Tips For Travellers

24-Hour Journey from London to Sydney. Here’s How It Went

Greetings Tips For Travellers Crew,

I thought I’d update you on the long, 24-hour journey from London all the way to Sydney, as several of you had asked for more details. Especially about the airline and experience.

🏁 London Heathrow to Doha – Qatar Airways A380 (Business Class)


The first flight was a 7-hour one from Heathrow Terminal 4 to Doha on the Qatar Airways A380 in business class.

As I mentioned in the post about this trip, we booked this flight using British Airways Avios miles. This is possible thanks to Qatar being a major shareholder in BA and part of the OneWorld alliance. So, a good use of Avios Airmiles such a long-haul trip.

We had breakfast on this flight. Pretty good options.


Seats & Cabin

Qatar’s A380 business class seats are I would say are “classic Qatar”. They’re not the newer Q-Suites that dominate their more modern fleet and look rather fancy and plush, but the seats on the A380 were still wide, comfortable, and I found I could sleep really well on them. As you will hear.

The configuration on the A380 was:

Upper deck with First + Business + part of Economy

Business Class has 48 seats in a 1-2-1 layout

Total passengers: Around 517.

The seats felt spacious but definitely more open and less private than many of the newer business-class seats that now have sliding doors and much more enclosure. Still — these were perfectly comfortable.

🛫 Doha Layover – 2.5 Hours & the Enormous Lounge

On arrival into Doha we had a 2.5-hour layover, and I went to the biggest business-class lounge I’ve ever been in — the Al Mourjan Lounge.

To put it into context:

It feels more like an airport terminal within the airport.

Two massive floors.

Water feature (well a large swimming pool sized one!)

Multiple restaurants, including à la carte dining.

Quiet areas, work spaces, family zones, shower rooms, business lounge to work in - everything on a huge scale.


I had a light snack there (and was already losing count of meals at this point!).

✈️ Doha to Sydney – Qatar Airways A380 (14.5 Hours)

Then came the big one — the 14.5-hour overnight flight to Sydney, again on the A380.

Cabin & Service

Same older-style seat, but once again comfortable enough to sleep well. They also gave out comfy Formula 1 partnership sleeping suit and slippers. Something British Airways only gives First Class passengers.

One of my travel powers is the ability to sleep on planes. I slept for just under 7.5 hours on this leg!

I found the cabin crew on this leg also attentive as I had on the first.

Dinner with… Caviar!

Dinner was pretty good. With the star for me being caviar as a starter option.

Though the mains were pretty standard airline options I chose cod which was like most airlines a bit dried out.


Breakfast was served before landing, which by this time was meal number…


🍽 The Meals Count

Across the 24-hour travel period, I somehow managed five meals:

Breakfast in Heathrow Qatar Lounge

Breakfast onboard the first flight

Snack in the Doha Al Mourjan Lounge

Dinner on the Doha–Sydney flight (with caviar!)

Breakfast before landing in Sydney. Which was body clock wise not ideal as it was dinner time Sydney as having a meal better suited to that I think would have helped!

🇦🇺 Arrival in Sydney – 18:30 Local Time

We landed smoothly at 18:30 on what was now Saturday evening, which as Sydney is 11 hours ahead of London, it was early morning there and now we’d been on flights or on layover for 24 hours.

We had booked a car to take us the InterContinental Sydney at Circular Quay, checked in, dropped the bags, in the room and headed out to stretch the legs and get some fresh air. It was 29 Celsius!

Evening in Circular Quay


By around 8:30pm Circular Quay was buzzing:

Sydney Harbour Bridge glowing

Opera House beautifully lit

Overseas Passenger Terminal (where most cruise ships dock) looking rather empty as of course there are mostly only ships there daytime

AND one of the “concerts on the steps” outside the Opera House in full swing — the steps effectively become a grandstand, so the whole area felt electric and alive.

A great way to immerse us right into Sydney.

😴 First Night & The Days Ahead

Slept incredibly well — unsurprising after 24 hours of travel, several time zones, and what felt like endless meals. And felt rather in the zone too!

We have three full days in Sydney ahead, and had these views at breakfast of Holland America Noordam docked in Circular Quay. It was cloudy and much cooler.


If any interest I can update you on what we are getting up to in Sydney, though we board Oceania Riviera on Wednesday and will do updates from there.


As always, thanks for following along!

Gary

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