Getting to New York

We flew directly from Sydney to New York, stopping in Los Angeles only to clear customs. While this made for an incredibly long flight (about 20 hours), on Qantas QF107 its the same plane all the way so at least we knew we couldn't miss the connection. I've missed too many connections in the US travelling on my own - and its something I try to avoid with the family in tow.

We had pre-booked private airport transfers from JFK with Airlink. Given there were 5 of us, we would have needed 2 taxis (US$108 + tip each way) anyway, so it wasn't hard to justify the incremental extra expense for the convenience. On arrival, we had to go to the transport desk and let them know we were there - this added about 15 minutes after we collected our bags.