So here are the flights that I have to choose from for the next phase of my journey, wonder which one I’ll choose. Although I’m sure I won’t be taking the Great Lakes to Prescott.


So last time I left you, having just returned to TBIT after a day of plane spotting and was about to tell which airline I had selected for the remainder of the trip..BUT…. before I do that, let me back up a bit, say about 8 months prior:

As I mentioned in part 1, I wanted go with carriers that were unique and not “obvious” such as my traveling companions UA/NZ combo. I wanted something a wee bit more exotic. I of course didn’t want to blow my whole budget on airfare either.

What I haven’t mentioned yet is that there were two other things I have really wanted to do for a long time that I wanted to see if I could work into this trip. The first is fly on a 777-300ER. I’ve had an obsession with the 77W ever since it launched, and why not, with those über impressive GE90-115B engines with their sexy fan blades that could literally knock my socks (and bit more) clean off. The second was to rack up some decent air miles that I might be able to use for more adventures in the future, but I wanted them to be redeemable on a good carrier too.

I never had any intentions to do a RTW trip, and figured logistics and costs would dictate flying NZ across the Pacific and back.

Also around this time, EK had just started service to BOS with the 777-200LR.

Although low priority, and assuming it’d be completely impractical for this trip, I decided to take a look to see what an EK BOS to AKL and return trip would costs. To my surprise it was actually very reasonable.

Thinking it might just be crazy enough, I studied the details and saw there’d be an 18hr layover in DXB with hotel provided by EK.

As all New Zealand EK flights stop in Australia enroute too, it would allow me to check off visiting Australia from my bucket list as well. Only problem, no 77W. I was just about to go for this option figuring the 77L was close enough, but then decided to hold off as Dave and Lauren hadn’t figured out their flight plans quite yet.

But I couldn’t get the idea of stopping in Australia and Dubai out of my mind. A few weeks later, at one of our planning meetings we decided that to maximize our time in New Zealand, we’d look into flying out of Christchurch on the way home to avoid going all the way back up to Auckland. Getting home from the meeting, I plugged that into the EK website and huzzah! CHC to SYD is operated by the 77W! Yay!

However, when I talked to the group the next day and told them that I was going to buy this routing, they said they were rethinking the CHC idea and thought it’d be better if we went back to leaving from AKL……dang it. So it was back to waiting for the others to solidify their flight plans first.

By the time they did buy their tickets a few more weeks later, the cost of flying round trip on EK was out of my league and I had to let it go. Shame too because EK had just upgraded their BOS flight to the 77W .

But don’t cry for me fellow travelers, for I’d come up with a new crazy plan *Muhahahahahaha*, The question still remained though, how would I get to AKL?

Still not content to simply fly NZ, I looked at all the other carriers that traverse the Pacific and could get me to the “land of the long white cloud”. That’s when I came across another carrier I’d wondered about for a while.

**** Drumroll ****






































Having recently been known as Air Pacific, flying 747’s with bright rainbow tails. They’d gone through a full re-branding and product upgrade less then a year before. Changing (reverting actually) their name to Fiji Airways, adopting a beautiful Masi corporate logo, and replacing their 747-400s with
A330-200s

Now I hear you say “But Jeff, didn’t you want to fly a 77W and earn points that could be redeemed on B6 or to go to other international destinations?”. Yes, yes I did, but they won big time in the one area i just simply couldn’t ignore: price!

At an all fees included fare of $576.10 USD to get from LAX to AKL, I’d be mad not to take them. This of course was a super special saver sale fare.

The booking engine on fijiairways.com is simple and straight forward like any good, modern airline site should be. Also like any good and proper airline, they allowed me to choose my seats at booking for no additional fee.

I had my choice of either a 3h 45m layover or a 10h 10m layover. I decided to go with he latter for a few reasons: The first being that if the first flight was delayed, I’d have enough of a buffer to make my connecting flight. I’d read a few reviews stating how FJ takes their slogan “You’re on Fiji time to heart, meaning flights can be delayed and reshuffled frequently. Despite this, the cost of the ticket was worth the risk.





The second being that this will be my first time flying true long haul, I wanted to give myself a break and rest so I could hit the ground running in AKL. Even better, the Raffles Gateway Hotel, which is in walking distance across the street from Nadi Airport, allows transit passengers to use their pool and showers for free and had acceptable day rates for rooms should I wish to take a nap too.



So that was my plan: fly LAX-NAN, spend the day at the Raffles Hotel sipping a cocktail or two by the pool, and bragging to my friends back home by updating my Facebook which pictures of me lounging there with comments such as “Ugh, worst layover ever, they put way to much booze in my drink”, etc.

I held onto the dream right up until 48 hrs before I left home when I received an e-mail from FJ simply with the subject “Travel Document”. It came as just plain text with no fancy formatting as most e-mails from companies are noadays. It literally looked like this:


At first glance I didn’t think anything of it and assumed it was a low key flight reminder, But there was something about it that seemed off. So I read through it again more carefully, then I noticed what it said at the bottom:

My Flight from NAN to AKL was delayed and wouldn’t be arriving in AKL until 10:35PM!!! The original plan was for them to arrive few hours before me to pick up the campervan and get supplies then pick me up when i arrived. As it was still two days before departure and not having any inkling of the possibility of them not making their own flight yet, I couldn’t ask them to wait around ’til then for me. They’d be exhausted from their own day of traveling. Furthermore, we had big plans for the next day and would want to get a good nights sleep after flying half way around the globe.

Having purchased non refundable holiday-fare tickets, I wasn’t hopeful as I called the FJ reservation line to see if I could be put on the earlier NAN - AKL flight.

The call went right through to the FJ call center. I explained to the friendly lady who answered that I had plans and asked if I could be moved the earlier flight. At first she said there’d be a fee and the fare cost difference, but I replied that as they’d changed the flight and didn’t specify that it was due to weather, to see if they could help me out. She asked me to wait a moment and set down the phone - not put on hold, just physically set it down so I could hear the back ground on the otherside. While I waited for her to come back on the line, I could hear other ladies in the call center gabbing and laughing to each other. That didn’t bode well for me in my mind and I was sure she’d come back on to say I had to pay the fee, and I just got spare that and do the trip too. It seemed like an eternity until she did…. “Okay Sir, You’ve been rebooked on the earlier flight. Is there anything I can assist you with?”. I was in shock. I thanked her and hung up. On a holiday class fare I’d changed to a different flight without any yelling, arguing, or threats. Wow, bravo FJ!

So while I was a bit bummed I wouldn’t have the opportunity to brag to my friends back home about sipping drinks by the pool, I could still say I was in Fiji.


——
Now back to where I was before the backstory:
——

I had just returned to TBIT after plane spotting at In-N-Out.

The FJ check in counters would be in aisle ‘A’ this evening, opening at 5PM. I got out my camp chair again and set it up in the tension barrier aisle leading to the FJ Check-in desks. There were already about 8 parties ahead of me. While I waited, I got two more “Travel Document” E-Mails from FJ. I heard the *ding* alerts from phones of those around me too. “That’s not good” I thought.

Opening the E-Mails, I saw that now my flight to NAN would be delayed by 1.5 hours and my flight to AKL would be delayed by an hour. Yup, it was official, I was on “Fiji time” alright. As it was not looking good for Dave and Lauren making their connection, I didn’t worry too much and thought I might actually get there before them still if they didn't make their flight.

3 minutes before 5, the staff came out of the back room and opened the stations. They did have to call airport ops as the background screens initially remaining on the default LAX logo, but ops, got the Fiji Airways displays up in quick order.

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They had one staff member doing a precheck of passengers documents while they stood in line wait to be called forward. Having gotten into the queue early, I didn’t have to wait long. I was given boarding passes for both sectors and my bag was checked all the way through to AKL. The gal serving me pointed out the gate and said that it would be a bus gate so boarding would start early, so please be int he boarding area early. I was thrilled by this as I’ve always wanted to use LAX’s remote gates at least once. I know there’s nothing fancy about them, I assume on the inside there’s a stairs/escalator/elevator(s) from the bus level up to the boarding bridge and probably a small waiting area too, but I’d still like to see them.



Still has some old stock baggage claim stickers

As I also mentioned before, TBIT is currently undergoing renovations. As part of this means opening up a new large central security screening pavilion where the concessions used to be up on the mezzanine level, the whole back wall of the check in hall has a massive construction tarp covering everything from floor to ceiling, side to side.

Perviously there where two separate security checkpoints, one on the north side and one on the south. With the demolition of the old south side gates, LAX new the north checkpoint would be overwhelmed when things were busy, So they opened up an temporary overflow checkpoint, underneath the mezzanine level. I’d heard horror stories of the wait times at TBIT security and was dreading the experience. However, nobody was using the overflow area when I got there, all the officers were just standing around waiting for something to do. I was delighted and went from check-in to post security in under 5 minutes!

By the time I got into the concourse, the sun had set making spotting difficult, that was OK, because there were many big, unique planes all right in front of me. I also noticed that the info board said we’d be departing from a different gate then what the agent was said. I wasn’t sure if that was old information or new and would have to be vigilant and make sure I was at the right one at the right time, hoping it’d still be the bus gates.




TC-JJL “Karadeniz” loading up to IST


First time I’ve had a chance to see a A-380 up close (Couldn’t see the reg)


HB-JMG “Luzern” loading up to ZRH

I’d done my research carefully of all the restaurants in TBIT and had made a game plan weeks ago about what I was going to do while waiting to board.

As I didn’t know how the catering on FJ was going to be like, but assumed I’d be hungry, and wanted to be prepared. I decided I’d get some sandwiches to go from Marmalade Cafe and some cupcakes from Vanilla bakery to take on board with me. Unfortunately, Marmalade was sold out of all 3 of the sandwiches I wanted and only had the premade ones in the salad case. So about 30 mins before boarding, I went back and grabbed the last Caesar Chicken wrap they had. I was able to score a Cookies and Cream cupcake.


As the boarding time got closer, the PR flight to MNL was still at gate 130, and although it was boarding, I assumed that it wouldn’t depart in time for us to use the gate, and we were still a go for the bus gates, so I made my way down there. To get to the bus gates you have to go into the far end of the old north concourse before going back into the bus gate building. Getting a chance to see the old concourse, I can see why people didn’t like it as there was no room for any post security shops or concessions. I had to chuckle as it seems NZ, who just moved their ops to TBIT from Terminal 2, has taken it over all to themselves as all of there flights were boarding from there that night. Maybe I should stand in line and see if I can sneak on, ha ha.


All the seating from he old concourse are being stored down here. No fighting for seating here.


Hanging out above the bus gates, watching the NZ flights board while I charge my gizmos

I sat down in the upper level of the waiting area and plugged phone in again to charge. Soon after a man came over to me and asked if I was on the FJ flight, replying int he positive he informed me that we would be boarding from gate 130 after all. Getting back to Gate 130, I could see that the PR flight had left and our plane had taken its place.





DQ-FJU “Island Of Namukalau” My ride across the Pacific

Boarding began right at 11:15PM. With the delay, most people were anxious to get onboard but the gate area is large enough that it didn’t feel like a mosh pit and it was still a civilized affair.



FJ 811
A 330-200 (RR)
DQ-FJU
LAX-NAN
Seat 29K


I really like the interior color choice FJ has, warm and colorful.




Plenty of leg room and the seat itself was comfortable

I lucked out having no one on the aisle.

The seat had all the modern amenities, including power and USB. decent legroom, with good size widescreen. A pillow and blanket with waiting at every seat.

I concede I’ve always been a Boeing fan boy, but I couldn’t but help but like the A-330, equipped with RR engines, the take off power reminded me of a 757 doing a full thrust take off. Yeeeeee ha!


Being almost 4AM on my native time zone I was exhausted, but was hungry having not eaten anything since In-N-Out and wanted to at least make it though the dinner service. I debated munching down on the sandwich I’d grabbed earlier, but decided to see what was on offer first.





I had come across this video of Local Fijian news show called ‘Business Talk which had the whole segment about FJs overhaul of there catering offering. I wanted to see if it measured up to the hype.



Well, I have to say, it didn’t disappoint.





This was a beef in gravy, kinda like pot roast, with buttered mashed potatoes and root vegetables. The veggies were a little on the under done side, but obviously fresh and very nice. The only constructive criticism is the flight galley had been a little heavy handed with the butter in the potatoes. A coleslaw style salad, cheese with cracker, roll with butter, and a Kitkat bar. I was very happy with it.

After a post dinner tea/coffee service, the dinnerware was collected and the mood lighting program began to dim the cabin to almost complete darkness. I popped off my shoes, took a melanin, and fell asleep.



Soon after post passengers turned off the reading lights, and went to sleep.

I woke up after about 5 hours. It was still almost pitch back in the plane, except for the folks who got up to use the loo which broke to wonderful darkness with a piecing bright light.

The thrill of travel hit my as I looked out my window at the moon reflecting on the vast expanse of the Pacific below me.


My poor attempt to capture the moonlight reflecting of a brief period of clouds

Now wide awake, I took this opportunity to see what the IFE had in store and was happy to see a large selection of TV shows and Movies. I watched a few episodes of ‘Big BangTheory’ and ‘Modern Family’. Then put on ‘The Hundred foot journey’ which I thought was rather good.





About 3 hrs out of NAN the cabin lights slowly came up and the breakfast service started. As it was scrambled eggs, and I’m odd as I don’t care for plain eggs, I declined and had the chicken wrap I’d brought, with the cupcake for dessert.

Once the 2nd meal service was completed the cabin was then returned to darkness for those who wanted to nap a bit more.

It was somewhere around there that we crossed the equator and then shortly after the International Date Line…. Saturday December 6, 2014 was the shortest day in my life, and I slept through most of it!



For the second time 48 hrs I was being treated to a beautiful sun rise.





We approached Fiji from the northeast passing between Mololo (Plantation) Island and Momi, before making a 180 to the left to line up with NAN’s Rwy 02.

Touchdown was very smooth, tranquil almost.

The cabin crew bid us good morning, welcomed to their island home, thanked us for flying with Fiji Airways, and wished us happy holidays.

Landing in NAN:
NAN has a wonderful design that each jetway is connected to what can best be described as a wrap around porch or patio that one must walk along to get to and from inside terminal. Upon entering the building, we went down a long blank corridor where at the end transfer passengers where directed to the left for the transfer lounge and the rest to the right for customs. As this was my first port of call, I went right as I wanted to pick up a sim card so I could let the folks back home know where I was. The customs desk was a very low key setup. It almost looked like, if I wanted to, I could have walked right past it down to the baggage claim. Only a handful of people were inline and I only waited about 15 minutes to be stamped into the country. I made my way town into the arrivals hall and went straight to the Vodaphone kiosk.

As I only had a little over an hour before my flight to AKL would board, and there wasn’t anything else around to see, I decided I might as well exit the county again and wait for my flight. To do so I had to exit the building and walk about 2/3 back to the international departure section. In the short time I’d been inside since walking off the plane,it’d become oppressively hotting muggy outside (think south Florida in the everglades in mid summer). In the short distance My shirt was almost drenched in sweat.

Needless to say, the the customs officers where caught off guard why I was leaving so soon after arriving, I’d only been “in” the country for 25 minutes! They were satisfied with my explanation of buying a sim card and wished me a pleasant onward journey.



The very first stamps in my passport documenting my time in Fiji

I had done some research before coming and from this site: http://loungeindex.com/Oceania/Fiji/NAN/index.htm

I had expectations of a large sunlit waiting area with plenty of shops around. nbeknownst to me, NAN was undergoing an almost complete remodel of the terminal. As such, what I believe was a temporary, windowless waiting room was in use. Only one of the duty free shops was open, the others closed for the renovation, but it didn’t have anything that peaked my interest. On one wall of the waiting area was a long twisting corridor that took you down to a small cafe (It’s was the Cafe International that use see a picture of at the bottom at the above site) in which I bought a bottle of water from (Yes, it was the square Fiji water). I’m glad I had gotten the sim card to surf the internet has the waiting room was only slightly better then outside and I would have gone mad without a distraction in the stuffy windowless space.

However it did let me reflect of the conversation between Rimmer and Lester, and Lester’s Farm he’ll build on Fiji, wearing a green hat.


Here’s a panorama short of the windowless waiting area.

After what felt like an eternity, My flight to AKL was called and the security guard blocking the escalator up to gate level finally let me past.

After going through another blank wall corridor which I now recognized as temporary construction walls, I came to an intersection where passengers from he transfer lounge joined the scrum. at the end we exited out onto the afore mentioned porch, this time on the other side from where my LAX plane arrived.

FJ 411
NAN - AKL
737-800
DQ-FJM
Seat 16E

I took a moment to take a picture of the view.




My ride to AKL

I saw a fellow passenger, a big Pacific Islander guy also take a picture of our plane too. In an attempt to be friendly, I spoke up and said, “Ah, a fellow airplane photographer”. He just glanced at me without saying a word, but he didn’t need to , the look said everything: “Damn silly foreigner”.

As I had switched to the earlier earlier flight, I had to relinquish my coveted window seat for the ..... seat in the middle. Arriving at my row, the aisle passenger was already there, another muscular local gent. I suddenly found myself in what I call the ..... passengers dilemma, which is when you’re assigned the middle seat and one seat next to you is open, but other isn’t and you wait in the ..... seat, uncomfortably close to your seat mate, while the other seat remains empty, silently praying it remains vacant so you can move over. When it seemed like boarding was done, I figured we were safe, and went and moved myself over to the window seat thanking the traveling gods for their mercy. No sooner had I done this of course that the last passenger on board, shows up and it was the window guy, yet another tall athletic Fijian. As the aisle guy got up to let him in, I asked the new arrival “Would you mind terribly if I took the window seat?” he looked at me like I had suggested he strip naked and do the hula. “Sorry, had to ask” I said, as I let him in and resigned myself to being the ..... in the middle.

There were no there planes around the ramp just like when I had arrived. The airport was so quite in terms of activity, and the craw and passengers very relaxed it didn’t feel like any other flight I’d ever been on. A very hard sensation to describe.

With no other traffic around, we took of as soon as we reached the runway.

Window seat guy feel asleep soon after take off. And some local tv show was being shown on the flip down screens. I elected listen to music from my iPhone. The meal service started soon after, this time going for the chicken option. The flight attenuated asked me to put a chicken meal on sleeping window guys tray for him.


Chicken with rice, coleslaw style salad, and biscuit (cookie).

The flight was smooth the whole way and the excitement was building to burst point knowing I’d actually be in New Zealand soon.

15 minutes before landing, duty free sales commenced and window guy stirred awake. His lunch still sitting his tray untouched. After placing his duty free order in what I assume was Fijian. he finally opened and started eating his meal.

About five minutes ’till touchdown, the pilot came on the intercom to welcome us, but it was like no welcome message I’d overheard before. I wish I had recorded it. It was upbeat, cheerful and long. It went something along the lines of “Ladies and Gentlemen, momentarily our trip across the sea will be over, from the land of smiles to the land of the long white cloud, and although our team complete on the rugby pitch, despite some transplants from our side (This must be a local joke because most of the plane laughed at this), it is our great pleasure to welcome you to Auckland”.

Seeing so many athletic looking guys getting of the flight, and the rugby comment the pilot made, I think I may have been flying with on of the Fijian Rugby unions.

I was in awe of myself that I had actually made it to New Zealand.



Once again, I lucked out arriving at customs as we were the only flight arriving at that time and all the agents were free and I only had to wait for one person ahead of me, and I went from plane to arrival hall in under 15 minutes. ^

Entering into the arrival hall, Chris, Dave and Lauren were waiting for me. Dave and Lauren having miraculously made their connection in SFO (Yayyy!).

They made me stand for a photo in front of this "native" statue before they’d let me leave and recounted the tale of the trouble they’d had getting the camper van as the first one died on them in the middle of the highway.



Chris warned me to look the opposite way when ever crossing the street and be careful as unlike in the U.S. pedestrians don’t have the right of way and N.Z. Drivers are crazy. He ended up having to remind me of this constantly throughout the trip, and there were a few close calls.

I stowed my gear in the camper van, climbed inside, and we were off on the two week adventure of a life time!






Join me again in part 4 where I’ll go over the highlights of the trip and give a rare helicopter trip report.