Tonga

Tonga to Apia, Samoa via Fiji with Air Fiji aka Air MESS

Airports, Business Class, Fiji, Flights, hotels, Samoa, South Pacific Tour 2014, Tonga No Responses »

Nov 302014

The plan today was to fly from Tonga to Samoa via Nadi, Fiji. There was a nice route with a 90 minute connection in Nadi, and I booked all of this before I ever learnt that Fiji Airways and I were soon to enter into an abusive relationship. The first week of this trip I’d received an email from Expedia. It seems Fiji Airways had decided to “retime” the onward connection to Samoa, and I would now have a 5.5 hour connection in Nadi. Instead of leaving at approximately 530pm we would now leave at 11pm and arrive at 230am. Ugh, not desirable at all, but if that was the worst drama I’d have this trip I’m not going to complain.

Unfortunately, three days before the flight, just after I got out of the shower on the Emirates A380, I checked my phone and there was an email. From Fiji Airways. I figured it was something about my Tuvalu refund.

Oh no, not at all. They had “retimed” my flight once again, and it was now going to leave a further 14 hours later – the NEXT DAY. Meaning I’d get stranded overnight in Fiji. UGH. There goes my first day in Samoa. Ok, breathe deeply. Water under the bridge. This is Fiji Airways. At least you get a nice relaxing nice in Fiji now. At least you won’t land in Samoa at 230am. Try and stay positive.

So I did.

Got to the airport, and check-in for Tonga took nearly 45 minutes. The ground handling company was clearly moving on island time, and there was a reasonable breeze in the terminal, so it wasn’t too bad. I asked about the exit row. She disappeared for about 10 minutes to “see if it is possible.” She came back, and without a word gave me a non exit row seat. I asked again. “No, not possible.” That was it.

Based on the flights departure board you’d think they’d be bored and looking for something to do:

Your medium sized wood carvings are ok for carry on, but your wooden knives are not…no matter which way you point them!

Shot of the bustling Nuku’Alofa airport from the passenger dropoff area:

It was a walk to the plane gate, and notice all the friends and relatives waving goodbye to us:

Pretty sure this is the first time I’ve ever boarded a plane through the rear. It was terrifying.

…but I still managed a smile.

Upon boarding, I asked the flight attendant if by chance the exit rows remained open, I could sit there when the door is closed. “Yes yes, of course.”

Fiji Airways flight 212
Nuku’alofa, Tonga (TBU) to Nadi, Fiji (NAN)
Depart 15:45, Arrive 17:15, Flight Time 1:30
Boeing 737-800, Registration DQ-FJG, Manufactured 1999, Seat 23D

I stalked the exit rows. I actually sat in 23D to deter people from getting the same idea. Nobody showed up. Score! Now really, how much work would it have been for the check-in agent to actually assign me this seat? Clearly too much. I had the entire row to myself!

In the approximately 10 days I’d been away, Fiji had also apparently gotten quite serious about Ebola:

Despite only being a 90 minute flight, Fiji Airways offered a small snack. Another scary sandwich slathered in mayo and mystery meat, and today there was a pasta salad as well. No thanks, not going to risk it. Fortunately it was biscuits and bitter to the rescue again!

hotels, South Pacific Tour 2014, Tonga 3 Responses »

Nov 282014

After making it through customs, I looked for my hotel driver who’d confirmed the day before that they would be waiting for me. No sign of them. However, plenty of taxi drivers more than willing to take me there. I waited 15 minutes to see if the hotel would show up, and with no sign of them, took one of the taxis up on their offer. They wouldn’t take New Zealand dollars, so changed some at the airport and we were off through the very dark night.

My hotel was near “downtown” Nuku’alofa, and was about a 30 minute drive from the airport. Finally got there around 8pm, rather late, and checked into my hotel the Little Italy hotel. I’d been advised it was the most comfortable option in Tonga, and really didn’t let me down…although the rooms looks like something out of your grandmother’s house:

My room also came with a complimentary pet included:

I was still pretty full from the plane, so decided to head down to the hotel restaurant for a glass of wine, a little dessert, and to read a bit of my book. The tiramisu was surprisingly excellent:

Crashed early, and woke up just as the sun was rising. My flight was relatively early to Fiji, and I wanted to be sure I had plenty of time to explore before then. Breakfast was included with the hotel, and the Mona Lisa was supervising in the restaurant:

Auckland to Tonga with Air New Zealand

Airports, Business Class, Flights, New Zealand, South Pacific Tour 2014, Tonga No Responses »

Nov 282014

The flight wasn’t too early, so I was able to have a nice relaxing start to the morning in Auckland. When I finally did check out and head to the airport bus, I encountered the Aquarium bus on the way. Every city needs a shark bus!

Check-in area was rather packed but Air New Zealand’s premium check-in is rather nice. Of course, it didn’t want to check me in at the kiosks, but with a little help from an agent I was checked in and on my way in five minutes. The nicest part of the premium check-in area is the private elevator up to immigration and security. It feeds into a private immigration line, and then into common security, but appeared to save several minutes.

I’d gotten to the airport several hours before the flight to catch up on a bit of work, so I was quite hungry for lunch by the time I arrived. Another reasonably good Mac’s beer and some tasty stew to start:

Finished off with a MOA IPA which was quite delicious, and some sweets and cheese for dessert:

Wifi in the lounge was quite good and I managed to get a good amount of work done, and about 45 minutes before the flight I headed down to the gate area, which was jam packed and standing room only.

Air New Zealand flight 274
Auckland, New Zealand (AKL) to Nuku’alofa, Tonga (TBU)
Depart 16:15, Arrive 19:10, Flight Time 2:55
Boeing 767-300, Registration ZK-NCK, Manufactured 1997, Seat 2A

Boarding began right on time, and bubbly was offered. The load was incredibly light in business today, since the plane had been switched from an all-economy A320 to a 767 about a week before the flight. More bubbles for me! Coach, however, appeared to be packed.

Today’s dinner menu:

This was my first flight with Air New Zealand, and I had high expectations based on what I’d heard from others. I mean, how can you not like an airline that shows Monty Python:

Dinner started out with more bubbly, and a small bowl of nuts:

Due to the light load, it was suggested I have multiple appetizers, both of which were quite good:

The main was also pretty good as well, especially for a 2.5 hour flight:

Plus, cheese and desert. Amazing service for such a short flight:

Flight went very quickly, and soon we were on approach to Tonga. The crew had been excellent and friendly, although it was hard to tell how much of that was due to the extremely light load in business and how much was the usual excellent service. Either way, it was a fantastic flight despite the rather poor hard product for a 767.

Tonga was taking Ebola extremely seriously, and a group of 10+ nurses in old-school white nurse uniforms met the passengers just inside the terminal and asked questions and distributed information cards:

Immigration moved on island time and took over 30 minutes, but it was no big deal because all the fellow passengers were super chatty and friendly. It was great meeting a few people who’d been on the flight and they were all really excited that someone would come all the way around the world to visit Tonga.

booking the South Pacific

Flights, South Pacific Tour 2014 4 Responses »

Aug 052014

This is, without a doubt, the most complicated trip I’ve ever planned.

First, I thought Iran was bad…because it took me two tries to get to Kish Island, and showing up at a local office in Dubai with a wad of cash to buy tickets for the next day. There was no info on Kish Air anywhere on the internet, and it wasn’t even all that clear if they really operate the flight that often…but once we’d bought the tickets the plane showed up more or less on time, got us there and back, and was relatively drama free.

Then, there was Somalia. Of course, I made this one harder, entering from Kenya and going out to Djibouti. Daallo Airlines from Somalia to Djibouti actually took my reservation at a call centre in the US, and made the booking, and after faxing back and forth about 20 times with copies of credit cards, etc, it was all taken care of. Now, getting there on African Airways Express from Nairobi was more interesting…they assured me via e-mail that they had an office at the airport, and I could just show up with a few hundred US$ in new notes, and they would take me. Eventually, right after landing in Nairobi, found the office where I sat and had tea with a guy as he hand-wrote the tickets in carbon copy.

This was all a piece of cake compared to the south pacific…and I haven’t even started this trip yet, where I’m sure a million things will go wrong. Why is it complicated? Tuvalu, for example, has two flights a week…and they often are canceled, or don’t show up, or have twice as many people booked as they can carry. So, fitting all the flights between these countries was a giant complex jigsaw puzzle on its own that took months to plan. Just when I had it planned, one of them would change their flights. For example, Nauru has one airline, appropriately called “Our Airline.” Well, it was until yesterday, it’s now called Nauru Airlines. I’ve been in touch with a very friendly lady in Brisbane, Australia who is their “reservations supervisor” and she’s been answering a million questions.

You see, Nauru has all of 6,000 people. In the entire country. The airline has one plane. So it’s unclear if I’ll really get there when I expect to or not, but at least I finally have tickets.

Last reason this trip has been crazy difficult – it’s expensive. Extremely expensive. See, when you only have two flights a week you can get away with charging $1,000 as a discount fare for a 2 hour flight months in advance. Ugh. I’m also trying to do nine new countries this trip, to finish up those I have left in the Pacific. I’ll be using Australia, New Zealand, and Fiji as hubs, since that’s pretty much the only way to get to many of these countries.

If all goes well, I will be visiting the following new countries:

Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Timor Leste, Tonga, and Tuvalu

I’ll also be visiting one new territory: American Samoa, with the cool city name of Pago Pago.

Speaking of fun names, I’m kind of excited for Tuvalu, because not only does its capital have a cool name of Funafuti (almost as cool as Ouagadougu, Burkina Faso), but it has the great airport code of FUN!

I’ll also be spending nights in Singapore, Bali, Darwin, Brisbane, Auckland, Tokyo, Seoul, and Frankfurt.

Tired yet? This will all take place in the span of 32 days. I’m sure things will get moved around. I’m sure I’ll end up likely paying several hundred dollars in change fees, but this promises to be a grand adventure.

What’s there to do in most of these island countries? From what I understand, not much. If all goes well, I plan to Scuba in Timor Leste, Solomon Islands (home of amazing World War II wreck dives), Tonga, and Samoa. Maybe Brisbane as well, but I’m thinking it might be a bit cold in late October. We will see. Other than that, at least off the islands, I’ll have plenty of time to have fun and relax in Brisbane and Auckland, and who really can complain about a forced overnight in Bali? Not me.

So, other than the new countries, this trip was prompted by the desire to use and maximize United miles before they were devalued. On the outbound, I managed to get Washington to Tokyo on ANA in first class, followed by Tokyo to Singapore on United in First. Not bad, and super excited to try ANA first!

Returning, I fly Auckland to Tokyo on Air New Zealand in business class on the 787, overnight in Tokyo, continue to Seoul on an Asiana 747 in business class, overnight, Seoul to Frankfurt on Asiana in first class, overnight in Frankfurt, and finally Frankfurt to DC in United first, which if I’m lucky I might get to change to Lufthansa first closer in. Quite a great value for the miles, and excited for the overnights in Tokyo, Seoul, and Frankfurt!

All total, this should take 29 flights and over 46,000 miles:

It’s finally all booked, about 11 weeks before I leave, so let’s pray there’s not too many schedule changes! One of the most amazing parts is that I only need one visa for this trip – for Nauru – and it’s visa upon arrival so I’m set there as well!

Oh, and for a final bit of insanity…I return on the Sunday before Thanksgiving to Washington and Wednesday night three days later? I’m off to Israel and Palestine for five days…assuming the stop firing rockets and such at each other before then. So in reality, the map should be:

Yes, over 58,000 miles in just over 5 weeks. I might be insane. But by the time this is over, I will have hit country #159 (Andorra) in late August, 9 countries of the South Pacific (#160-#168) in early November, and Israel and Palestine late-November bringing me to 170 countries with 26 to go!