Showing posts with label Emirates. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Emirates. Show all posts

Day 06: Hi, New Zealand!

After hours and hours of wait and some self-entertainment overnight in the not-so-awesome Melbourne Airport, we were ready to venture into the second part of our adventure!

 I was pretty excited about our Emirates flight from Melbourne to Auckland, New Zealand, because it was an A380! Our first time onboard the legendary airbus - the world's largest passenger airliner. Did you know that Emirates also owns the most number of A380? They have made an order of 140 A380 from Airbus, followed by Singapore Airlines being in the second with 24 A380 and Qantas having 20. Nope that wasn't a typo, Emirates owns 140 of the giant aircraft! On top of that, we were told that all Emirates A380 are fitted with WiFi on board! How cool is that!  But they say nothing is free and indeed this very cool feature actually comes with a cost..

Sleepy faces for our morning flight at 7.00AM. 
I love their inflight entertainment system!
Spot my USB cable right there. Yes, I was charging my phone on 30,000 feet up in the sky! #awesome
Charges for the Emirates on board WiFi plans.
One thing about non-budget airline is definitely their FOOD! Yummilicious. 
As much as I love everything about my Emirates A380 flight. The cabin crews are really terrible in terms of their service.. Oh well. I guess sometimes we just can't have the best of everything. 

That's the giant airliner with a passenger capacity of 525 passengers. 

It was a 4 hours flight between Melbourne and Auckland, New Zealand. We reached Auckland in the afternoon at about 12:45PM local time. The country is 4 hours ahead of Singapore.

 A little about New Zealand comprises of two big islands, known as the North Island and the South Island. Auckland, the largest and most populous urban area in New Zealand, located in the North Island of the country. Exchange rate between Singapore and New Zealand (as of 11 December) is SGD1 = NZD0.9669. 

Singaporean Passports doesn't require to apply for a VISA if you are going in to New Zealand for less than 3 months. Prior to the trip, I was told that New Zealand customs clearance in terms of whatever you are bringing into the country is really strict to protect the community, environment and economy of the country.

 While you are still on your plane entering New Zealand, you will probably watch an inflight video 'Declare or Dispose' explaining the importance of filling out the New Zealand Passenger Arrival Card and biosecurity entry requirements for entering the country. Thanks to the invention of the world wide web, you can watch the video here and the sample of declaration form is available here.

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After witnessing the hectic customs clearance, we were ready to adventure the award winning New Zealand!

 Anyhow, something that I'd recommend to everybody to get a prepaid plans if you are going on a road trip in New Zealand. I must say the data plan came in really handy during our entire trip. Telecom and Vodafone are two large telecommunications companies in New Zealand. The prepaid plans for the two companies are pretty competitive. In the end, we got ours from Telecom for NZD25 for 500MB data, unlimited local text, 100 mins local calls. 
(Taken from Google) The two major New Zealand telecommunications companies available conveniently at Auckland Airport International Terminal Ground Floor.
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Complimentary shuttle transfers from airport to rental depot to pick up our vehicle.
The registration of the campervan was a little long.. From the entering of the particulars, explaining the types of insurance available, payment for the rental, waiting for the vehicle, exploring and understanding how to operate etc.. Have to take note of if you are gonna be planning a long and packed itinerary after the collection of the campervan. 

Examining our little home for the week. Photos of the interior of our campervan here.
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Sadly, the rain seem to have tailgated us all the way from Melbourne to Auckland. Dedicated our first meal in New Zealand for Carl's Junior! 
Spot the gloomy sky and wet floor. 
(Left) Not-enough-sleep kind of face // (Right) No chilli sauce kind of face
NZD19.90 for our late lunch. 
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Hungry stomach no more and we headed opposite of Carl's Junior to Pak'nSave to do our first round of groceries shopping! Pak'nSave is one of the three major supermarkets in New Zealand (the other two are Countdown and New World). My personal favourite among the three.

Snippets of my favourite supermarket! 
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By the time, we finished our shopping the sky has already turned dark. Driving at night can be a little challenging for not so experienced drivers. After an hour or so of driving from the supermarket, thanks to our very trust worthy GPS - TomTom GO LIVE 1005 World, our first night was spent exploring our little home for the week at Rosa Birch Park.

Overview of the route for our first day in Auckland, New Zealand. 
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Information you might be interested in:
Customs Declaration for Arrival to New Zealand
http://www.tourleader.co.nz/index.php/arrival-in-new-zealand/new-zealand-customs-declaration

 New Zealand Passenger Arrival Card
http://www.tourleader.co.nz/downloads/arrival_card.pdf

 What to declare when you are entering New Zealand
http://www.biosecurity.govt.nz/enter/personal/inflight-and-cruise-ship-video

 Award Winning New Zealand
http://www.tourismnewzealand.com/about-us/award-winning-new-zealand/

 Auckland Rental Depot
36 Richard Pearse Drive
Mangere, Auckland 2022, New Zealand

Carl's Junior Mangere
94-96 Bader Dr
Mangere, Auckland 2022, New Zealand

 Pak'nSave Mangere
Corner of Bader Drive and Orly Avenue
Mangere, Auckland

Rosa Birch Park
Beresford St
Pukekohe 2120, New Zealand

 Overview of our route in New Zealand
http://60yearsjourney.blogspot.sg/p/31-day-adventure.html
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Let the adventure begins..

On the 11th May 2013, we started our 31 Days Adventure to the Oceania! 

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It was a graduation trip for the prince and a 21st birthday present for myself! All started with a flight promotion newsletter email from Emirates that the prince has subscribed for. Initially, we wanted a road trip to Australia from Brisbane all the way to Adelaide and/or Tasmania. 

Since Emirates was having a promotion for flights to New Zealand as well, we've never been there and have heard so much about the country's sceneries. So why not?  We booked an inter-country flights (from Singapore - Melbourne, Australia - Auckland, New Zealand) and planned a week for Melbourne before we head down to New Zealand. The return tickets cost us less than SGD2,000 for two (SGD1,982 to be exact). Without the promotion, it could easily cost us another SGD500 to SGD700 more for each ticket. 

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Spent the whole morning and afternoon doing some last minute purchasing and packing. It was indeed a real torture to think of what to throw in the luggage and what not to.. 

Camera equipment for the adventure!
Here's our 47KG load (excluding the tripod, sling bag and 2 backpacks)!
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Oh! By the way, that's our travel bear - Duffy Zai. Say hello! 
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Thank you families and friends for sending us off! ♥♥♥

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Here we go!!! 
Bought myself the Aeroplane Charm to celebrate our adventure! The Duty Free Store (DFS) is about 10% cheaper than PANDORA boutiques. This Denmark jewellery company sure know how to catch my heart and money. 

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My first time on board an Emirates flights. No complaints about the flight. It was a Boeing 777-300 aircraft for our first flight from Singapore to Melbourne. Not exactly looking forward to it after reading about some of the real bad reviews of Emirates by other passengers on Skytrax. Of course, there are good reviews as well though.. 

Requested for a seafood meal and a normal meal for our flight and we absolutely loveee the seafood meal! All thumbs up! The normal meal was not that bad. Breakfast meal was good as well.

Oh! The perks of taking night flights and window seats, you get to see lots and lots of stars! Even spotted the Milky Way somewhere in the middle of the night.. Totally bliss!!! ;)

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Information that you might be interested in: 

Emirates
An airline based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, ranks among the top 10 carriers worldwide in terms of revenue and passenger kilometres. 
http://www.emirates.com/sg/English/index.aspx

Skytrax
An online airline and airport review and ranking site. 
http://www.airlinequality.com/index.htm

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