Travel and Tahiti

While we booked our flight to New Zealand with Delta - Delta doesn't fly to New Zealand. But thankfully Delta is partners with Air Tahiti! I couldn't have even dreamed up a mandatory lay over in Tahiti - for 12-18 hours! Warren decided that was too long to hang out in the lobby and he booked us a hotel in Tahiti to catch some much needed shut eye. We landed in Tahiti at night - drove to the hotel in the dark - found our rooms and we all crashed and slept about six hours. Imagine our surprise when we woke up, walked out onto our patio and saw the beatutiful ocean! An ocean view of Tahiti! What a blessing for this family of weary travelers. We also had time for a quick dip in the pool! Radisson Resort Plaza was a wonderful stop over!

Making a list and Checking it twice

We, the Ladbrook family of five, have been hoping, dreaming about and planning a trip to New Zealand for five years.  Warren is from New Zealand and we all lived there for three years, 2002-2005.  More recently we have lived in Alpharetta, Georgia, for the past six years.  While Warren has a job based in Atlanta, he travels for his Engineer work to faraway places in the dusty regions of the Middle East.  Frequent trips to the Middle East mean lots and lots of frequent flyer (ff) miles have been saved for a special trip.  This past year Warren was even inducted into the ff Diamond Medallion Club and we finally saved up the 800,000 ff miles that were needed for us all to travel to New Zealand!  Warren subsequently booked our overseas adventure and we had to renew our children's passports and wait for summer to arrive.  The kids are out of school and counting down the days till we take off and fly around the world.  The boys remember traveling to and living in New Zealand and have been eagerly looking forward to returning.  Anna-Kate was just three when we moved back to the states, so this will be a new adventure for her.  Warren and I sat down today and made a packing list for everyone which includes both bathing suits for a stopover in Tahitti and Australia and warm weather clothes and ski gear for our time down south in the winter time of New Zealand.  Stay tuned for more pictures, updates and budget travel tips from this adventurous family of five.
p.s. - the kids don't read my blogs and don't know about our extra stop overs and please click follow if you would like to read more about our travels! :)