The peak hour traffic was horrendous. I am glad we allowed ample time.
Check in with Air New Zealand was also slow but security reasonably quick albeit a little chaotic.
Lots of yelling and barking of orders. But that's the TSA for you. Water off a duck’s back.
After all that we needed a pre boarding drink.
Two 330mL bottles of beer and a packet of chips at an airport bar…..$US25!
100% ripoff!
Our flight had arrived into JFK from Auckland an hour late so our departure was similarly delayed.
But as with the trip over, service and food were good once we were underway and I again scored 2 vacant seats beside me so was able to stretch out catch up on some sleep.
We had only 1.5 hours transit time in Auckland to get our flight back to Sydney so, with the delayed departure, was sure we would miss that.
But the purser came around about 2 hours out and said there were many Sydney bound passengers on our trans Pacific flight so they would be holding the Auckland-Sydney flight for us.
As it was, we made up time and landed only a few minutes late.
After a painfully slow moving line through international security at AKL (unprepared paxs’ fault, not the system) we arrived at the departure gate just as they started boarding.
Incident free trip across the Tasman, quick (fully automated) immigration procedure into Australia, slight delay with baggage for USA originating pax, unhindered passage through customs and into our car.
The 3 hour drive home was not too bad, considering the time we’d already been travelling, and we stopped for a BLAT sandwich and coffee at our usual haunt in Berry for lunch to break up the journey.
Jet lag clicked in that evening and stayed with us for around 5 or 6 days which is a little longer than normal.
But it was all well worth it.
Catching up with family and friends after such a long period apart was great.
And we’ll probably do it all again next year.
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