Tahitian Cruise

24^th Feb

Off to AKL to catch our flight to Tahiti. We took the 0800 flight, because all flights after that were pretty much full. When you travel on subload, you don't risk missing the whole holiday for the sake of a close connection.

We had real seats on the AKLPPT flight, because NZ only fly there twice a week. If we didn't get onto that one, we would miss our cruise. Game over. As it happened, NZ40 was oversold, so we were wise to get confirmed seats.

So, 0800 to AKL for a flight leaving there at 1835. The bags were through-checked, though. At least we wouldn't be tooling around Auckland all day with luggage in tow.

Breakfast in the CHC Koru Lounge is always good. We got to AKL in good time, and walked over to the international terminal. We had brought a present up for a friend of Sarah's, who has come over to the dark side, works for Air New Zealand now.

We hovered around in the departure area for a while. Sarah bought some trashies, (Sarah-speak for women's magazines). She also bought some snacks for the flight, and a neck pillow for me. I have never used one before, but Sarah swears by them. Am I going to argue? I don't think so, Tim.

What I do, though, is point out that the neck pillows in the shop over there are much cheaper. Bugger!

Sarah has always had a very bad habit when she's out shopping, particularly in markets overseas. She will see something that she likes, but won't buy it because she might get it cheaper in another store. When she realizes that she can't, she either can't get back to the original store, or it's sold out.

Same thing at home. She will see something she wants is on sale, um and ah about it, and then go to buy it when it's not on sale any more.

Anyway, she is trying to break the habit of putting things off. Impulse buying instead. Don't put off till tomorrow, and all that. Today she buys on impulse. And regrets it almost immediately. Ah well.

After that we were going to wander over to the local warehouse, about a kilometre away. For the Amrikan translation, think Walmart. I can easily entertain myself in a warehouse for a couple of hours. Particularly the DVD section. It is absolutely amazing the range of DVDs you can find at the "Ware-whare".

in the end, Sarah couldn't be arsed doing the walk. The wind was getting up, so wouldn't be the easy walk we had hoped for. This is Auckland, so it would probably be raining by the time we were ready to do the walk back.

So we head back inside, and head through customs, and off we go to the Koru lounge.

Segue:

Did you notice the italics? That’s because the passage in italics is another topic that I have drifted into. It might help you to get the wee hint when I do drift. Or not. So, any time you see this in the future, you can say to yourself “Oh, that’s him drifting off onto another tangent again.

Hint: This was one.

Back to the story. On the way, I point out that the same stores we looked at earlier (remember the neck pillow?) have stores on this side as well. Duty free. Even cheaper still. Bollocks!

Find a comfy corner in the Koru Lounge for a snack and a snooze. There are a couple of hammocks, but I don't think so. This is about 1300, boarding 1800. 5 hours in here. Sheesh!

But wait, there's more. The aircraft is off to the hanger, and now won't be leaving till 1935. Bugger!

I have to say, though, that the international Koru lounge has a good range of food. And they keep changing it. I don't mean restocking. Changing!

Given, we were there for bloody hours, but we got lunch, snack, and dinner menus. Sarah was mucho impressed. And rather ravenous, surprisingly.

At about 1915 we head off to the gates, but it's not boarding. Oh, the aircraft is there, has been for a wee while. I could see it parked there from the lounge. But not boarding. Somebody was making announcements I couldn't understand, so I went back to the window to watch the pretty planes.

Ah! There's the problem! The ambulift was at the back door of the aircraft. It's a truck on a set of scissor jacks, that could lift the deck up to door level. Just like a catering truck. The ambulift is what they use to get a stretcher-bound passenger onboard. The ambulance drives up to it on the tarmac, the patient is transferred and up to the aircraft door. "going up? Ladies langerie? Menswear?”  In Christchurch we use the catering truck, but they must get enough cases here to justify a dedicated truck. That could take a while.

Oh look, something else. There are 3 airport fire trucks parking in a nice line just out our window. Something to do with the stretcher case, I assume.

No, they're coming inside. A minute later they are walking up the escalator just behind me. Hang on a minute, the escalator is going down, and the guys aren't getting very far.

Good grief, they are doing their exercises. In full gear! One wearing an oxygen mask, sounding like Darth Vader having an asthma attack. Now this is the definition of an exercise in futility. They were there for almost half an hour, a great distraction for the people waiting to board.

Eventually we were allowed to board, starting with DEF JK. A bit disorganized, if you ask Sarah. The stretcher case is in the back of our cabin, over on the AB side.

2005 we pushed back, 1.5 hours late. This promises to be a long day.

Uneventful flight, arriving on the island at about 0200. No airbridge, so down the steps onto the tarmac. I wish 2 in the morning was this warm in Christchurch.

When we got married, we went on our silly-moon to Kuala Lumpur. This was my first Asian country, and I was very confused. We were sitting at a café on the sidewalk outside our hotel, listening to music and eating ice-cream. At Midnight! I know, right? How does that work? I get the heat in daylight. Day. Light. Sun. Don’t need to be a rocket scientist to join the dots here. But there’s no sun at midnight! What the…!

Back to the story. We had 2 forms to fill in onboard. One we hand in as we enter the building, and then form 2 queues. Sarah saw her new boyfriend. A very muscular lad wearing little more than a tattoo, singing a tribal welcome to guests, part of a small band that’s playing to arriving pax as we enter the building.

I'd like to mention here a little something about travel. We have all heard about Murphy's law. Everything that can go wrong, will. We have a local version, based on the staggeringly unlucky life experiences of our neighbour. I will call it “Yolanda's law”. It's about what can go wrong on holiday. Lost bookings, sub-standard accommodation, horror stories up the wazoo. Luckily, we seem to only strike it with immigration queues. The Amrikan ones are my personal favourites.

But here we are, in 2 equal sized queues. We were seated near the front of economy, so we're in the first couple of dozen into the building.

But wait. Our queue has stalled, and the other one is in overdrive. Pinging them through. We move forward in steps that can only me measured in millimetres. Eventually we are 2 from the front, and the queue behind me goes out of the building. The other queue is almost finished. Good grief!

Once we get through customs, picking up the bags is no problem, and we head out the door to be picked up.

There are a couple of noticeboards with names outside, with tour company agents hovering around. Looks pretty well organised, except that our names are nowhere to be seen. Crap!

We see one agent with the company name we are expecting on her clipboard. She looks at her lists, looks at our vouchers, looks at her lists again.

We have a voucher to get us airport to hotel and return, and one to get us hotel to wharf and return. She takes both vouchers, and shows us to the bus. Mmmm. Is this going to bite us on the bum later? Should have made copies of those vouchers, Sarah decided too late. Only a 1.2 on the sphincter scale, but we’ll see.

Nice bus, short drive. We drop some at the Intercontinental, and then we arrive at the Sofitel. Looks quite nice, and reception is expecting us. Bonus.

Off to the room. A bit tired. The room, that is.

Actually, so are we, so off to bed for us. Not much time before we need to be up.