We had an early departure from the Park Hyatt Melbourne, which began a very long day of travel. It started with a taxi in Melbourne, then 2 bus rides, flights from MEL-SYD-LAX-MSP-MKE and eventually ended with a taxi ride back to our house. The odd thing about flying from Australia to the US, is that you can experience 2 sunrises on the same day. This post is focused on the first part of that day's journey.
Our trip started with a few stresses, which only got worse ...
After our journey with Air New Zealand from Christchurch to Melbourne, we headed to the Park Hyatt for the last stay of the trip. We arrived in the morning, well before the scheduled check in time, and unfortunately, I got a got a somewhat curt response from the front desk since "it is well before published check in time". This was despite me asking my private line agent make a request. It seems that request was not noted and had no effect whatsoever, but of course ...
After a nice brief stay in Christchurch and a wonderful trip in New Zealand, the return portion of our journey was about to begin. Our Virgin Australia award ticket had us flying back from CHC to MEL.
As I have discussed before, actually getting to Melbourne proved to be a bit of a challenge. My Pacific Blue/Virgin Australia flight was changed to Air New Zealand. From that post:
The problems started when flying from Christchurch to Melbourne on what was supposed ...
After we checked out of the lovely Hilton Queenstown, it meant our New Zealand trip nearly at its end. The final segment of the NZ trip was a flight to Christchurch. There weren't a lot of options for this flight that would have had timing work well for our needs. I saw flights both on Air New Zealand and Jetstar (low cost carrier that is a Qantas subsidiary). I was able to book a nonstop flight on Jetstar for under NZ$50 per person including baggage fees. I'm ...
After our journey through much of the South Island, we had arrived in Queenstown. I had heard many positive things about Queenstown, so I was excited to explore it for myself. There is incredible natural beauty here and our stay at the Hilton Queenstown was great.
After our stays at the Hilton Auckland, the Hilton Lake Taupo, now we were in Queenstown, the location of the 2 remaining Hilton properties in New Zealand. We stayed at the Hilton Queenstown, ...
After our journey through the North Island to Wellington and the trip across the Cook Strait, we had lots of new territory to explore. We spent a few days based in Blenheim, exploring the Marlborough region. We had one day touring vineyards by bicycle. This was a great way to get around the flat valley since many of the wineries were quite close to each other. If interested in a bike tour I highly recommend you get in touch with Nigel and Helen at Wine Tours By ...
