Author archive
17 August 2007
We flew out of Auckland to San Francisco at 1910, without any hassles, despite on standby tickets. Kim and I had a couple of hangers-on with us: his old friend Eric plus his best mate Rodger as well. They’re all car fanatics and have quite a treat ahead in California with various car events.
4 May 2007
I slept nearly all the way home, seated in Premium Economy. It’s quite unusual for me to sleep on flights, sometimes being wide awake despite assistance with sleeping pill. It was a good end to a trip I didn’t really want to undertake, for good reasons. I had only returned from a long trip to […]
2 May 2007
Flying to Los Angeles via Chicago We filled yesterday with more shopping; it was our second day of shopping. We also filled our luggage! Things in the USA are cheap if one shops wisely. Today, we fly from Fort Lauderdale back to Auckland via Chicago and Los Angeles. We left our hotel at 0800 and […]
30 April 2007
Above: Beach at Fort Lauderdale. Third and final timeshare presentation We took a light breakfast at the Welcome Centre. They didn’t have a toaster for a bagel and untoasted bagels are a little too stodgy. It was the standard two-hour presentation which started with a general chat lasting 1h, then a tour of the property, […]
28 April 2007
Short exploration Our stay at Daytona’s Islander Resort included a continental breakfast of bagel, real juice and a few other items. We had to arrange a timeshare presentation to attend. We had been misled into thinking that we would be required to attend one presentation in Florida, but because we’re splitting our stay across three […]
27 April 2007
Today we visit Kennedy Space Centre before continuing to Daytona Beach. The drive from Kissimmee to Kennedy took less than an hour. The Kennedy Space Centre is NASA’s primary launch station for space flight. Some exhibits were accessible by foot from the entrance area but three by bus. Overall, we got to see some of […]
26 April 2007
We decided to revisit Celebration today and take some photos. It’s a lovely place, even though it is rather contrived. Text continues after this gallery. From here, we drove to north Orlando, to Winter Park. This is a resort community founded in the 1880s. The homes here were very nice as well but […]
25 April 2007
Above: Nice home in Celebration. Visiting Celebration Flying east, I have trouble waking in the morning. This time it was a little more complicated. I woke at 0230 and couldn’t sleep till 0530. And when I did, I woke up around 1030. We had a light breakfast and went out at 1200 for our 1230 […]
24 April 2007
Yesterday Yesterday was a “spare” day which we kinda “filled-in”. As we were flying on standby from Auckland to Los Angeles, it’s best to have a spare day before continuing on to Florida. So, we filled in the day with seeing crew friends that were overnighting here and eating at Kim’s favourite places. We also […]
22 April 2007
We landed at Los Angeles in the early afternoon. Because Air New Zealand uses Terminal 2, the manouvering and parking for the large jet was tight, so it is normal to have the aircraft towed to its final position. But it seemed strange that the aircraft was being towed with its engine roaring. Once we […]