- It is too early in the morning. It's 4:30 AM here in Honolulu but we've got a really
exciting ride today. So let's head to the terminal and I'll let you know where we're off to. - [Noel] Hello, good morning. Checking in, please. - Are you checking your bag today? - [Noel] No, just carry on, please. I've got three boosters. - They're gonna ask for that at the gate. - [Noel] Uh huh, no problem. Hi, good morning. - Scan when you're ready. - You're good. - Thank you.
- Thank you. - We're all checked in
and through security. Nice and easy at this time in the morning. I need to go and get
myself some snacks first because today, well, I'm about
to spend 23 hours on a 737. All right. So the reason I'm about to
load up with snacks today is because well, today
I'm gonna be spending 24 hours on a Boeing 737. It's a really, really long
day from here in Hawaii, and I'm heading all the way
across the Pacific Ocean to Manila in the Philippines on, you can't quite see it, it's a bit early, that United 737 parked just there. It's gonna take me all the
way across the Pacific, stopping off of it like
seven or eight islands along the way. It's gonna be an insanely long day but it's something that's been on my bucket list for absolutely like as long as I can remember to get a ride on the island hopper. It's never worked out
being based over in Europe, it's always been quite
tricky to justify coming all the way to the Pacific
to do trips like this. But now, well, we're practically next door over in the States, so I'm here in Honolulu about to embark on a 24 hour journey in the back of a 737. So it's gonna be a long day, but let's head down to
the gate and get on board. It can't be that bad can it? People do it all the time, surely. Right? - [Passenger] Thank you. - Hello.
- Hi, she just took mine. - All right, and I'm
just gonna take a look at your carry on. - [Noel] Yeah, of course. - And you've got tags on them? - [Noel] Yep, she's
tagged them, thank you. - Hand sanitizer? - [Noel] Yeah, I will
do, thank you very much. Thank you. - [Noel] Take one just in case. A long time on this thing today, sir. - Oh, okay.
- It is? Where are you going? - [Noel] Guam, and then Manila. So, all the way. - Oh, my gosh. - [Noel] 24 hours or so, so take some more, yeah. Thank you. - All right, let's say welcome on board the United Island Hopper, the 737. It's gonna take me all
the way from Honolulu to Manila in the Philippines, via stops in the Marshall Islands and oh, everywhere else on the way as well. It's pretty standard
economy seats on a 737, so it's gonna be a pretty tough day, I have a feeling. But we've got lots of
exciting scenery I think on the way, at some of the places we'll
be stopping on route anyway. So looking forward to getting in the air, first leg today to Maduro
in the Marshall Islands. It's gonna take us about
four or five hours. It's by far the longest
stretch of the flight, so let's get going! The Pacific Island Hopper
hops across the Pacific from Honolulu, stopping
in the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, and Guam, before splitting off to either Osaka in Japan,
or Manila in the Philippines like we're doing today. It was originally served by
Air Micronesia or Air Mike, who became Continental Micronesia and eventually United,
following the merger in 2010. Today the route is used mainly by a combination of islanders connecting between the islands, US military personnel commuting to the various bases around
this part of the world, and tourists seeking adventure
off the beaten track. All right, I'd say we're
airborne on leg one of today's mammoth adventure
across the Pacific Ocean. This is by far the longest leg today. It's about five hour run now from Honolulu down to the island of Maduro
in the Marshall Islands. It's across the international dateline. So we jump forward today on this flight. So it's currently Monday morning. We jump forward in a few
minutes to Tuesday afternoon, and we remain on Tuesday for
the rest of today's flight. And so far not too bad. The seat's not too bad, actually. It's a bit kind of tight and cramped especially when it's a full
flight like it is today. We've got a bit of
in-flight entertainment, we can at least see where we are. Leg room, well, it's a bit tight. Not entirely sure how this is gonna go. And also they've had,
because it's a full flight they've had everybody put their bags under their seats in
front of them as well. So I really don't have much
room down there at all. Being six-four, it's a bit of a squeeze. We do get a blanket, which was quite nice, so that should be able to keep me warm a little bit later on. And that's, that's about it. And I don't even think an
economy you get any service on United, I'm not sure. I do believe we might have
drinks if we are lucky, but everything else is buy-on-board. So that's why I bought everything down on the ground, and
a load of Starbucks. But yeah, let's get settled
in for the ride today all the way across the Pacific. All right, well it seems that
I was a little bit premature saying there might not be any food, because I think on this leg, within the five hour leg, we get breakfast, and
there is a croissan'wich, and a bit of yogurt and summat
else, and a bit of coffee. So I must try the croissan'wich. It's not bad, it's a
bit dry and microwavey. Oh it's that American bread that's really buttery as well, that gets in the back of your throat. Why is American bread like that? Like when you have a
McDonald's breakfast in America it's so beyond buttery, it's unbelievable, so much so that it tickles
the back of your throat as you're eating. I'm not a fan of being tickled
in the back of the throat. - That's what she said. - All right, I'd say how
we are now officially less than 60 seconds away from
the international date line, which means that we jump
forward in time 24 hours. I've got ForeFlight loaded up here. About 20 seconds left to run, 20 seconds, 2.7 miles away, 16, 15, 14, 13, 12. This is so cool. 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. And now we've jumped
forward in time 24 hours. So we've gone from nine
o'clock on Monday morning to nine o'clock on Tuesday morning. Looks exactly the same on Tuesday as it did on Monday, doesn't it? That's what it looks like over the international dateline, guys. Never, never gets old, never gets old flying across
the dateline like that. Crazy. Got about an hour and 10
minutes left to run now, down into Maduro. So, can't wait to get that on the ground. So yes, as I said, we
are starting our descent down into Maduro in the Marshall Islands, and I'll be honest, I'm looking forward to seeing something other than just
blue water and clouds out of the window, 'cause that's pretty much
all we've seen so far on this flight. Not the most scenic, not the
most scenic milk run so far, but I'm sure it'll get
better as the day goes on. And we get out to our first
stop, our first hop off really, if you like, in the Marshall Islands. All right, well welcome to
Maduro in the Marshall Islands. So we've got about, I
think about 40, 50 minutes on the ground down here
in the Marshall Islands. Then we carry on to the next stop, which is gonna be pretty full as well. So let's stay on board
the plane for a bit. I think that's what
we're being told to do, and then we'll be getting off, at some point, I think for a lunch break, but no passenger to this
side of me for a bit now, so I'm gonna stretch me legs out. It feels nice. - [Flight Attendant] If there's an EMT or medical professional
right now on board, if you could assist us, and we'll meet you at the back galley. - Apparently someone's collapsed
at the back of the plane. Not very good is it? Poor sod. They're waiting for medical people to go on the plane or something, so they've just come running back with like medical gear, and all sorts. So yeah, bless them. Hopefully they get well. Can't imagine there's much
in the way of medical help out here in the middle of the
Pacific, but dunno, we'll see. So there we go, an hour
and a half delayed. Finally we are airborne from Maduro heading to our next stop. It's another one of the Marshall Islands. Hopefully make up a little bit of time with some of these stops, the pilot was saying, along
the route, but we'll see. But yeah, the next stop is another one of the old Marshall Islands. So I'm just gonna see what's there. All right, so the next stop today is a place called Kwajalein, which apparently is some sort of top secret military base type thing. And we've been told that under no circumstances can
we take any photo or video outside the aircraft at this top secret military base. So don't know, who knows what's there, but I can't show you. But I'll have a look myself. So yeah, that was Kwajalein, I mean I've seen some weird
stuff in me time before, but wow, I have no idea what
those guys were doing there. That was just insane. Never seen anything like it. But anywho, off to our next stop now, of Kosrae in the Federated
States of Micronesia. Let's go. Just recently, I had to do a DNA test, and no it's not the kind that
you'd find on Jeremy Kyle, but it's pretty similar, and it's thanks to this
week's video sponsor My Heritage DNA. A couple of weeks ago
I got my pack through, and I swabbed me cheek and sent off my sample
back to My Heritage DNA so they could run a
comprehensive analysis on my DNA to find out just where
my heritage is from, and help me to start
investigating my family history. Well the results have
just come back today, and it's time to take a look at them, and I'm so excited to see
what they're gonna find. Ooh, 88% North and West European, okay. So that's like France and
Germany and stuff, isn't it? And Eastern European, like wow, Poland, Romania, flipping, that might explain my love of
all places Eastern European, and Scandinavia as well. Wow. And I'm not seeing, the interesting thing here is, I'm not actually seeing any from the UK, that's really, really weird. So although I'm obviously
British and I thought that my entire family line
going back was all British, I'm mostly kind of European. Wow, that's quite interesting, isn't it? Again, if I click here
on these DNA matches I'm having to sort of blur
out everybody's names here because it's actually
coming up with real people that actually have done these tests, and are related to me in some way. This is pretty flipping cool. So there's somebody here in Germany first cousin once removed, that's really, really
impressive I have to say. So My Heritage doesn't just
stop at doing your DNA results it lets you do a full
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very distant relatives, he was president of the U.S. His name was William Howard Taft, and I'm related to him like, in a very, very distant sort of way. But like isn't that amazing? Now if you use my promo code NOEL at the link in the description, just sort of down there, you'll get free shipping on
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you decide to continue it after the free trial. All right, that's started our descent down into the next stop, Kosrae, in the Federated States of Micronesia. That's somewhere that I've
seen on maps, forever, forever. And you just see it don't you, it's the name of a place you think, oh that's a funny-named place. Well that's where we're headed now. Federated States of Micronesia. In the meantime there's
more blue sea and blue sky. But hopefully, fingers crossed we're gonna get at least
one scenic approach on all of these lots of
flights that we're doing today. Might be quite nice, wouldn't it? So let's, yeah, let's go
down and see what's there in the old Federated States of Micronesia. All right, and welcome to the Federated States of Micronesia. And that was quite a nice
approach and landing, actually it's quite a scenic
island this, actually, Kosrae, it's all mountainy and stuff. It's quite nice, quite pleasant. - [Flight Attendant] Thank you and welcome to the island of Kosrae
for transiting customers. - All right then, airborne from Kosrae heading to Pohnpei, in Micronesia, the Federated States of Micronesia. And we're still running
about an hour and a half late on today's flight. It seems to be near on impossible for them to make up any time because the turnaround times that
they have at each airport are so tight, they're like 30 minutes, 35 minutes or so. And when they've got passengers
to offload and reload and bags to load, and refueling
the plane and everything, that time flies by really quick. And we've ended up basically leaving everywhere an
hour and a half late. Which is a bit frustrating because my connecting
flight onwards in Guam, for the last leg of
today's milk run flight, well that's kind of only two hours after we were due to arrive. So it only gives me half an
hour to make it to that flight, if they're still boarding at that point when I get there. So I don't know, I have checked
in already for that flight. I didn't sort of, I didn't
want to risk waiting until I got to the Philippines, sorry, waiting until I
got to Guam to do that. I spoke to the check-in lady up at Honolulu, who very
kindly checked me in for the next leg as well,
which was pretty nice of her. So if she hadn't have done that, I really would be screwed. But I think, I mean as long as we don't pick up any more delays, there's a chance that I
might make my connection. I don't know. We'll see when we get to Guam, see if we can make up any time at all. I mean I think they've
pretty much given up making up any time now. We've only got another
two or three legs now. Who knows? Anyway, more views of the open ocean as we get on our way to Pohnpei. All right, and welcome to Pohnpei. Easily the most incredible
approach and landing that we've had today so far. That was just absolutely amazing, the way we've been sort
of weaving along the coast into this sort of harbor
area, past that mountain. Just absolutely phenomenal,
beautiful, beautiful island, this is actually. It's proper cool, proper cool, It's like landing in like, on the set of "Moana"
or something like that. It's really, really, really cool. But we've got again, about
another 40 minutes here on the ground in Pohnpei before we get onto the next stop of Chuuk, the up Chuuk. And I'm guessing that we're just gonna be keeping this hour and a half delay now. I have been starting to worry a little bit and panic a little bit
cause I was thinking oh it's great, I can just hop
from one gate to the next one and get into Guam. But, and I've remembered, even though we're going
from the U.S. to the U.S., we've come via other places. So it's gonna be like an
international flight I think, which means, if I remember right, you have to sort of go through immigration and then come back out again. In 25 minutes? That's gonna be a bit tight. Who knows? I mean, I've had no phone
signal the entire flight. There's no network anywhere. So I've not been able to
check what the status is of my next flight either, I mean that might even be delayed yet. We might be fine. I don't know. It's so difficult to tell. I guess we're not really gonna
know until we get to Guam whether I'm actually
gonna make it all the way to Manila tonight, or whether I end up getting stuck there. But either way, we are sort of 12 hours into this adventure now. We're sort of halfway through the 24 hours on the 737, and it's not going too bad. I'm having little bits of time
where I can stretch my legs, and little bits of time
where I'm cramped in, so yeah, I'm getting there. We're getting there now. We're sort of halfway
through, and we can do this. It's gonna be good. All right then, airborne from Pohnpei heading to Chuuk, next stop, and I'm starting to flag a bit now, I'm getting a bit tired I have to say. But somehow as well we've ended up leaving Pohnpei even
later than we arrived. So we are like an hour
and 45 minutes late now. So I really don't think I've got a chance of making this connection. But who knows? We might do, we might do,
but we might have a stop over if I end up missing the flight. I don't know yet. We'll figure it out when we get to Guam. I'm just trying to rest now, 'cause I'm absolutely
flipping worn out now. Been on this plane for about 14 hours. Got another few until we get to Guam, and then we've got another sort
of seven or eight hours then down to Palau, and onwards to Manila. So yeah, it's gonna be fun. At least we've got the
scenery to enjoy, eh? All right then, on the ground in Chuuk, last stop before Guam, where I get off this plane, and hopefully onto the next
one down to Palau and Manila. But who knows, we're still
an hour and a half late, so that gives me 20 minutes to connect in Guam, which doesn't seem particularly possible. But we'll see what
happens when we get there. Whatever happens, happens at this point, is basically my attitude. I'm not too stressed, because I know there'll be another flight at some point tomorrow, maybe, worst case. But if we make it, we make it. And if we don't, we don't. It's all we can say, isn't it, really? Worrying about it now isn't gonna make any difference at all to whether we get there on time or not and whether we make it. So just see how we go
when we get there, really. Well, we've started our
descent down into Guam, time to find out what's going on with this next flight or not. Just gonna find out. Well that plane right there
is my flight to Manila, the one that's just pushing
back from the gate next to me. So it looks like we've missed it. Oh boy. All right then. So unexpected night stop in Guam. They've sorted me out a hotel, taxis, meals, and a flight
to Manila tomorrow night. So I actually have 24 hours
here in Guam, rather than well just like an hour I had before. So let's go get me a taxi across to the hotel, and then we've got a bit of time here, before we continue on on the island hopper
down to Manila tomorrow. Right. Hotel for the night,
unexpected night in Guam, which was very fun, open this blind, so I can see, oh, there's me view,
the city view over Guam. So yeah, here we are in Guam. Was not expecting to be here tonight, well not for an overnight anyway, we're supposed to just
connect, but nevermind. United did really well
with that, actually. They got me rebooked
onto tomorrow's flight. They sorted out taxis,
they've sorted out the hotel, they've got me meal
vouchers and everything. So I've got a night here, I've got 24 hours now here in Guam, 'cause the flight's tomorrow evening. So I'm gonna try and get some rest, 'cause I'm absolutely knackered after me day flying on the island hopper. We're gonna pick up the
island hopper again tomorrow, finish off this trip, and get
all the way down to Manila. So I'm gonna get a bit of rest now, and I'll see you in the morning. Goodnight. Well good morning from
Guam in the Pacific Ocean. I slept absolutely
incredibly in my hotel room. In fact, probably the
best I've slept for ages, after my exhausting day yesterday hopping across the Pacific
Ocean to here at least. But the trip isn't quite over yet because we've still not
completely crossed the Pacific. I've still gotta get to Manila on a 737, on my replacement flight,
which I'm about to take now. So let's head across to the airport. Back to the airport again, and let's finish this
thing that we started 'cause we don't like quitting and going home early here at this channel. Do we? Let's go back to the airport
and go and jump on a 737 to the Philippines. Alright, I'm back at Guam airport. Got to find the way to get in. We can go and check in, outside, inside. All right then, all checked
in, through security. Really, really easy. I think that there's literally
one more flight today, and that's mine. So they've just got the
passengers on that to deal with. So straight through, the
airport's quite empty, deserted. But I wanna try and find a lounge, because I'm now internationally flying. So if I'm international, I think I can use the lounge with my United Gold membership that this trip has just earned
me on yesterday's stuff. So let's go and see if there
is a United lounge here, and if there is, if I can get in, let's go and find out. So that's the Korean Air lounge. I don't know if there's
a United one here or not. I'm not sure if that's close anyway. Gosh, there's like nobody
here, it's deserted. Hmm. I'm gonna have to do
some Googling, I think. All right, here's the United club, and it's temporarily closed. That's annoying. Okay, well, fast food it is, sorry, or food court. That's all right, let's go and see if there's a food court. Oh, plane, plane. There's a United plane. I wonder if that's the one that's taking me over to Manila, Manila. 737 800 there, look. Oh, and there's a T'way
airplane over there as well, from Korea, a T'way, T'way, it's like a northern airline. I don't know, there's
a lot of them in Seoul. - [Gate Attendant] Thank
you, and welcome aboard. - [Noel] This right here, one's me. Thank you. - Thank you.
- Thank you, have a good one. - You too.
- Cheers, guys. - [Gate Attendant]
Welcome aboard, thank you. - [Noel] Hello, here I am. Thank you very much, cheers, thank you. All right then, all aboard for the last flight across the Pacific. It's not a window, but it'll
do, it's a comfortable seat. It's gonna get me through
the next couple of hours down to Manila, and then rest, hopefully. All right, found me hotel, the Marriott, It's just, well it's
kind of almost attached to the airport, but not quite. Just had to go outside
and crossroad and stuff, but I'm here. I'll get checked in to me room. All right, checked in. Yay! And they've upgraded me, it's a day for upgrades today. I've got an upgraded room
after me upgraded flight. I've got to find where I need to be. 1063, they said. Got it. Oh, this is quite snazzy. Look at that bathroom. Quite a snazzy room, oh,
it's got a loaded mini bar. It's a shame I'm not
drinking at the minute. Made it across the Pacific Ocean on a 737. I don't know whether I have any desire to want to do that again. It was a little bit tough, not, you know, not the most comfortable ride, but it was fun, and I enjoyed seeing
all this little islands but let me know what you thought of it down in the comments. But please be nice. Please don't be dumb, or anything, because we're all human
beings and we all kind of, it's nice to talk nice
to one another, isn't it? But anyway, that aside, we're in Sheraton. No, in Manila. I've got about seven hours here. Oh no, seven hours until
my next flight leaves. Fortunately it's not far away. But stay tuned, hit that subscribe button so you don't miss it, and I will see you on the next one. Bye for now.
