Arrived in Auckland, NZ

Today we left Sydney for Auckland NZ.  We are learning much about traveling in general here.  For instance, check out Cheap-O-Air flight -- tickets may not be what they appear.  We bought tickets through them on Latam Air.  While we had not heard of them, neither had our limo driver.  (I will tell you about that in a minute, another lesson learned.)  While the tickets we bought were the cheapest, we didn't see the fine print about only one checked bag each.  We had to check our second bag each at the counter which they did, but you pay for it at another counter, then come back to the original counter to get your final boarding pass.  Each extra bag was $150 or a total of $300 for two bags.  That is not a misprint.  $300!  So we learned to check out the fine print next time around.  All of this takes time and while we were at the airport at 9:09 for a 11:10 flight, we made it to our gate with only 5 minutes to spare.  We also learned that a taxi from the airport is $86 Australian, if you take a limo (livery vehicle), you pay $65.  Go figure.  So much learning was had today.

Auckland is a very pretty town and we are staying at the M Social Hotel which is right across the street from where the cruise ship will come in two days time.  Our hotel overlooks the bay and we will be able to see the ship pull right up to the docks.  Tonight we walked along the quay and also up Queen's Street which is where all the shops like Gucci, Tiffany's etc are.  The people here are very friendly and go out of their way to be helpful.