Sandy's New Year Holiday - Day 1 - Canberra to Auckland

Arrived at Canberra Airport just before Qantas opened up for the day.  International check-in was really quick although it wouldn't have been so fast if I'd arrived a bit later, seems lots of people were taking international trips starting with a Canberra to Sydney flight.  They didn't have the Qantas Club open so all of us lowly Qantas Club persons were allowed to go into the Business Club - I've never been in there before; it's a definite step up.

Flight to Sydney was pretty good considering it was one of the little planes.

If you read my posts from earlier this year you'll know that the reason I was flying so early was because of an argument I had with Qantas - they changed my flights without consulting me, and left me with a 60 minute transit time in Sydney, which they insist is adequate.  It was my personal opinion that this isn't enough time to get from a domestic flight to an international gate, but it took me quite some time to get the flights changed so that I had what I thought was an acceptable transit time.

In theory, they were right - I made it from the Canberra flight to Gate 55 at the International Terminal in about 40 minutes.  But, I had a dream run; the transfer bus arrived about 2 minutes after I got there, and I got through both immigration and security more quickly than I ever have.  I still think 60 minutes is cutting it really fine - any of those steps along the way could easily have taken another 10 or 20 minutes.  Anyway, lesson learned, I will NEVER again fly from Canberra to Sydney to connect with an international flight.

The flight to Auckland also went pretty well apart from one embarrassing incident.  I thought I had purchased a small bottle of water, but when I opened it at 10,000 meters or so I found that I had bought some 'slightly' sparkling water - which at that altitude opened like a shaken up bottle of Coke!  Fortunately the water only went onto me and no fellow passengers!  Took ages until the fizz settled down enough that I could actually drink it!
Food on the flight to Auckland was interesting.  The Qantas website had offered me the option to choose my meal in advance, which I did.  However, there was no sign on the flight that this choice had any effect, they just offered me a meal the same as everyone else.  I got the meal I had supposedly pre-ordered anyway, so all is good, but I wonder why they offer this option if they're not going to take any notice of it once you're actually on the plane?  Anyway, the best thing about the food was dessert - they came around after the meal offering an icecream which turned out to be a Weis bar - Strawberry, Watermelon & Lychee flavour and absolutely delicious!

Flying in over Auckland we got a good view of the city, including two cruise ships in port - Royal Caribbean's Explorer of the Seas and Holland America's Noordam.  They'll both be leaving Auckland tonight - Explorer of the Seas on the way to New Caledonia and Noordam to the Bay of Islands.

It took about an hour to get out of Auckland airport, but most of that time was getting from the plane to the terminal.  They parked us out on the edge of the airport somewhere and we had to wait for a bus - actually it took three buses - to take us to the terminal. I suspect the airport was a bit busier than usual today!  

I had pre-booked a bus to the City from the airport, and that went well, they only run every 20 minutes or so but there was one waiting when I got to the bus stop.  I got dropped off at one of their stops in the city which is less than a minute walk to my hotel.  I have a very nice room including a little kitchenette so I'm just cooking up some dinner following the last disaster of the day - I couldn't get the suitcase lock to open.  I checked it out three or four times at home and wrote the number down so I'm sure I was using the right number, but it wouldn't budge.  And, looking at it more closely, it seems to have been beaten around a bit in the plane (as has my luggage strap - it's a bright orange one that makes my suitcase easier to identify, but it's a bit worse for wear now, some piece of machinery tried to eat it).  The hotel sent up a man with some pliers and he managed to break the lock off, although it was tougher than it looked.  Hopefully that's the last drama for today and I can get some sleep soon.