Goodbye New Zealand
Queenstown, New Zealand - Day 14
At the suggestion of Kelly (one of our hike guides), Katie and I shared delicious pancakes for breakfast at "The Bath House." The restaurant sits right off the beach and we watched the ducks and gulls as well as the early morning adventurers enjoying various watersports in the lake. My grandpa Don was always in my mind as I gazed out at the lake and the mountains. I have been trying my best to keep my composure while thinking about him, but it's not always easy. After breakfast, Katie and I both realized that neither of us knew for sure where our passports were. Because Katie's knee was still bothering her, I ran back to the hotel where we had left our bags after we checked out of the hotel and rummaged through the bags, eventually finding them tucked away in a pocket in my suitcase.
The shuttle to the airport arrived not long after and took us to the departure terminal, right in front of Air New Zealand. We had a fair amount of time at this point, so we made our way to the check in kiosks without rush. I slid in my passport, checking in without issue. Clicked the button to check in Katie, slid in her passport...and error, "unrecognized passport." We tried to check in a couple of ways before we asked for help. The Air New Zealand lady tried to check us in on her system a couple of times before finding the problem, Katie's maiden name was listed on her boarding pass which didn't match her passport. Unfortunately for us, the fact that the tickets were purchased through a partner airline, Virgin Australia, meant that Air New Zealand couldn't change the name. The lady helping us gave us a phone number to call for Virgin Australia customer service. Katie and I ran over to a phone and called the number. I explained my mistake and asked if they could change the name, the representative I was talking to didn't know if that was possible and put me on hold to find out. Not sure how long I was on hold, but it felt like forever. When the Virgin Australia representative returned, she said that she could change it with Air New Zealand's permission and a fee of $144 NZD. I didn't care about the fee at all and ran off to find the lady that was helping us before, leaving Katie on the phone. I barely caught her as she was walking into a staff only area and explained the situation, she then told me I had to go to customer service and I ran over there. There were quite a few people queued up there and it was moving excruciatingly slow. I waited as patiently as I could (one guy had one of the customer service reps change his seats and print out new boarding passes which could of been done at the kiosks, then had her carry his bags to bag check in instead of doing it himself...bastard.), and soon I explained my situation again to one of the customer service representatives. She didn't know what to do and ironically left to grab the first lady I was working with, who also didn't know what to do. They reiterated that the change would need to come from Virgin Australia to which I responded, "I understand, they just need your permission to change it. Is it alright if I say Air New Zealand approves the change?" With befuddled faces and raised shoulders, both ladies said "yeah..." and with that I ran back to the phone. It took another ten or fifteen minutes to correct and pay, but after about and hour and a half we were finally able to check in our bags and go through security, passport check, and immigration. Katie and I made it onto the plane, taking our seats with a sigh of relief.
Before we knew it, we were in Syndey, Australia. Immigration, bag claim, Quarantine, and check in all went smooth. On the bus from the international terminal to the domestic terminal, we met our next problem. Katie and I grabbed a couple of seats at the back of the bus and put our backpacks on our laps and I snugged the carry on suitcase right next to me, taking up another half of a seat. This women comes back and takes one of the two seats left on the back row, putting her purse on its own seat, looks at me and tells me her husband is going to sit with her (She is from Georgia, USA by the way) . I assume implying that I need to move my suitcase. He doesn't end up coming back anyway, but I was a bit annoyed. Soon the shuttle dropped us off and we went through another round of security before we were able to get to our gate. As we are boarding, everyone is told that people sitting on rows 15 and back need to board the back of the plane. Not a problem, we can follow simple instructions. After we climb the extra stairs, a flight attendant asks us to hold on a second. He was obviously annoyed and peeking around the corner we learned why, nearly no one else had followed the boarding instructions and we had to wait until the aisle was clear. When we made it to our row, guess who was already sitting there (also having not followed the boarding instruction), that's right, Georgia. I took the middle seat so Katie wouldn't have to deal with her. It was a long flight. She coughed and sneezed, but it gets worse. The middle chair is supposed to get both arm rests right?? Well she took mine, but here is the worst of it all. She tucked her huge purse under the seat in front of her AND PUT HER FEET UNDER THE SEAT IN FRONT OF ME. And she complained to the flight attendants because the flight was taking too long because she obviously didn't understand time zones. Fortunately the plane landed before I threw her bitch ass out the window.
And then we were in Cairns (pronounced 'cans' apparently), where we picked up a rental and got the hell out of dodge. Katie and I made it through an hour of night driving through windy coastal roads and made it to our accommodation in Port Douglas before promptly passing out.
