If you don’t have the inclination to read through the entire report, I’ve duplicated the best photos at the very top of the report.
Abel Tasman National Park
Nelson Lakes
Pancake Rocks
Mackinnon Pass on the Milford Track
Giant's Gate Falls on the Milford Track
Milford Sound
The air travel was not overly remarkable, so I’ll cover it very briefly. Other contents include:
-The Milford Track, a 34 mile hike over 4 days with incredible scenery
-Abel Tasman National Park as a 2 day kayak
-Queenstown
-The Fox and Franz Josef Glaciers
-Curio Bay
-other scattered sites throughout the South Island
The flights were booked with UA miles. In the past year, transpacific award space on NZ has become as rare as hen’s teeth. As you can likely surmise, few people dream of United Economy in a 747 from San Francisco to Sydney on vacation, so there were plenty of award seats available. We chose to gamble on Business inventory opening up and lost, even with convincing the phone agents to charge us for Business up front and push the FF1/”displaced business passenger,” edge in the airport. Few of the agents in Chicago or San Francisco were familiar with the status, and the gate agents for our flight refused to research the issue because they were swamped and the flight was packed in Business and First anyway. Something similar happened on the way back.
United Economy in a 747 from SFO to SYD and back: clearly suboptimal. That said, it could have been worse. The FA’s were actually very professional and friendly, more so than the FA’s I’ve met in Domestic First over the last year. The food was minimally edible, but the seats were freshly reupholstered and the interior was actually looking pretty good. With the help of empty adjacent seats, neck-pillows, zolpidem, and light reading, we survived. The Sydney airport has public showers, and at the end of our 40 hour itinerary, I was actually reasonably refreshed and rested. It’s changed my view of flying in first or business versus economy. For day flights home from Europe to the East Coast, I might become a, “rather go twice than in first,” type. Another positive outcome: United messed up the Business to Economy refund process and so far I’m sitting on an 180% refund plus 5,000 miles from Customer Care for the apathy and inability of the ground staff to do anything with the displaced Business/First passenger status, making the total cost about 32,500 miles roundtrip to New Zealand.
Our itinerary
DTW-ORD in a CRJ-700
The "Asian Pork" in UA Domestic First; fortunately it tasted better than it looked
The mountains east of San Francisco
United's Economy dinner
United's Economy breakfast
Our SYD-AKL Air NZ flight was affected by an engine issue on our scheduled 767. Fortunately, we were swapped for one of their TPAC configured 747’s! Unfortunately, a baggage truck dinged a cargo door in Sydney, and our trans-Tasman flight was over 4 hours late. Air NZ was proactive in rebooking, and we were able to make the final AKL-NSN flight of the evening. Air NZ’s 747 economy product was slightly dated, but very enjoyable. The AVOD had a number of fresh selections including Lincoln and The Master. The catering was excellent for economy class, although looking a little LCC around the edges (soft drinks were an extra-charge, etc.).
Boarding SYD-AKL
Air NZ's economy lunch was slightly better than UA's catering
AKL-NSN
AKL-NSN
Our first destination in New Zealand was Abel Tasman. Abel Tasman is a very beautiful national park with a number of kayak guides and rental outfitters operating in the region. We chose a “freedom” (unguided) rental from The Sea Kayak Company, put our camping gear in, and headed out for a two day, one way itinerary (return via water taxi) that included camping on a beach with no one else that was accessible only from the water. We encountered some rough seas that were a bit nerve-wracking, especially for my girlfriend. That said, if you were not able to effectively self-rescue, there are enough other kayakers and boaters out in the park that you could very likely summon help with a whistle or flare if needed before being overcome by hypothermia, winds, currents, or the other things that can pose a real risk to sea kayakers. In my opinion, having kayaked a couple times before, being a strong swimmer, and comfortable around the water is probably enough to do a freedom rental, but there are plenty of guided options too.
Abel Tasman National Park
