20170130: Back to the Past- The Long Trip Home

Monday, January 30, 2017 Back to the Past

Presumably, because it was Sunday, the annoying nightclub next door was silent, and we had a gloriously peaceful night.You could have slept with the balcony sliding door open, but Janet was having chills as it was with her cold, so we just enjoyed our last night in Auckland. We had leftover Chinese food (Hong Kong styled chow mein with soft noodles and chicken, and Beef Hor Fun-thick rice noodles) for brunch and used up our loaf of bread to make peanut butter and Vegemite, and peanut butter and sugar sandwiches for our airport waits. The take out containers were nice plastic reusable ones, so we had crush resistant containers for our sandwiches.

We had stopped by the nearby taxi stands (just at the corner of the block) and asked about cab fares to the airport, and most cabbies guessed about $50 NZD, depending on the time of day and traffic. There is an airport shuttle bus that runs up Queen street that takes about an hour and is $16 NZD per person, but we decided to take a cab to eliminate any uncertainties, and for the convenience of being dropped off at the check in counter with our suitcases. Our flight was departing in the afternoon, so we had a leisurely check out and then rolled our bags to the taxi stand. Our cab was a Prius, driven by a Sikh, whose command of English was marginal, but he was friendly and helpful. It was a glorious sunny day with temperatures in the 70's. His Prius's trunk was too small for our 4 suitcases, so 3 went in the trunk, one behind the driver in a back seat and Ben sat shotgun with Janet in the back. His cab was clearly a Japanese version of the Prius with only Japanese characters and a very busy LCD display on the dash showing power flowing back and forth between the gas motor, batteries, wheels and such. 

Too much information, if you ask me. We seemed to have pretty smooth sailing to the airport, which took about 30 minutes, but the fare was $80 NZD. That's about $50 US so we don't know if we got taken for a ride on that one, but it didn't seem like it. We later found out that Jack and Sharon figured out a way to use a coupon for a discount cab at half that amount when they left two days earlier.

We had to wait 90 minutes for the American Airlines counter to open, but snuck into the cue and used their kiosks to print out our luggage tags. We were first in line when the agents showed up. They don't have dedicated counter space at Auckland Airport. All the airlines share the facilities, and there are overhead Monitors that indicate what airline is using what counter space at the time. This was the case in Iceland as well.

There was no TSA pre-check cue, but security was a breeze in Auckland Airport, which was modern and comfortable. The TSA pre-check allowed us to keep our shoes on, so that was a benefit. They had a decent food court and lots of shops beyond the security check point. It was very much like Sea-Tac. There are lots of American fast food places in Auckland including Burger King, Carl Jr's, Wendy's, McDonalds, Subway and KFC. There are also lots of hole-in- the-wall shops that sell kabobs and fried chicken- a seemingly odd but common combination.

Our return flight to the US was on an American Airlines 787 Dreamliner. We had booked economy plus for our return trip, which provided about 4" more legroom. What that allowed was greater ease in getting into an out of your seats, but in the future, if we fly a 787 transoceanic, we'll probably save the extra fare and go economy since once you were seated, the experience was essentially the same. One difference was that in economy, you had bathrooms both forward, and behind the seating area, so that if service carts were in the isles, you could still get up and use a bathroom. In economy plus, first class was forward, and the only bathrooms were behind, so you had to time trips to the bathroom to when the service carts were back in economy. Also, the paper towels that they had on United Airlines were so soft and cheap, they would not come out of the towel dispenser if your fingers were wet. They would just disintegrate into bits as you tried to get a sheet out. This made a mess out of the United bathrooms. On American, they had much more sturdy paper towels that worked so much better.

Somehow, flying back into time into yesterday seemed easier than flying forward in time across the international date line. The flight was a few hour shorter, presumably because of the jet stream. Ben watched 13 Hrs (Benghazi movie) and all three of the Hobbit movies, and only took a couple of short naps between the movies, while Janet was awake for most of the flight, having been loaded up with Sudafed and Diet Coke. She spent hours playing Plants vs Zombies on the seat back entertainment systems, a game that she had plenty of iPad experience on before she uninstalled it because it was eating up too much of her time at home.

Flying into LAX seemed like we landed 20 years in the past because the airport was dingy, crowded, and poorly designed. We had to claim our luggage to clear customs. We seemed to glide past huge lines with the Global Entry status associated with our Nexus card membership. We had to have our fingerprints and pictures taken at automated kiosks, but didn't have to present our luggage to an agent for inspections. No radiation detection alerts either. The luggage hall was huge, and it took a long time for our bags to show up. Once we got our bags, we had to go through another customs check point, bypassing more lines with Global Entry, and then we had to drop off our bags to be rechecked onto our continuing flight from LAX to SEA.

We then had to exit the sterile area, and then clear security again. LAX's security check point had no TSA pre-check line. It was severely backed up, and highly inefficient. It was a good thing we had a 4 hour lay over before our Seattle flight. There were a lot of very stressed out passengers trying to make connecting flights. There were only 2 X-ray machines and one body scanner for hundreds of people in line, and no automated basket returns. Sea-Tac's security check points are vastly superior in technology and efficiency.

The terminals past security were bleak, with just a few overpriced vendors available to buy any food. The bathrooms had very narrow entries, allowing only one way traffic either in or out if people were dragging bags behind them. LAX is very sadly in need of a major remodeling. There terminals were very crowded and there didn't seem to be adequate seating. Our actual terminal was in a satellite that required a bus ride out across the tarmac, dodging taxing

airplanes, airport maintenance and operations vehicles, and other buses. That terminal had no services other than a premium American Airlines lounge for members only. There was no wifi or food vendors, but they did have bathrooms in the satellite. We spent most of our wait in the main terminal after staff at the bus transfer door warned us that there were no services out at the satellite.

The flight to Seattle was mercifully short, and we had booked economy plus for this leg of the trip as well. The tiny plane we flew (Embraer 175) would have made regular economy uncomfortable, so we got our money's worth out of this upgrade, even for a relatively short flight. Ben got a great view of the Central Valley, and the mountains of the Sierra Nevada and Cascade ranges as we flew north out of his port side window, until we got north of Crater lake and then got into dense clouds for the rest of the trip. 

There were no views of St Helens through the dense clouds, and we didn't see Mt. Rainier until we were on final descent into Sea-Tac, when you could see the base of the mountain through the starboard windows. The mountain top was in the clouds.

We were happy to disembark into our familiar Sea-Tac terminals, and know we were nearly home. The Whidbey Sea-Tac shuttle pick up was 90 minutes away, so Ben walked to the Jack in the Box on Pacific Highway south of the airport, 0.5 miles from the shuttle pick up area, to get dinner. It was cool, but pleasant outside, and if felt good to stretch out the legs and get some exercise. It was then nice to be able to sleep on the shuttle bus for the drive back to Whidbey.

When we got off the shuttle, and into our Volvo, Janet pulled out of the parking lot and Ben noticed she was driving on the LEFT side of the road. When he pointed that out, she laughed and said she was just testing. Price had stayed up and greeted us at home, which was nice. It'll take a few days to get back into the rhythm of things back at home.

We had a very enjoyable holiday, despite the flies along the Great Ocean Road, medical evacuation and shortened fiord cruise, bad weather in Dunedin and missed Akaroa port of call. We had a "Brilliant" time in Wellington, Tauranga, and Auckland, to use the local expression, and had thoroughly enjoyed our Melbourne pre-trip stay. Ironically, we didn't see a kangaroo, or kiwi (for certain in the pitch darkness) during our trip, but we had some great adventures. We had fun doing the trivia games with Jack and Sharon- something we never did on our prior cruises, and we'll miss our afternoon Princess teas.