New Zealand Trip in 2012

New Zealand - Dec 2012 to Jan 2013 

Memory fades away so fast! I want to write down our New Zealand trip for so long but I have never started until today. This trip was special to me because I regarded it as our Honeymoon. Why? Because our Honeymoon was changed due to Japan earthquake in 2011. We went to Thailand instead but that trip was not a good one! Finally, we decided to go to New Zealand in September 2012 and this was the first real vacation since our marriage.

We picked South Island of New Zealand for our trip as I love the scenery there. We planned a 14-day trip and would spend some time on cycling between different spots in our original plan. But Stephanie had a pregnancy sign during November so we canceled the cycling part finally. Though the pregnancy was not successful, we didn't go back our cycling plan anymore. Anyway, Stephanie got pregnant after the trip and our first born William joined our family in November 2013! That's another story then...

Tickets booking

We love self tour, so we booked everything by ourselves. First, we booked the flight from Hong Kong to Queenstown. We have two options, one was direct flight with Air New Zealand, another was went by Qantas to Auckland first then local flight from Auckland to Queenstown, plus overnight hotel stay at airport. We picked the second way though we saved a little bit, we evalued that it was not worth as we had a longer stay over and spent more time on traveling rather than sightseeing. I think we will pick direct flight in our future vacation unless the cost can make a real difference!

Total	HK <-> Queenstown	Auckland <-> Queenstown	HK <-> Sydney -> Auckland
HK$ 14,249.00	HK$ 14,249.00			Air NZ, direct
HK$ 12,549.80		HK$ 2,179.80	HK$ 10,370.00	Qantas, 2 connections

*Price included all surcharges and taxes.

We left on Christmas eve and the flight was a late flight which depart at 11:30pm. Qantas flight was good and it took nine and half hours to arrive Sydney at noon. We had lunch in the airport and ordered pizza! After the lunch, we waited until evening and took another 3 hours flight to Auckland and arrived there around 11pm. We stayed at a budget hotel (Ibis hotel) which is closed to the airport. The hotel is connected by airport free shuttle, though you must make sure the bus timetable in order to catch up your flight, especially the morning one!

Though the room is small but it is clean with a bathroom.