TIE ME KANGAROO DOWN, SPORT - THE COMBINED AUSTRALIAN THREAD

[MrsBigD]

Sorry couldn't resist, especially as I'm bored at work and you know... idle hands...

steady on now

It's ok suzy...I'll write to DIMIA and tell 'em to watch out or this one!

oh no I'm being reported for being a nut LOL then again I've got extenuating circumstances... I'm married to a Kiwi

Great, I'm getting totally confused as well so will stick to this one! I've just been in touch with a travel agent this morning to finally sort our November holiday and she's recommending Quantas flights - she swears they are good with kids but I fancied Singapore Airlines myself. Any thoughts/experiences? She's a "personal travel advisor" and she doesn't charge me a fee but obviously gets her money from somewhere so I'm wondering is she's biased.

ROLF HARRIS IS THE MOST IRRITATING MAN IN THE WORLD!!! Cannot believe you called the thread this! Anyway, will delete all other threads from my watch list now.

We flew over with qantas/air france, and they were fine, although air france were particularly kind to me when they found me sobbing into my seat after about the 15th sleepless hour (I did have an 18th month old and was 7 months pg - don't normally sob on planes)

TBH, I don't think there is much differece, unless you have frequent flyers (which you should have, by the way. You family will each clock approximately enough points for a sydney to melboune trip on one Aust/UK flight). If you join the One World frequent flyers group Qantas, BA, Airfrance and others (possibly Singapore) are all in that.

oy I didn't come up with that title LOL that was tribe

When dd was 18m we flew to NZ with Singapore airlins. They were absolutely great and didn't mind a bit that dd was wandering up and down the aisles. At one point dd hadn't come back for a while so I went to investigate. One of the stewarts (he was such a 'sweety' mwamwa) had her sitting on his lap and there were 2 more stewardesses playing hand clapping games with her! They probably enjoyed the distraction too

Sorry about the thread title at least it wasn't "Crikey, it's got me arm!"

Told you I've lost the plot

Promise will return with a more serious head on tomorrow

Tribe... don't go there

Hey I've lost the plot about 10 days ago. Wonder what's in those antihistamines I'm popping

sunny, quantus are way overpriced imo. We travelled last year with Singapore (dd was 20 months) and this year (dd was 2.10). They were great with her.

What I will point out is that Singapore Airlines gave us way more baggage allowance (40k each) than any other airline (infact, Malaysian would've charged us 17 pounds per extra kilo) Not so important when we were just visiting, but a life saver when we emmigrated here.

BUT I would always recommend to anyone emigrating here to ring the airline (I have the number somewhere for Singapore if anyone needs) to find out what extrs you will get. The first time we travelled we didn't get dd a seat, so the travel agent told us she wouldn't get meals or baggage allowance, which on ringing the ailine, we were told she did!

ALWAYS ALWAYS contact the airline, espec if emigrating! You can take car seats into the hold too, but they will need to be in the baggage allowance, (where as some airling will let this kind of thing go off allowance, but charge you for any other excess). DD's car seat was only 5k, so didn't take up too much. I really can't stipulate how important I feel this is, the travel agent had NO IDEA re the allowance & if I hadn't checked we would have ended up with an horrendous bill. DO NOT RELY ON THE TRAVEL AGENT TO KNOW ALL THE INFO!!!! They will sell what they can for the most amount of money & don't care of you get stung!

you do know that song has racist language in it - very unpc!!

have flown - United, American, Thai, Lufthansa, Japan Airlines, Qantas and Singapore Airlines.

Only flown singapore with dd1 - Thai was fab, American were fab ( sans kids though!)

Have heard Malaysian, Emirates also good.

Singapore has the largest seat pitch in Economy if that is a consideration.

Just found them so fab with us when we flew tih dd1 and her demands etc. We had to rearrange flights due to dd1's cardiac surgery - travel agent wanted to charge us almost as much as tickets cost including double what dd1's had cost - singapore fixed it at no cost. We were able to take so much with us and her car seat went on board and she sat in that ( when we emigrated.)

Eidsvold, I thought I was the only one who knew about the racist language!

Qantas are overpriced but I would choose to fly with them. I am not great with flying and their record is impeccable. They are crash free!! Other airline I have used is Air New Zealand. They also have good record. It is all about staying in the air for me rather than seat space!!

We flew emirates when we emigrated and they were really good. Phoned before hand and they let us have extra allowance for baggage and pre book our seat as we had dd. Staff nice too.

While I'm on, do any of you have any great web sites you use for buying flight tickets back home. Had a good one we used for flying the other way, which was recommeneded to us and always found good deals but am abit lost now living over hear.

I can give you the details of my travel agent Humpy, I just got return with Singapore for 2100 ex tax, thought that was quite a good deal but no promotional discount

And more importantly do you want anything small bringing back?

Had a search on the internet to get an idea of prices and nearly fell throught the floor. Going to have to do some serious saving if we are going to get a holiday there next year. Don't fancy telling my mum we can't make it.

Don't need anything bringing ta, have got my sister and her bf coming later in the year with supplies.

Got a nice suprise yesterday when I got home from work, mum had sent me a clothes parcel from next.

hi again. right, am going to try to play catchup here...

we flew over with Cathay Pacific, and had a 5 day stopover in Hong Kong (fantastic for getting rid of jetlag). they were fine - had no problems with anything. however, only had 20kg luggage each (none for dd as she didn't have a seat), so had to live on this until our stuff arrived via sea.

when we flew from Melbourne to Sydney, Qantas didn't let us take our buggy right up to the door of the aircraft - we had to check it in before going through to departures. don't know if the same is true for international flight, so would be worth checking if you're still at the buggy stage...

have met someone recently who flew over with Singapore Airlines and they said they were great. and as Sandcatles mentioned, they allowed them 40kg baggage each on proof that they were emigrating.

on a slightly different note, also seem to remember someone on a termed visa (sorry, can't remember who) mentioning they had to pay school fees - i've just found out that we will have to pay $4,500 per year when dd goes to (state) school because we are not permanent residents. this wasn't true in Victoria (where we were originally) - have heard it just applies to NSW. feel a bit about this - dp is paying his taxes here even though we're not permanent residents yet...

um, have no idea if there was anything else i meant to add, so will post this and have another squiz at the previous thread.

and singapore airlines let you have your buggy until you get to the plane door!

eidsvoid/chipmonkey... I don't actually know the song, Rolf Harris didn't translate into Germany, so blame tribe

PeppaPigsMum... thanks for the info re school fees. I sort of seem to remember that somebody mentioned that a 'fee' might apply for international students. I rather look at it as $375/month than $4500 a year. Doesn't look as painful ;). Then again it's still cheaper than sending them private alltogether I guess. Though I do agree re if working = paying tax so why do we have to pay for school...

i could look at it as $375 per month if we could pay monthly, but you've got to pay the whole lot upfront . i'm going to phone the education department to triple check...

Agree re tax - I pay more an extra couple of percent tax but don't get any benefits (like child benefit/childcare benefit - makes a big difference to my astronomical childcare costs). I am miffed about this.

If you are going to pay for a private school you also have to pay extra as they lose their government subsidy.

Re flights - I heard that Singapore are best with children. Emirates have got wi-fi now - they are my new best friend. Mumsnetting on the flight, superb!

lastminute.com.au does great deals. They have flights from $1300 ex tax (Singapore or Malaysian Airlines). You can book up to six months ahead.

at $4500 fees for a state school. Some private schools (mostly Catholic) are only around $1800 to $2400 a year.

peppapig can you keep me aprised what the education department says please

mymama I think arfishy mentioned that 'foreigners' will have to pay extra so probably would be a bit more. Oh why didn't we emigrate before we had kids?!

And another question as some people mentioned catholic schools... here in the UK I find it rather annoying that a lot of the good schools are church affiliated and the kids has to be baptised and one has to proof that one is an avid church goer even to be considered to be put on the waiting list. Hence lots of hypocrits around... I for one part refuse to pay lip service and anyhow kids aren't baptised. Is it the same in Australia?

mrs bigd, it would depend on the school and how long their waiting list is i think. many, many of the big private schools are 'church' schools but will take anyone who will pay (spaces peritting) and many of the small Christian Scools allow anyone in (of any or no faith) and don't have the long waiting lists as they are not as prestigious. Not sure about Catholic schools though - would prob depend of waiting liss as to how choosey they ca be.

QANTAS was the 2nd chapest carrier when we flew - we could have paid $10 less and flown with some random. They also let us bring our buggy to the door. We did not buy a seat (so only paid 10%) for DD but had 10kg luggage allowence for her, plus an extra hand luggage for nappis etc, plus the buggy. And yes, the unblemished record was a plus too (although we ended up with Swiss air for some flights because they code share)

For those of you travelling with toddlers and babies, be aware that UK carseats do not meet the Australian safety standards and, as I understand it, are illegal there.

MrsBigD the catholic schools let in so many non-catholics per year. perhaps it is their service to society .