Auckland, New Zealand

We hadn’t planned to spend the night in Auckland but due to flight delays missed our connection to Christchurch :(

The day started in Adelaide. Our ADL-AKL flight was at noon, so we were able to get up at decent hour. We thought about upgrading cause it’s four hours but the flight had just economy seats, plus it looked to be completely full.

We got through security and then waited inside the terminal for our gate to posted. Then we realized we had to go through another set of security checks for international flights, including having to dump our water bottles again and fill up on the other side. Very odd.

The flight was delayed by an hour cause the incoming flight was late. We were flying Air New Zealand for the first time - the seats were really comfortable, no need for upgrades.

The flight attendants came by to all the transferring passengers to explain how they were hoping to rush us through our transfers. They arranged for passengers to disembark in stages - first the passengers on connecting flights across the Pacific, then connections within NZ (which included us). There were 40 passengers, including us, connecting to Christchurch, so we figured they would hold the flight till we got there.

Unfortunately as it was an international flight with a domestic connection, we had to first collect our luggage, pass through customs, get to the domestic terminal, pass through security, check our bags, and then board. In 55 minutes. (In the future, for international to domestic connections, I’ll probably plan to stay the night in between).

It was all going to plan. The cross-Pacific passengers disembarked, then us and 38 of our fellow passengers.

Our luggage came out the conveyor pretty quickly (we had already checked in the Find My app to confirm our luggage made the flight).

We had trekked in the Outback and declared our shoes as possibly contaminated with dirt, so got flagged through customs. We had to pull out our shoes for inspection, which was quick. The longer part was trying to cram everything back into the suitcase.

Then we walked over to the domestic terminal. The flight staff suggested walking instead of waiting for the shuttle as it’s just a ten minute walk. We recognized other passengers from the flight making the trek too. It was drizzly and very humid, quite the change for us from the arid climate in the Outback. I was sweating by the time we got to the terminal.

Tried to self-check our bags but the flight wasn’t coming up in the system. Then an Air New Zealand staff came over to inform us the gates were closed for our AKL-CHC flight :(

So 40 of us lined up to get moved to the next available flight (there’s multiple per day) and get our accommodation and meal vouchers.

Took us an hour of waiting to finally get rebooked, on the 9am flight the next day. As we were at the counter, the agents found out that the 8:30am flight that they had booked most of the folks ahead of us was now cancelled. Good thing we were on the 9am! Hopefully that would remain on schedule. Later we realized the weather had been bad in Auckland today and lots of flights had been cancelled. The line up for vouchers kept on growing with passengers from other flights.

We’ve been pretty lucky over the years that we haven’t had many missed flights. I think just one canceled flight in Borneo and Heather had her luggage delayed in Lisbon.

There were two other passengers staying at the same hotel as us. One of the other passengers didn’t want to wait for the shuttle, so took an Uber and offered to take all four of us. Very nice of her.

Finally got to the hotel at 10pm. The restaurant had just closed so we ordered room service. The friendly JetPark hotel people suggested we order at reception before heading to our room so we wouldn’t have wait long for our food.

It was a rather long day and we weren’t quite yet at our destination. Oh well.