March 31, 2016

Day 2: Queenstown

The Air New Zealand flight from Los Angeles to Auckland clocked in at 12+ hours – longest flight of our lives – but surprisingly comfortable! For anyone planning to fly down under, here’s our tip: the extra $80/pp for the exit row is so worth the spend! Business Class actually didn’t look much more comfortable than where we were: slightly bigger seats maybe, but not lie-flat.

Exit Row for the Long Haul, baby.

We landed in Auckland around 6AM, and headed over to the domestic terminal to try and hop on an earlier flight to Queenstown. We caught the 8AM (which was a near empty flight), and caught our first glimpse of the Southern Alps through the window!!!

Southern Island from the Air.

We walked 15min from the airport to the hotel (Lindsay was wrong – Double Tree doesn’t have an airport shuttle – oops!). After dropping off our bags at the reception, we caught the Water Taxi into downtown Queenstown to explore the city by foot until our room was ready.

Queenstown Gardens – look out for the “Frisbee golf”

Enjoying the view of Lake Wakatipu

Beautiful City on the Lake

Insane line at Ferg Burger – we went to Devil Burger instead.

We picked up some groceries before jumping on the hotel shuttle back to our suite. After a long-needed shower and a bottle of New Zealand bubbly, we valiantly tried to stay up until 8PM to adjust to the time zone.

While flipping through Kiwi tele, we discovered one of America’s greatest exports has made it across the Pacific:

OMG – I can’t wait for Monday night.