A lazy start today. We are based in the Auckland Airport Novotel awaiting our flight home late in the afternoon. After breakfast we sent off spend the last $25 NZDs in the airport shops, which is easily done. After blowing our spare change we waited in our room till 1pm.
Business class check-in went smoothly as one would expect and so did security. Gone are days of stripping everything off, the scanners have improved.
We then did a brief investigation of the duty free spirits. On the whole, the there are bargains if you do your homework. We tasted and took photos and retreated to qantas lounge to do our homework. During this time our flight was delayed from 4:30pm to 5:30pm for what later we learnt was for very unusual reasons. The lounge however was nice and far more pleasant than waiting at the gate.
Closer to our departure time we headed back to duty free to pickup some bargains and headed out to our gate. We were almost at the gate, when gate number changed to gate as far away as you can get! (We got our steps up today!)
At the gate Qantas decided to delay boarding to allow people to find the gate. Eventually we boarded a took up our seats. Wow, very different to cattle class seats. The food and drinks were great too, certainly a step up.
Would we pay full business class price for flight from New Zealand in the future, certainly not? We do believe using points is acceptable for long haul flights and certainly will be an option for our future European trip in 2025.
On arrival in Brisbane, we declared our wooden souvenirs that we collected. Sadly bio security didn’t like our cute kiwi Santa decorations because they were made from a pine cone. Apparently pine cones are suspect because of insects inhabiting them. A real shame, they were definitely delightful decorations but it is better to help protect Australia’s natural environment.
Finally we checked into the Pullman Airport, lucky we choose to book the hotel because in the end we didn’t exit the international terminal till after 7:15pm some 2 hours later than planned. Driving home tonight would have been tedious.
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