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Flight Reviews / Virgin Australia / Australia Travel / SYD / BNE / Economy Class Travel / → All Tags

Flight Review: A Quickie in Economy on Virgin Australia

Now that we've already shared a detailed peek at what it's like to fly up front in the cushy seats of Virgin Australia's Business Class, it's about time to show you what economy has to offer on Australia's newest full-service airline.

The flight: Sydney to Brisbane, Australia.

Since our seat was towards the back of the economy section, we boarded from the back stairs which resulted in a speedy boarding and ultimately got us in the air quicker. A primped cabin crew, outfitted in their red skirt suits with purple scarves, warmly greeted every passenger as they headed for their seats. Just like in business class, these seats are covered in soft leather and have headrests that feature random pops of purple, red or light grey to keep the cabin interesting. Of course the major difference comes in seat size and legroom.

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Virgin Australia / Airline Lounges / Australia Travel / Travel Apps / Android / iPhone / → All Tags

How Virgin Australia Plans to Beam Magazines and Newspapers to Your iPad

Piles of newspaper and old magazines are no longer an issue for Virgin Australia and their airline lounges, as they’re getting ready to go digital. We’re sure some periodicals will be kicking around in paper format for quite some time, but we still think their latest move is pretty darn clever.

It sounds like visitors to the Virgin Australia lounges down under will soon have access to well over 2,000 different publications thanks to PressReader. Basically you’ll connect to the wireless network, fire up the app, and then start perusing plenty of newspapers and magazines from nearly 100 countries across 50 languages. Local favorites like The Australian and Gold Coast Bulletin are available, but feel free to digitally flip through the Los Angeles Times as well. They promise complete digital replicas of each and every edition, and often things are available through PressReader before they hit the newsstand.

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Fashion Travel / Flight Attendants / Airline Uniforms / Qantas / Australia Travel / Airline News / Airlines / Miranda Kerr / → All Tags

Hot Pink and Hot to Trot: Qantas' New Uniforms Shock in Sydney

Qantas' new Uniforms are hot. They're also hot pink in places, and so hot that the airline just unveiled them with a full-fledged runway show and livestream during Sydney Fashion Week, starring Aussie supermodel Miranda Kerr.

Kerr catwalked along with the rest of the Qantas crew models to show off the 35 uniform styles to be worn by 12,600 staff starting in 2014. The looks, consisting of 15 different fabrics (including fine Australian Merino wool, Italian leather and a knit trilby hat made from recycled bottle tops) were designed by Martin Grant and paired with the unmistakably scarlet soles of Christian Louboutin shoes.

The Louboutins completed the head-to-toe peeks of red in the uniform, but hold up—remember the saying "if it's too good to be true, it probably is." Such is the case here. The shoes were special only for this runway show, a fact verified by our friends at Australian Business Traveller, who were in attendance at the event. Qantas crew won't be donning the French designer's shoes, which regularly retail for $700 and up; it's normal black shoes after today. Boo hiss.

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Australia Travel / Koalaing / Celeb Travel / Ellen Degeneres / Qantas / TV Travel / Flight Attendants / → All Tags

Is 'Koalaing' the New Planking?

We know Ellen Degeneres is heading off to Australia very soon after she "pulled an Oprah" and surprised her audience with tickets down under. Now, it seems the talk show host is trying to start a new trend. Koalaing!

Planking has come and gone, "owling" has come and gone, and now we are witness to a new craze of making like the cute and cuddly Australian marsupials. Just like a koala hangs out in gum trees, one person latches on to another with all 4 limbs; wrapping arms and legs around the person. It looks ridiculous, but we imagine it would make for great photo ops. (side note: koalas are not as friendly as they look).

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The Little Things / Qantas / Australia Travel / Flight Attendants / Customer Service / → All Tags

The Little Things: Celebrating a Birthday on Qantas

In the midst of the bustle of travel, it's all too easy to overlook the details. We're talking about special touches others have stressed over just so you can enjoy a unique experience, whether you know it or not. Every so often we'll highlight The Little Things like this, so now you will know.

These little touches are usually static details that are available to everyone, but this time it was the airline crew who went above and beyond to make us feel special when we flew on the birthday of our travel companion. The crew of this recent flight on Qantas took time out of their busy work duties to wish him a very happy day.

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Film Festival Travel / Film Festivals / Australia Travel / Sydney Travel / → All Tags

Catch Sydney's 'Tropfest' Short Film Festival Above Down Under

Heard of Tropfest before? If not, mark it down to satisfy your film buff side, as it is Australia's most prestigious short film festival. During Tropfest, thousands of stars and star-gazers converge on Sydney to celebrate the art of filmmaking. 2013's Sydney Tropfest ended this last weekend, but luckily it's now a global event.

When it began 20 years ago the festival was named Tropicana Film Festival, since shortened to Tropfest. The first screening had about 200 spectators and, in contrast, this year's had about 150,000 heading to the city's park area named The Domain. Mother nature held off her fury long enough for people to relax on the grass and catch the 16 finalist films. And, for the first time, the festival was telecast on Australian network TV.

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Airline News / Qantas / Australia Travel / Gold Coast Travel / Art Travel / Sandcastles / → All Tags

Sandcastle Airplane!

While most of the the US is still shivering and donning scarves, it's the height of summer in Australia and Qantas will not let us forget it. In fact, they've set up the ultimate sand castle display right in Sydney's Circular Quay.

The 'Flying Kangaroo' recently (re)launched flights from Sydney to Gold Coast and wanted to draw some unique attention to it. Since the "glitter strip" is well-known for its beach culture —we're talking about the Surfers Paradise— what better way to turn some heads with a sculpture meticulously carved into the shape of a plane full of passengers heading to soak up the sun.

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Q Streaming / Qantas / Australia Travel / In-Flight Entertainment / iPads / Onboard Services / Technology / → All Tags

Qantas' New In-Flight iPads are Boss

Yesterday we talked about Qantas' comfy new black leather business-class seats, but the real champion of the overhauled airplane is the in-flight entertainment system. We have mentioned Q Streaming before and we're excited to get our hands on the technology.

Not for lack of trying, we have been on a few planes with the hopes of discovering an Apple iPad in the seat-back pocket all to be disappointed. As soon as we turned the corner to board the plane and saw the product logo right next to the door, admittedly, our heart skipped a beat. We can finally catch up on a few episodes of Modern Family directly streamed to the device over a WiFi network.

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Airline News / Australia Travel / Business Class Travel / 767 / Airplane Seats / In-Flight Comfort / → All Tags

Putting Qantas' New Domestic Business Class Seat Under the Microscope

Last summer we spread the news about Qantas refurbishing the cabins of its aging Boeing 767 fleet. Most particularly, some flashy new black leather seats in the domestic business class cabin were coming in and, only recently, we booked a flight (Brisbane-Sydney) to try them out.

First impressions of the cabin were good. By today's standards, this plane is old and a little sprucing up to modernize it was much needed. The seats are merely reupholstered, but it really didn't matter to us since it was a short flight. Back in August, we thought the airline was adding an über-luxurious wood grain arm-rest. Instead we found this was also upholstered in a tan leather. Although that was a little bit of a let-down, it was still nicer than before.

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Animals / Australia Travel / Queensland Travel / Zoo Travel / Steve Irwin / → All Tags

Head to Steve Irwin's Australia Zoo to Pet a Kangaroo and Kiss a Koala

February marks the birthday month for Australia's most famous conservationist, Steve Irwin. There might be no better way to celebrate the life of the zoo-keeper than to head off to his very own zoo, aptly named, Australia Zoo.

Located about 60 minutes north of Brisbane, the 100-acre park was originally started by Steve's parents as solely a croc and reptile park. In 1992, Steve took ownership of the zoo and he escalated it to become one of the best zoos in the country, featuring a unique 'Crocoseum' for putting on demonstrations for visitors with live crocodile hand-feedings and a full animal show.

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Om Nom Nom / Amazing Airline Meals / Airline Meals / In-Flight Meals / Food Travel / Qantas / Australia Travel / Business Class Travel / → All Tags

Surprisingly Yummy Airline Meals: The Antipasto Platter on Qantas

We have all had a terrible meal on a flight before. In fact, we have shown you some of the sadder trays slid in front of us. With this new series of amazing airline meals, we can revel in the airline culinary delights and give kudos to the airlines that got it right.

As much as we love home cooking and hearty food when traveling, it's rare but always refreshing to hear some lighter options listed by the flight attendant when announcing the flight's meal choices. Hence our surprise when were offered an antipasto platter featuring Jamon Iberico on a recent Qantas domestic flight. The Red Roo has enhanced their food offerings on domestic flights and this is, no doubt, one of those enhancements.

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Beach Travel / Bondi Beach / Australia Travel / Australia Day / Havaianas / → All Tags

Put on Your Thongs! It's Australia Day

It's celebration time in Australia! The entire nation has taken the time to wish the country a very Happy Birthday in what can be called the equivalent to our Fourth of July, Australia Day. This holiday is the national day for Aussies all around the world and as you would expect, BBQs, beach and brews are part of the fun of the long weekend. Today (Monday) is Australia Day, observed.

One of the biggest celebrations is at the iconic Bondi Beach where the iconic flip-flop maker Havaianas attempts to break a world record for the largest amount of people on a beach with inflatable—you guessed it—flip-flops. (Here's a tip: if you're down under, call them "thongs")

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