Nov 232014
 

I should subtitle this entry “because there hasn’t been enough drama already” but I’ll resist. Woke up to an email…my Virgin Australia flight had been canceled. For some reason, the inbound was canceled so might flight was canceled as well. Called Virgin, and they said “no problem, you’ve been rebooked for tomorrow.” Um, I don’t want to go tomorrow, I want to go today. Ugh.

Fortunately, my good friends at Solomons Air also had a flight that day…but Virgin wouldn’t rebook me on it. It actually took nearly 30 minutes of fighting to get them to agree to give me a refund. Ugh. There was an upside though – the new flight on Solomons wasn’t actually about $100 cheaper booked day of…so in the end, things actually worked out well!

Got to the airport only about an hour before the flight after all the drama, but no problems at all. Checked in, got the exit row again, and life was grand.

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Oh look, same plane as a couple days prior! That’s because Solomons only has one jet…

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Welkam on board!

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Solomons Airlines flight 700
Honiara, Solomon Islands (HIR) to Brisbane, Australia (BNE)
Depart 15:00, Arrive 17:15, Flight Time 3:15
Airbus A320, Registration H4-BUS (ex Air Canada) Manufactured 1992, Seat 15C

The flight was only about half full today, which meant I had the entire exit row to myself. Score! Double score…there was no sketchy sandwiich on this flight but a proper meal. It was described as “beef” and was actually reasonably tasty:

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Quick shot how the “other half” lives on the way out.

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Landed right on time, and decided to give the eGates at Australian immigration a try, not wanting a repeat of my experience coming into Darwin. It worked like a charm, and soon I was on the airport express train downtown and back to the Four Points hotel. The downtown area was an absolute security nightmare, with the G20 set to happen in a couple of days.

Checked in, had a quick shower, and headed out to get some dinner. While I was talking to the front desk lady about something, I heard a loud popping sound, kind of like if someone had popped a giant piece of bubble wrap. I looked around expecting to see something broken, on fire, something. What I didn’t expect to see is a giant flying creature that apparently I had stepped on.

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Quiet evening, caught up on sleep a bit, and then had another full day to decide what to do. With the giant security mess, I decided I would get out of dodge for the day and see something new. Caught the train down to the Gold Coast…or at least attempted to. It took me like three tries to figure out the trains…because not every train goes to every station. Then you need to take a bus. Then, your iPhone decides to die when the bus drops you off, so you have no idea where anything is in town. Yeah, that.

Grabbed some lunch, and my iPhone decided to come back to life. I had an email from my hotel…note this was about 2pm. The email told me they were sorry, but needed me to move out of my upgraded room to my original room no later than 4pm. Um, you told me at check-in I had the room for both nights. Replied that I’m sorry, at the beach for the day, but happy to discuss with them when I return. This was followed up by an email instructing me if I couldn’t move on time, I would have to pay for the upgraded room. Uh, you expect people to sit around their hotel all day waiting? Then, they offered to pack up my belongings and move them for me. Um, no. That’s a recipe  for things to get lost and the blame game to start.

Finally, sent them an email saying I was really disappointed in the way they were treating a platinum member over what is a $50 a night upgrade. (It was just a high floor room.) They went silent. When I got back later, the new manager on duty was very apologetic, offered Starpoints in compensation, said I could keep the room, and said “this whole situation could have been handled much better.” Ok, apology accepted.

Back to enjoying the beach. Wandered around for a bit, and what do we have here:

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Couldn’t resist, and had a very fun hour or so trying! Sometimes, the most fun travel experiences are the ones that are totally unplanned. I went down to the Gold Coast with no plans what so ever, and ended up having an unexpected great time.

A few shots of the beach at Surfers Paradise:

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Post-surfing lesson reward. Mmmm…

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Surfers Paradise has this meter maid thing down. I think I’m going to suggest to DC that they make this the meter maid uniform in DC as well:

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Caught the train back in time to get some quick dinner before crashing early. It had been an unexpectedly busy day going down to the beach (rough life, I know) and was going to be an even earlier morning with the flight to Auckland!

Nov 202014
 

I seemed to remember the airport in Port Vila being rather small from my trip a few years ago, but Priority Pass also promised that there was a lounge, so I made plans to get there around two hours before flight time just in case Solomons Air  presented any problems.

Took nearly 30 minutes to check in due to a long line…I mean, based on the sign it was an incredibly busy airport today!

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Checked in, got the exit row, no problems about having two bags and likely being slightly overweight, and soon it was time for “pre-boarding metal detecting” whatever that is. I mean, it’s not like this has been going on for nearly fifty years now!

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Our plane was already here (from the night before it appeared) so that was a good sign!

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Found the lounge, which was a rather tiny room, with this impressive snack collection. Although the crisps were asking “BITE ME!” on the package, I resisted, having already bitten brekky back at the hotel.

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The lounge. Yes, this is all of it.

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It was still early. Too early for a beer. However, leave it to Kiwis to set a bad example. After I’d been there 15 minutes, a guy waiting for the New Zealand flight came in, plopped down next to me, and headed straight for the serve yourself bar…where he put away three rather large glasses of white wine in the span of 15 minutes. When he went for a fourth, I decided it wasn’t too early for a beer after all:

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More pidgin in their slogan “bia blong yumi” Bia, obviously, being beer, and yumi being self explanatory. Blong is a pidgin word that seems to appear everywhere. I ecountered it during  my first trip to Vanuatu when the then-Le Meridien gave me a sheet of helpful local phrases. One of them was “baskit blong titi.” Baskit being basket, titi being, well, breasts, and blong showing possession. They translated it as “coconut bra” which I guess made sense as a “basket for titis.” So Bia Blong Yumi is a way of saying Yumi is a quality that is owned by the beer. Got it? Good.

Boarded about 15 minutes late, but no biggie.

Solomons Airlines flight 703
Port Vila, Vanuatu (VLI) to Honiara, Solomon Islands (HIR)
Depart 11:00, Arrive 13:00, Flight Time 2 hours
Airbus A320, Registration H4-BUS (ex Air Canada) Manufactured 1992, Seat 15C

The flight was completely full today, but I had the exit row so no worries. I saw many of my new friends from the diversion to Espiritu Santo on this flight, and it was really showing the impact that cutting direct flights was having. Quick shot of the airport from my seat:

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Oh, look what we have in the in-flight magazine. An explanation of what’s going on!

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One hour forty minute flight, and the interior of the aircraft was absolutely spotless. Looking on line, I saw the plane was ancient and spent a previous life with Air Canada, but it had obviously been refurbished lately and was very well taken care of since then. If you didn’t know how old it was you’d have no clue.

“Meat sandwich” was the snack. I opted to stick with a SolBrew and the cookies. Scary mayonnaise and I don’t mix.

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Landed right on time, and immigration was a zoo. It was boiling hot in the immigration waiting area, and the lines were moving at Solomons speed. There was one person checking passport, and another half dozen or so standing around doing God knows what. “Supervising” would be my guess. Took over an hour to get through the passport line, and when I did the promised hotel transfer was of course no where to be found. No problem negotiating a taxi, and it was time to explore country #166 visited…Solomon Islands!