kiwi kruisin' travels ~ 2018

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DAY 1

Week 1

TOWNSVILLE (Queensland, AUS) to AUCKLAND (Auckland, NZL)
via BRISBANE (Queensland, AUS)

Saturday April 14th, 2018

TODAYS MILEAGE – 2,125 miles or 3,420 kilometres

TRIP MILEAGE – 2,125 miles or 3,420 kilometres

I had a good mate of mine - Fluxy, drop me off at the Townsville Airport for my 11:40AM flight down to Brisbane. This gave me about 5 hours to get over to International Departures to meet up with one of the Kruisin’ Krew - Shazza, where we had a quick bite to eat and a couple of G&T’s and a chinwag.

Somewhat surprisingly, the Qantas check-in procedure consisted of everyone having to use self-service baggage check-in and then wait for the five attending counter staff, to complete their gas bagging about their weekends activities, before three of them actually started checking people in. If this is meant to be a part of some efficiency drive, then lord help us as it took us three times longer to check in - what a friggin' shemozzle!!

We cleared Customs & Immigration and then received a call that ET, Trina & Josie were not joining us in Brisbane due to flight delays and are being redirected through Melbourne.

About an hour before the plane was about to board both Sharon and I were called to the Gate Check-In desk only to be informed that they had moved us out of our prepaid exit row seats. I queried this with the gate attendant and she said we had to move as they had passengers that were travelling together. I’ll was less than happy with this answer and mentioned that both Sharon and I were travelling together and that would like to stay travelling together.

The surly gate attendant went back and forth with one of her colleagues for about 20 minutes before printing new tickets. Sharon and I would now be sitting opposite each other, in the same exit row, but across the aisle from each other. We go to board the plane and I have a look at our previous tickets and am somewhat surprised to see that all that had transpired was that they’d swapped Sharon and I into the same seats that we have previously had.

Although listed as arriving half an hour earlier than us in Auckland, the ‘Three Musketeers’ ended up arriving after midnight, about an hour after we landed. Not that Tony & Trina were complaining – they had Business Class seats on the way over.