Auckland and end of NZ

I am heading to Auckland where I will return my campervan. After clearing my stuff out of the van I hold my breath and await for any “damage” charges, especially since I broke and replaced those two dishes. Luckily everything is fine….I guess I have trust issues with car rental places.

They provide a ride but it doesn’t go very far and I need to get to Auckland proper. They drop me off at the train station though. I carry all my junk (plus extra things I haven’t yet tossed) on the train to the city center.

I check into my hotel and I am exhausted. Not really sure why but I feel sick but not sick if that makes sense. I had been planning on meeting up with a couple women I have met in past travels but I can’t seem to have the energy to nail down plans. I pick the wrong time to want to rest!

To be honest I really don’t do much in Auckland. I walk around only to get a couple meals. Otherwise my time is spent lazily. I am having another one of those lulls again. My laziness doesn’t end anytime soon because I start my really long travel in a day or two. I am changing to another continent and time zone, more about that in a little while.

I craved a bagel and it was nearby this sign that pretty much sums up my mood.

I do stop for some sushi and crayfish by the water. The crayfish is super expensive and I am disappointed. I waited this long to try this? It must be better in other regions of the country?

My last meal in New Zealand is a salad – I am craving Halloumi once more but this salad grosses me out since the chicken looks and has texture like it is undercooked. The café insists the chicken is fine but it grosses me out.

I head to the airport. I am flying to Santiago Chile to recover from my jetlag. My next destination is South America. The flight to Chile seems like the shortest most reasonable place to stop to recover. I schedule a couple days here and hope I have time to do at least some city sightseeing or a wine region tour but I do almost nothing except sleep and go out to get a meal or two. I do end up watching the Superbowl at the hotel bar. The game is all in Spanish but it is a good time to brush up on the language since I am heading to Colombia next.

My time is totally wasted in Chile (unless you count restorative sleep) but I really hope to return again someday.

Flight cancelled!

I am flying back to Bali from Yogyakarta. I will overnight in Bali to prepare for my trip to my next country.

This time I am heading to Australia.

I plan to start in Cairns, Australia and work my way down south.

My flight back to Bali is uneventful. In Bali am staying at the same hotel I previously stayed in by the airport. It seems to be much easier accessing the hotel when flying into the domestic terminal.

I use the evening to make sure I have all the documents ready I need for Australia, including making documents accessible offline – you never know when your phone data will just stop working!

My flight is supposed to be a direct flight at 11:15 am. I wake early to up to make sure I am at the terminal early like usual. I visit one of the lounges to get something to eat. In the lounge start noticing the flight is delayed. I decide this is a good time to try out another lounge at the airport to get some cocktails while I wait.

As time goes on the flight time keeps changing, getting nervous so I walk toward the gate to see what is happening.

I am flying Jetstar and their customer service is non-existent. No meaningful information is given to the travelers. Sometime in the afternoon they finally cancel the flight. Once before I’ve had a cancelled flight with Delta and they were pretty good at communicating to the travelers the plan for the next flight. Travelers on this flight are freaking out and trying to make phone calls to customer service while we await instructions. I patiently wait thinking things will be communicated to us in time. Ugh, not really. We finally figure out we need to go through reverse immigration, get our bags and someone would meet us at the airline check-in for more information.

Waiting to go through immigration the opposite way.

I seem to wait forever to claim my bag. At check-in they tell my new flight time for tomorrow (Note: the time they give is wrong). I finally get on a bus to take us to a hotel that will house us for the night. I could make my own arrangements but best to stay with the group since they should arrange all transportation and meals for us.

We arrive at the hotel and I get my hotel room key, meal voucher and a vague instruction for tomorrow (Note: The flight time they tell us is wrong too). The hotel lobby isn’t bad but the rooms are pretty outdated. The hotel probably was pretty nice when it was first opened.

I settle in and decide to go out for a look of the ocean and order something to eat. The situation isn’t the best but we are right on the water!

I watch the sunset from a patio with drinks while listening to a duet band singing Islands in the Stream. I get to chat with some other flight passengers.

I head to bed early because I keep getting conflicting information on tomorrow’s flight time and I want to be prepared for anything: airport says 6:00 am, room notification says 10:00 am, and online says 7:00 am).

We get the morning call and make it in time for the flight so it all seems to work out. I get a well deserved coffee with my breakfast voucher.

Once arriving in Cairns, Australia I have a little bit of a wait for my van pickup. I am sad I am missing a day in the city due to my flight cancellation. I will need to pack all I really wanted to see in a shorter period of time I guess.

My hostel Mad Monkey Backpackers is great. I have a nice air conditioned private room with a private bathroom. I love the lounge area to catch up on social media back home.

Luckily I am able to move the Great Barrier tour I had scheduled for today for two days later. Tomorrow I am heading out to see the rainforest in Australia.

A little bit of fancy

I upgraded my credit card to one of those high end travel cards to get a deal on exchange fees among other things. It isn’t cheap but included in the fee is priority pass. I got to try it out today.

Not sure if if I am really getting my money’s worth but it is a nice place to relax pre flight.

Peru 2018! Flying into Cusco

Our tour guide made sure we got window seats to get this marvelous view coming into Cusco.

Flight? Bad travel luck over?

The journey of heading home starts with our train trip from Nuremberg to the Frankfurt flughafen train station. It is the main station that connects the airport with the regional area. We booked a hotel that night near the airport so we wouldn’t have to be rushed to get to the terminal. The hotel I booked with my Hilton points just so happened to be connected to the train station next to the airport. There is a convenience market and restaurants in the same mall area. After a hotel room snafu (we somehow got a non-smoking room that was smokey) we went out to get dinner at Paulaner, a restaurant located at THE SQUAIRE (the train station and airport mall area). I tried the Schnitzel one last time and was happy it came with a much needed salad. I also treated myself to some tropical dessert.

We go back to the hotel for an early night. We set our alarms and rest up for the flight.
We wander around a little bit in the morning before our walk to the aiport. We find a bakery where I get coffee and this cheese covered pretzel thing. I decided to carb it one last time in Germany.

Then it is on the walk to the terminal. It isn’t as quick as I thought it would be and we did end up taking a bus. The hotel and train station is in terminal 1 and our flight was terminal 2. Still have plenty of time since I always leave early for flights.
Frankfurt is a little odd. I felt like we went through security multiple times. You first go through a very easy screening and you feel like you are in the clear. But don’t buy any liquids or anything you expect to take on the plane. If you are US bound, you will have to go through screening once more to get to your gate, only within a window for your flight. They will make you dispose of any liquids you purchased (unless it is from duty free shop and “locked” up). There is a bathroom and shop on the other side where you can get duty free items, snacks, cold sandwiches, and drinks (water, soda, beer, and wine to consume there).
Once we got through the final round we sit and wait. Things seem to be smooth until we get our first delay message. It is a mechanical issue and technicians are looking at it. No eta, but no worry because so many flights are delayed these days we just expect that as the norm.
We sit some more and more delay messages. At some point they start to say a couple hours. Still hopeful of arriving home. They bring out drinks and finally sandwiches. I start to hear the rumor mill. The flight is getting cancelled. They won’t announce until it gets officially cancelled by the technicians. They also talk about how it won’t be rescheduled for later that day because the crew will time out and there is no crew to fill the 8 hour flight. People start looking for other flights to get on.

Sandwiches!!

I hear the rumors but don’t want to believe them until we hear official word over the intercom. It finally comes. Our flight is cancelled. We are asked to wait for word of what to do. Some book themselves on alternate flights or the same flight the next day but now all those options are gone. Eventually they announce that they are creating a new flight for us the same time the next day and they are putting us in an airport hotel overnight with food vouchers.
We get some sort of vague instruction to find the shuttle for the Steigenberger Hotel and all arrangements will be handled at hotel. Apparently we are automatically booked on the flight for the next day. Groups of us wander out to find the bus. It is real confusing and no one is there to direct us. It is a group effort. Many on the flight are English speaking or have a good level of English language so with team work we find the bus. It is way too small for all of us waiting so we have multiple trips. While I am waiting delta calls me to offer me an $100 voucher. Really Delta? Still don’t know when I am getting home, and this hotel situation at the time seems messy. Not really the best time Delta unless you have some information to help me now!
When we get to the hotel it is long lines for the check in. My husband gets in line and I sit aside with the luggage. We check in with almost no identification. It is almost like we could have been just stragglers who came in at the right time and got a free room. Breakfast and Dinner are in a special conference room for our group. I wasn’t expecting much for a free hotel stay but was pleasantly surprised at our room. It was nicely decorated and very clean. The only bad part is that we were at the airport, it was already later in the day, so we had no real time to get to Frankfurt and sight see. Let me correct myself – ten years ago I would have hopped in a cab or train to do whatever Frankfurt I could do in YOLO style but tonight we want to eat and get a good night’s rest after being at the airport most of the day.

The dinner was buffet style and very impressive. I wasn’t expecting them to comp any alcohol but they had a seemingly never ending supply of the Radelberger beer. We took full advantage of it and did find it had an end – after we spent a couple hours hanging out chatting with some jazz/chamber music musicians from Brooklyn who were coming back from some Germany performances. A couple of them lived not too far from us. If you want to check them out they are Project Trio and Turtle Island Quartet. They were really nice group of guys.

Once the beer ran out it was time for bed. We rest up and finally get on our flight home the next day.

I heard rumors of good compensation granted for flight delays and cancellations and planned to do research when I got home. The next day we came to discover that our entire flight was comped. Both legs of the flight were refunded. So we basically went to Germany on a free flight with the “inconvenience” of having to miss another day of work. Fortunately we both have understanding employers so that wasn’t an issue.
The European union has stricter compensation laws for airline inconveniences and it appears Delta went above and beyond that. So it is hard to say that my bad travel luck is still in place since it was bad luck to have a flight cancelled, we still got home safe. Plus we were well compensated. I guess these are the good problems to have.
Until the next journey.
Happy travels!