Originally Posted by
Markhm
The Novotel is directly over the road, a bed sounds more appealing than waiting at the airport all night.
I debated it when I booked the flight but I am young and dumb enough that I'd rather go see/do something and stay up rather than pay even a modest amount to sleep in a proper bed before I inevitably sleep again on the 11 hour flight.
Besides, I'll probably be waking up quite late in BNE and make good use of my 4pm checkout so it's not that much of a
"long day". As a point of reference, I slept a solid 9 hours on my inbound LAX-AKL this week after a 22 hour day in LA and was (shockingly, actually) well rested enough to then spend the whole day sightseeing without napping despite a generous 8am early check-in.
(Of course, what one can see/do overnight in AKL on a Monday is a fair question 😂
For the bags, so far it seems my options are walking them to domestic terminal parking storage lockers or holding on until at least 4-5am until the counter opens.