Customs & Border Protection USA

We landed at Honolulu Airport at 6:30am Hawaiian time, after an eight hour journey from Auckland. Despite the fact that I’d had somewhat of a restless sleep, I felt wide awake and prepared to start the day, despite the film of grime that had developed across my teeth.

As we disembarked the plane, we were shuffled into the terminal by local Air New Zealand staff. Now, the Honolulu Airport is currently undergoing a refurbishment however as the airport is rather large, it’s obviously going to take a while.

Stepping into the airport is like taking a time capsule back into the late sixties. There is a tonne of wood panelling and brown and tan as far as the eye can see, with loads of gold fixtures and fronded plants in huge, concrete garden pots dotted throughout the terminals. I turned to Christian who I knew would be enamoured by the decor of the airport and he whispered to me, ‘you know, Elvis once walked these halls‘. I rolled my eyes and obediently walked forward, ushered single file toward the exterior of the terminal where I could see a pair of buses that looked like they belonged on the island of Rarotonga.

hnl — *Passenger Shuttle, Honolulu Airport.*

We boarded one of the buses and waited a few minutes to ensure everyone had alighted, and then were transported to security clearance and baggage claim in another terminal. I was astounded at the size of the airport, and commented to Christian about how huge the place was. We idly chatted as I attempted to quell the churning in my stomach as we prepared to meet the oft-feared TSA.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is an agency of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that has authority over the security of the traveling public in the United States. It was created as a response to the September 11, 2001 attacks and their reputation as no-nonsense, serious men and women of law is infamous.

On average, the TSA screens approximately 2 million people per day throughout the United States and its’ two territories Puerto Rico & Guam.

Prohibs 3-16-12 — *Image courtesy of US Army.*

In Fort Worth in 2012, a TSA officer confiscated a live 40mm high explosive grenade from a passengers luggage; the fact that firearms, live animals and drugs are still attempting to be smuggled in and out of the US, coupled with the world as it exists today post 9/11 has proven the need for the country to take its’ border security very seriously.

The country’s currently political climate regarding immigration was also a cause for concern, especially during a time where President Trump has expressed definitive and divisive opinions on immigration.

At the end of January this year, President Trump decreed executive order temporarily banning travel from seven Muslim-majority countries. The move sparked protests around the country as people who had previously been approved to come to the United States were being detained at airports and there were also indications that the ESTA visa waiver program would be scrapped in favour of stricter visa-issuances for all foreign visitors.

Although the order was blocked in appeals courts, The Donald has reportedly signed a new executive order, removing Iraq from the list of countries that would be impacted by the travel ban and stating that the order would apply to new visa applicants only. This will mean that travellers who’d previously been blocked by the initial order despite having legitimate visa documentation may now be allowed entry to the United States.

As a New Zealand born citizen, I rarely worry about travelling abroad, for the simple fact that our passports are ranked as one of the best to have in the world. This is based on the number of countries (170) that permit entry to citizens of New Zealand without requiring visas.

Upon reaching passport control, we were asked to enter our passport details into a self service machine that scanned our biometric passports and took our photos. This printed out a slip that we were required to present to the customs officer at security, along with out passports.

As we approached the officer, I hoped that we would get someone nice, or at least someone who would be interested in the fact that we hailed from the land of Hobbits, Orcs, Gandalf and Middle Earth and less interested in my husband’s birthplace.

Christian was born in Lima, and spent several years living in his country of origin Peru before emigrating with his family to New Zealand. At this stage in the game, he is a naturalised citizen travelling on a New Zealand passport and has been a resident in Auckland for the last 27 years. On this basis, you would assume that the length of time he’d been away from South America that the cultural stereotypes that come along with hailing from this part of the world would have lapsed, right? Wrong.

Even our own friends have made jokes about Christian being an undesirable, being ‘randomly selected’ at airports internationally because of his ‘Mexican sounding name’, laughing at his name being that of someone who is quite obviously a Columbian drug mule…guess what, team? It’s not funny. People of colour are routinely treated poorly, or differently because of their given names or familial lineage. The very fact that we cannot make these exact jokes to an anglo-saxon makes these racist. So stop it. It’s not funny. It’s lame and I’m sure you’re smarter than that.

Because we seem to be the most blessed people in the world, our customs and border protection officer (also a department of Homeland Security) was a Mexican gentleman named Luis.

He greeted us warmly welcoming us to the country and nonchalantly asked Christian about his country of birth, how long he’d lived in the country and how he’d ended up in New Zealand. ‘Peruano!’, he exclaimed repeatedly stating that he’d not met many in his line of work and that it was nice to meet Christian.

His language was interspersed with Spanish, and I smiled and breathed a sigh of relief. We came to the US with the explicit intention of enjoying a family vacation and I had been convinced by so many people that we would be treated as hostile, threatening individuals who were intent on causing havoc in the USA – thankfully, my experience couldn’t have been more opposite.

We were fingerprinted and our passports scanned and stamped, before being bid farewell by Luis, where he imparted some words to Christian – ‘you’re a good man, a mano. Take care of your family, you’re doing it right’.

Thank you, Luis!

Charli x

Flight Time.

After months and months of planning and an arduous overnight 8 hour flight from Auckland, my family and I landed at Honolulu airport in the early hours of Hawaii’s Saturday morning.

Unfortunately I didn’t take my own advice and refer to the SeatGuru app when choosing our seats on this plane.

Because Ethan wanted to sit at the window, I was relegated to the aisle seat, which offered additional leg room but a screen on a retractable arm as there was no seat in front of mine. The first row in our cabin boasted only two seats, and I remarked to Christian about how envious I was about the woman in the row who was travelling solo and didn’t have an accompanying passenger in her neighbouring but vacant seat. Bah, humbug.

Upon finding our seats, we were confused as to why there was no screen available in the aisle seat, as we had paid for The Works Deluxe package electing to fly in the most comfortable cattle class option. I then observed an attendant assisting my aisle neighbour, whose seat also did not have a passenger in front, but a wall separating our cabin from the Business Class cabin ahead.

He explained that the screen could be retracted and released from its partition by pushing down on a lever. As he explained this, I looked down to my left and observed a latch, pushing down hard to see if I could release the screen. I felt I had pushed with some force and without any luck, I gave up and assumed that the attendant, who had spoken to all others who were seated in the rows with retractable screens would surely come over before takeoff and go through the same procedure with me, as he had all of the others.

Alas – I was wrong. He started to walk down the aisle toward me and as he did so, I looked towards him and smiled. He looked down his nose at me and without missing a beat, sashayed further down the aisle to assist a colleague to ensure the rear doors were securely fastened. To say I was surprised would be a lie. Being a heavily tattooed person, quite often I am treated differently to your average Joe. People assume I do drugs, drink heavily, am generally a bad or unsavoury person…because I choose to adorn my body with art that I think is beautiful and have a penchant for body modification. First of all, if you think this? You’ve got screws loose. This is not 1950 and what I choose to do with my body is my business. I am sick to death of people remarking on my hair, clothes, body mods and appearance, like by simply existing I am asking for validation.

So, if you’re reading this? Just know, I’m not. I don’t need your validation. I’ve grown into a place where I really like myself and understand I have faults and flaws and am working on those, however I do not need you to comment on or remind me of aforementioned faults and flaws. Mind your own goddamn business.

And as for you (let’s call him Steve) Steve, air steward of Air New Zealand – you suck. Thanks for making me feel less than human by electing to ignore the basic requirements of your job, to make your guests comfortable and assist them where necessary. Cheers! Luckily for me however, one of his colleagues did ask if I had been shown how to use the retractable screen and when I said hadn’t took great care to show me in detail how to use the screen and let me know that the screens would need to be placed away during takeoff.

With that out of the way, I’d like to explain why I didn’t enjoy flying with Air New Zealand in the slightest.

Firstly, as a heavier person with a big bum, I detest planes with narrow seats. Ironically, New Zealand’s budget airline JetStar offers more comfortable seating than the perceived ‘better value’ national airline. I prefer to fly JetStar intercity while in New Zealand, for the simple fact that the seats are wider and the belts stretch easily across my wide torso.

I sat down in my chair and groaned. Not only was the seat narrow, but the armrests did not lift, meaning my thighs spewed out underneath the hardened plastic arms. Before you roll your eyes and say to yourself, ‘she should just lose some weight so she can fit in the seat our buy two seats if necessary’ – I get it. But in this case, even if I had purchased the neighbouring seat, I wouldn’t have been able to lift the armrest, so that argument is moot.

I reclined my seat a wee bit, so as not to disturb the person sitting behind me who was busily typing away on a laptop placed on their tray table – I try to be considerate when flying because I get super irritated when the person in front of me comes flying backwards halfway into my seat and I have to struggle to use my personal screen. I was able to stretch my legs out and sit very low in the seat, which somewhat replicated lying down…but not really.

So, in short? The flight sucked. I have a return flight on Air New Zealand to look forward to on the way home from Honolulu to Auckland so I’m grateful for the fact that it’s only eight hours. Should I ever return to Oahu, I will do so on a Hawaiian Airlines flight!

Charli x

Clever is Cool.

I recently purchased an iPhone 7+ which has twice the memory capacity of my old iPhone 5S.

Since purchasing the device I have spent a lot more time researching useful apps, with specific interest in travel; this considering that my family and I are travelling to the United States for nearly a month and I am heading into unfamiliar territory.

TripIt

One of the best apps I’ve come across whilst browsing the store is the TripIt app. The app allows you to create an online itinerary keeping note of all of your reservations, flight details, addresses, important information like passport details and emergency contacts organising all of your itineraries and confirmations in one incredibly easy to use dashboard. I initially purchased the app to create a basic itinerary that could be shared with our families, so that they would know where we were at any given time considering the sometimes astronomical expense to make international calls back home from abroad.

To be completely fair, I don’t think our mums are so concerned with our whereabouts but moreso our 11 year old son.

One of the coolest things about the app, is that you can forward all of your confirmation emails from your registered email address to the email plans@tripit.com were all of the data will be collated, aggregated, and a master itinerary will be created within the application itself.

TripIt is free, however you can choose pay for advanced features in the Pro version of the app.

SeatGuru

Although I didn’t find this app until after we’d booked all of our flights, the SeatGuru app gives you insights into the layout of an aircraft, allowing you to be make a more conscientious decision when selecting your seats.

Although most economy seats are created equal, there are usually a dozen or so seats on an aircraft that have misaligned windows, are wayyyy too close to the bathrooms for comfort or don’t have access to power for charging small handheld devices making them even less desirable than other standard cattle class seats.

Use SeatGuru to help you choose the best seat so that you can travel in a little more comfort than you might without the insider knowledge!

Rome2Rio

Rome2Rio is an app that allows you to plan your travel from a to b, in over 158 countries worldwide. You can enter any town, address or landmark as your destination and Rome2Rio will instantly display flight, train, bus, ferry and driving options with estimated travel times and fares based on aggregated and ranked information sourced from multiple APIs and published within its platform . The travel search engine contains route information from over 4,800 transport operators, however has been criticised by travellers in European locations as omitting a lot of the low cost aircraft operators from their flight results.

Users of the app have commented on their appreciation of it’s simplistic format making it incredibly user friendly, with others advising that the financial results provided by Rome2Rio should be used as a guide only.

LoungeBuddy

Unfortunately for my husband, son and I, I’m not fancy enough to have a lounge membership with any airliner, nor do I have a frequent flyer pass that allows me to travel in style. I traverse the stark, tiled floors of airports just like any other schlep! The good news is however, Auckland International Airport allows limited lounge access to its Emperor Lounge for travellers at a small price of $49 NZD for 3 hours. You can pay a fraction more if you’re a long haul traveller in need of a nice, hot shower as towels are provided and if necessary staff can arrange hotel reservations for you.

The lounge has an assortment of local and international food on offer to its visitors, as well as non-alcoholic beverages and a stocked bar. The website indicates that there are desk spaces setup for you to connect and charge your hand held devices and laptop equipment, and children chaperoned have access to a small play area.

For 2 adults and a child under the age of 12, I paid $122.50 for 3 hours of access. We plan to arrive to complete our bag drops via the Air New Zealand kiosks early and head into the lounge after customs for some well needed R&R.

Lounge Buddy isn’t partnered with the Auckland International Airport, however did display results for Honolulu and JFK airports.

There are two lounges located in Honolulu Airport, both very reasonable priced. User reviews indicated that the IASS lounge didn’t offer much aside from tea, coffee and soft drinks and much of the commentary maligned the dated cheap motelesque decor.
On this basis, we elected to opt for the much more extravagant Lufthansa Business Lounge in New York’s JFK Airport. With our flight back to the island being a non-stop 11 hours, I figure we will need the preparatory relaxation.

The Lufthansa Business Lounge offers a tonne of amenities, including premium buffet, beer & wine, spirits & liquor, snacks, TVs, high speed wifi and supplied internet terminals. Prices at $84 NZD per person, you get full access to all of these amenities.

These are only some of the clever apps I found to make your travel much less anxiety ridden. As a person who can be highly strung in stressful or unknown situations, I feel like any support system your smartphone can offer is a godsend.

Better living everyone!

Charli x