Honolulu to Auckland

Since this will be our last day in Hawaii for a while, we woke relatively early and went for a nice morning walk along the beach. We stopped for a coffee at the Moana hotel, where we enjoyed the view from those famous rocking chairs! Whilst our time in Hawaii has been somewhat long and unexpected, it was nice to leave with a positive image.

After packing up and cleaning up the apartment, we caught an Uber to Honolulu airport. On the way, Ted checked the cost of the flight we are taking today and unsurprisingly, it has increased significantly since we purchased it. Whilst waiting for our flight, we bought some pizzas for lunch since the Chinese restaurant there offered nothing vegetarian besides rice.

We headed towards our boarding gate and whilst waiting, I saw John Sparkes whom I used to work with at QantasLink who was operating to Melbourne that day. We chatted for a while before he needed to leave and then, about 10 minutes later, we saw Patrick Holley, one of Ted’s former coworkers in Sydney, who was connecting through Honolulu from Peru. He shared a similar nightmare staff travel story where he needed to pay over $3k for a flight home. It’s still interesting to run into former and current coworkers when you’re overseas.

Before boarding, I bought some food from Starbucks as I wasn’t able to secure a vegetarian meal before leaving Honolulu. After boarding the flight, it was delayed slightly due to the late arrival of a connecting flight. Our so called “comfort plus” seats we’d purchased were a disappointment, since my seat didn’t recline at all. Therefore the nine plus hours flight when I was hoping to lay back and sleep didn’t happen. Ted similarly had a woman hitting the touchscreen on the back of his seat for the duration of the flight. I watched The Batman but most of the entertainment offered wasn’t great.

Upon arriving into Auckland, we needed to stay seated whilst the cabin crew sprayed the cabin (haven’t seen Qantas do that for over 20 years) before disembarking, collecting our luggage and heading through immigration. I was concerned we wouldn’t be able to check into the hotel due to our late arrival, but the hotel said it was fine and came in the shuttle to collect us.

I’ve contacted our friend Tara about catching up tomorrow, whom we haven’t seen since before Covid. I would’ve liked to have gone to bed early again but changing time zones has made it impossible tonight!Lue lisää