It was a 3 am wake up call for the Boren Ohana so that we wouldn’t be in a rush to make our flight to Oahu at 6, all went smooth and after a quick inter island jump we were checking in for our flight on Air New Zealand.
It would be a stretch to say that a 9 hour flight could be enjoyable, but this flight actually came pretty close. Air New Zealand gives out little kids activity bags which included a mini sleep mask - River put his new mask to use early in the flight.
Reef enjoyed watching shows on the iPad (the only time he gets unfettered access to the iPad is on flights, so the long flight was actually a treat for him in some ways), and both boys were great the entire flight!
The Boeing 787 had “Air Couches” which we booked - and were glad we did. The seats were like a generous version of extra legroom with the option of making a flat couch where you can sit with your feet up. It was also a special flight for Air New Zealand as we were the first direct Honolulu to Auckland flight since the start of the COVID Pandemic more about 28 months ago, something the crew mentioned a few times, everyone was happy to be opening up to travel again. But this first flight was nearly empty, which was a dream, and meant there was literally no line whatsoever at customs, and the Auckland airport felt almost abandoned at times since so few flights are currently coming in.
Sharyl did an incredible job driving on the other side of the road, at night no less, for the first time in years. It did take nearly 10 minutes to find our way out of the airport parking lot, which wasn’t large (maybe the size of Walmart’s parking lot on Maui), but after that everything went pretty smoothly.
Had an incredible dinner at a restaurant called EAST here at the Sudima Hotel. It’s a vegetarian restaurant focused on various styles of asian cuisine - everything from insanely good fried rice, to Pad Thai, bao buns, various noodle dishes - everything we tried was great including a local IPA by Behemoth brewing called Something Hoppy
The boys were amazing the entire flight and River
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