BDU: Flying to Fiji

BDU: Birthday Down Under - Trip Planning
BDU: Flying to Sydney
BDU: Park Hyatt Sydney
BDU: Sydney Activities
BDU: Sydney Opera House
BDU: Flying to Uluru and Back
BDU: Uluru and Kata Tjuta
BDU: Park Hyatt Melbourne
BDU: Melbourne Activities
BDU: Flying to Fiji
BDU: Hilton Fiji
BDU: Snorkeling Trip
BDU: Flying to Los Angeles
BDU: Hyatt Regency DFW

Melbourne is very nearly at the very southeastern tip of Australia.  Fiji is northeast of the continent and it is one time zone earlier.  That meant our 5-hour flight to Nadi (pronounced NAHN-dee, even though there's no second "N"), which left around midnight, would land us in Fiji first thing in the morning.  This was the only flight with award space and we took the only three award seats that were available nearly a year in advance.

When using American Airlines miles to book flights on Fiji Air, you must call AA because the website does not support booking on Fiji Air but AA agents cannot assign seats.  So while we all got seats, we had no way to select where those seats were.  I finally was able to get an email address from the Fiji Air Twitter team and was able to correspond with someone in their office who could get us seats together.  I'd looked at the seat map on Seat Guru and saw that there was a second bulkhead on their planes.   I specifically asked for those seats and was thrilled when we were told we had them.  Yay for extra leg room!

When we boarded the plane, I saw that Seat Guru was wrong and row 25 was smack in the middle of economy.  The seat pitch (distance between a seat and the one in front of it) seemed marginally better than what we usually find in the US.  My friend C, who's quite tall, insisted she was fine.  Since we were planning to sleep for most of the flight anyway it didn't end up being a huge issue but it is frustrating.

We dozed off and on for the length of the flight.  About an hour before landing we were served breakfast of eggs, sausage, something I can't identify, yogurt and a muffin.  It wasn't great but it was enough to tide me over and prevent me from getting a headache so I can't complain.

Not sure what that is to the right of the sausage. Hash browns, perhaps?

We landed right about dawn and by the time we got through Customs it was full daylight.  Parts of the airport are open-air and thankfully there were lots of fans blowing to keep the air circulating.  We grabbed our luggage and went in search of our ride.  After the misadventures with Sunbus in both Sydney and Melbourne I was concerned we'd face something even worse here where "island time" is in force.

I didn't need to worry. The folks from Rosie Holidays were waiting and ushered me into an air conditioned office where we took care of the paperwork and they confirmed our return trip.  We'd splurged on a private transfer (paid for with Arrival Plus points, of course) so we were whisked off to the Hilton in no time.  As it was still quite early on a Sunday morning there was almost no traffic.  It's only about a 15-20 minute drive and it was lovely to see the quite and all the greenery.

Next up, we arrive at the Hilton well before check-in time.