take place at Sydney Airport still.

Glen