On Our Way At Last

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Well, we are finally on our way on this latest adventure.



Joy did get to Auckland after judging all day at a Hastings gymnastics competition although there were a few anxious moments when we found that he flight was delayed due to some sort of problem at Auckland but she finally got here nearly an hour later than originally expected.



Denise, my ‘little’ sister transported me to the airport and we picked up Joy at domestic and went over to international where we met up with Annette and Tony and had some dinner.



By the time we had eaten the Hawaiian Airlines check-in gates were finally open so we said goodbye to everyone and joined the first of our queues!



We got through that part of things OK and had our bags checked right through to JFK, New York. We also got issued with our boarding passes for the Honolulu-NYC leg of the journey. However we still have to collect our bags in Honolulu to go through USA immigration etc. but then we just have to leave them at a baggage drop off – no more check-ins.



We then started to have some of the usual ‘fun’ that seems to plague us when leaving NZ on overseas holidays. We had put a new ‘sim’ card in Joy’s old Samsung Galaxy 1 phone for me to use while in the States. Not being all that conversant with Vodafone I had omitted to ‘register’ the phone and discovered that we hadn’t put any money on the phone. WEEEEELLLLL after several attempts to register the phone, including a couple made by Denise, it continued to refuse to do it. Apparently because Joy had registered her phone using our email address you couldn’t use that address for a second phone, or so the website kept telling us. I eventually phoned Vodafone and got told to use a different email address. So used my work address but it still wouldn’t do it. Starting to get a bit grumpy by now!!! Rang them back and they said that the phone had been registered, according to the person, even though the website had insisted it hadn’t happened. Then tried to put some money on the phone. Tried to register a credit card for top-up purposes and was told that had been successful only to be told the credit card was invalid when we tried to actually pay for it. Tried the same thing with another credit card and that got tipped out as well. Now folks, by now my IT tolerance levels were at an all time low and iPads and cell phones were about to be tossed in to a rubbish bin!!!! Phoned Vodafone back again only to be told that the first card that I tried to register, which the automated system said was invalid, had in fact been successfully registered and the very kind man on the other end of the phone, after being told just how grumpy I was at being mucked about by his companies systems, completed a top-up for me and even told me how to turn the ‘data’ thingy off on the phone so it would chew through expensive data while on roaming in the States.



So we do have both phones up and running and it only took about an hour and a half of frustration to get there.



We are currently sitting waiting for our boarding gate to open so we can head down. Only an hour to go to liftoff.



We are sitting in nice comfy arm chairs in a lounge writing this and waiting to board.







Will write more once we get to Honolulu.



The flight from Auckland to Honolulu was uneventful and went well.



It is now 1230pm Saturday morning Hawaii time so we are starting into our second Saturday 28^th June.



US immigration and security is just as manic as usual but as I’ve said before when travelling it is something you just have to go through and smile nicely at everyone.



Of course, Joy set everything off with her stainless steel knee but the staff were very courteous and there was no hassles at all.



We both managed a little ‘sleep’ on the flight, and for once I think I did better than Joy. Mind you we have been taking some ‘natural’ medicine thingys that are supposed to help with getting to sleep so maybe they worked. I’ll reserve judgment until after we get to New York as that is another all nighter, sort of, as we leave Honolulu around 3.15pm Saturday Hawaiian time and arrive in NYC around 7am Sunday US Eastern time, so a roughly 10 hour flight but with time zone changes etc. it becomes an all night. I’ll give the drugs another go and see what happens.



We realised a little bit what we might be in for during the next three weeks when we walked out of the terminal building on our way to immigration and baggage and it was very warm and muggy. Thankfully the terminals are nicely air-conditioned so it is quite comfortable sitting at gate 26 completing this and waiting close to 3 hours for the next flight.



It appears as though our cell phones have hooked up to the local network so that’s all good. Text messages on the numbers on my last blog is the best way to contact us if you want or need to.



Flying in to land gave us really great views of the Honolulu area. Pearl Harbour was just out to our left and easy to see. The pineapple plantations were all laid out below us so looking forward to exploring Oahu more on our way home.



That’s about it for now. I’m going to see if I can hook up to a free wifi and publish this initial blog so until next time after we arrive in the ‘Big Apple’ it’s Aloha from Hawaii.

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