wco81

125k for round trip to Australia.

gooselee

+1. I've gotten them while boarding was still in progress. Usually one of the elements of the FAs/purser coming through to do welcome-by-name, meal orders, PDBs, bag of nuts, etc.

BHammy

While I've flown thru Sydney over a dozen times, I can't say I've spent too much time there...a little over two days at most.

Recommendations:
- Bridge Climb! We've seen it every year, but never thought we had enough time or were in shape. This year, we had time...but still out of shape. But the climb did NOT make us feel that way. It's about a 3 hour excursion and worth every penny and second!
- Sydney Zoo. If you want to see some down under animals that you may not get to if you don't get far from the city.
- Sydney Tower - for a meal and view. Basically large buffet on revolving restaurant, with sunset being ideal to see the city.
- Opera House. Catch a play, symphony or even have a breakfast tour

That's the bulk of what we've done over the years - with more time, easily more to do. Those things listed can easily be done in two days.

If you have left over time and are willing to get out of town, there are the Blue Mountains to the west of Sydney...never been there, but it's another thing to do. Also - a flight to Alice Springs to visit/see Uluru - again, haven't done it yet.
The best recommendation for a two day excursion is to grab a flight to Cairns (pronounced cahns) and go on a snorkeling tour of the Great Barrier Reef. I've never been into snorkeling, but I've been to the GBR 3 times now - flying in one night, snorkeling the next, flying back the following morning. So much to see...a fantastic experience...and one of the seven natural wonders of the world!

Have a great trip! (headed there next week....but only layover to AKL)

gooselee

Ahh! I totally missed the ask for SYD recommendations.

Absolutely second the BridgeClimb - go for the dusk/sunset climb if you can. It's awesome to get the daylight view on the way up and night time on the way down.

Also big seconds on the breakfast backstage tour of the Opera House. Totally different experience from the main tours.

Also if the weather is nice, take a bus out to Bondi Beach and walk down the shore to Coogee. Can be done in less than half a day (including getting there from city center). Pretty easy walk, awesome views, and good places to stop for a snack along the way.

We were there for five days recently. Spent lots of time just wandering around and eating as we'd just been in NZ for two weeks, but those three things were the highlights.

wco81

I'm going next week.

Planning to do most of those except for the Bridge Climb. Seems like a tourist ripoff.

Apparently you can go up to the top of the southern tower of the bridge gratis.

Also looking forward to visiting Kiribilli, which I missed in my previous visit.

gooselee

To each their own. I've done the climb twice and have not felt ripped off at all. It's a very different experience clambering around on the structure itself.

Going up the tower is nice, but it's basically just a (very neat) museum and gift shop. And IIRC there's also an admission fee for the tower (though it's included in a BridgeClimb).

js7

I looked into it and the bridge climb seems really expensive. Am I missing something?

dzflyer

Manly beach is a neat place to go. Some good brewpubs specifically 4 pines which is outstanding for beer and pub food. The Sydney fish market rivals pike place in Seattle. I went to the blue mountains only about a 2 hour drive and well worth it. A swim at bondi beach is a must. Just a wonderful city.

gooselee

It's not cheap. I think ours was something like $300 AUD per person.

I would still argue it's a worthwhile experience.

martonikaj

Yup, inward-facing middle seats on the A330 aren't great ... I really wish DL would implement a raisable divider between the seats. So many more solo travelers than couples taking up the middle seats. My last flight in D1 on an A330 the guy next to me was nice enough to spill a full glass of wine on me ... literally no separation between the two middle seats.

flyerCO

Yep and that little bar to mark the line between seat platforms just invites knocking over a glass.

martonikaj

Exactly as it happened. I only got stuck in the middle seat because of a flight change due to a cancelation ... the window seat experience is 50x better (that's a scientific approximation) for a solo traveler.

Detroiter

Agree completely that jet lag is an individual thing. I used to fly DTW-NRT a lot, and found it worked best to get a few hours of sleep during the flight, skip the main and just have the NW croissant and plenty of coffee for breakfast, then force myself to stay awake until normal bedtime in Tokyo. The NW schedules worked well for that because a late afternoon/early evening arrival to NRT put me in Tokyo in the middle of the evening, and it was relatively easy to stay up for just a few hours, maybe having a light dinner in Tokyo. The return was rougher, because the NW schedule put me back at my house in early afternoon, and I had to stay up for a long time.

BHammy

Agreed.

Most of the time when transiting through SYD to BNE or AKL, we plan a 8-12 hour layover.
Generally we go down to the Quay and do the tourist thing - usually with others traveling with us (for work).
I'll definitely be recommending the bridge climb even on just a day layover...get to see so much.

And yes, it's either $5 or $10 AUD to go up to the top of the pylons. Have done that one year, but the walk is a different (worth while) experience! And we did it basically in the middle of winter and fully enjoyed it!

mnredfox

+1, Remember when the 777's were the first to have the good PE product. then the 767's (which I liked if I could score 1A). Now the 747's and A330's are the best IMO.

OP enjoy and be happy you were able to even get seats at a reasonable level. Next month you can book D1 for a laughable 750K RT.