Aaron and I consider ourselves worldly travelers. But in the next paragraph or so, you will read where we made some major oopsies and probably need to be downgraded to “most of the time” great travelers. The night before our departure, Aaron tried to check us in online, but there was an issue with his passport. I figured we would just go a little earlier in the morning and we would figure it out at the airport. Aaron had a sinking feeling as we knew his passport only had 2 more months until it expired. We started doing some research. Why didn’t we do this before we booked this destination? Well, that’s oopsie #1. French Polynesia requires 6 months before expiration on your passport to enter. I was confused why we would be allowed to buy our tickets, entering our passport information, and not be able to travel so I wasn’t worried—Aaron was!

After a sleepless night, Aaron decided to call the US Embassy (located in Fiji) that was in charge of French Polynesia. As it turns out, Aaron was right! If you don’t have 6 months on your passport, you are not allowed to enter. We pled our case, told them our situation, why we were working in Australia, and killed her with kindness. She said she would see what she could do and would call us back. After maybe 45 minutes, she told us to email this Chris guy Aaron’s passport, our itinerary, and our tickets, and he would handle it. We thought we just hit the jackpot and saved about 8k in lost vacation bookings! We got ourselves ready and headed to the airport, awaiting the document letter from Chris. After 2 hours of waiting, our only option was to try and call this Chris guy. He ironically picked up the phone and he thought we were traveling the next day. Aaron said, no, we literally leave in 4 hours. So with no time to spare and about 25 minutes before they closed check-in, we miraculously got the letter and headed to board. We were so relieved and excited! We couldn’t believe what just happened and that we pulled off the inevitable—well, Aaron did!

After Aaron surprised me with a first-class upgrade, we headed for Auckland. I was still on cloud nine that this vacation was going to happen. We would have a short 1-hour transfer in Auckland and then off to paradise. We landed in Auckland on time, but we noticed there was a lot of rain. We had to run to catch our next flight, but got there when it was boarding and went to our seats. Once we got settled in, we noticed the rain was really coming down. After almost an hour delay on the plane, Aaron started looking at outgoing flights and noticed many had turned around. Departure was set for 6:40 pm and at 10:30 pm the captain came online and said there would be no flights leaving Auckland as the airport was flooded. It was a complete shit show; they told us to get off the plane and find a place to sleep inside the airport as everyone was locked in for the night. We went up to the Air New Zealand lounge and got settled in for the night.

To make a long story short, the airport was shut down for 3 days, we lost Aaron’s AirPods and Bose headphones on the airplane, barely could find hotels in Auckland as the flooding impacted everyone, and after day 2, Aaron luckily went ahead and found us a flight or we would probably still be there today waiting on a rebook. We canceled a few of our reservations and everyone was willing to work with us, which was amazing. Once we finally arrived in Papeete (at 1:30 am), we realized we were a whole day off and one day early for everything—you know, that thing called time change—oh yeah! Nonetheless, we finally made it; we had 8 days in paradise and we can laugh about it all now!

After a day in Papeete, we jetted off to Bora Bora, one of my bucket list places to visit. We had to take the ferry over to Moorea as our flight left from there…we were playing catch up with some of our previous bookings before the Auckland setback. The flight from Moorea was 45 minutes, and we had to wait for a quick weather storm to pass at the airport before we could land. Once we landed, you can see why this place is absolute paradise. From the luxury overwater bungalow resorts to the colorful turquoise crystal clear waters below…the natural beauty of the island just set the mood. Our 3-day stay consisted of renting scooters which took us around the island and in full view of Otemanu, stopping along the way in the major settlement of Vaitape, snorkeling with black tip sharks and stingrays, eating the most amazing seafood, attending a Polynesian luau, and much-needed relaxation…in paradise!

It was hard to imagine another utopia such as Bora Bora, but Moorea proved to be just that. The island was definitely more laid back and much more reasonable than our previous stop, without giving up its surreal scenery. We had to take the ferry back over (which by now we were pros). Once we arrived, we couldn’t check in for about 5 hours, so we figured since we were also professionals at renting scooters, we better get going. So after dropping our luggage off at the hotel, we rode around the entire island (50 miles), zipped up to the Belvedere lookout giving us panoramic views of the island’s peaks, stopped by Opunohu Bay, and traveled through Cooks Bay, whilst stopping at yet another incredible lunch spot overlooking the ocean. The overwater bungalow had the best snorkeling out of all the places we went, so every day I went out for a few hours…it was absolutely breathtaking and I saw different fish every time…truly one of the most amazing things I have witnessed. We had a few Mai Tais for our buddy Nancy Pants and just enjoyed being in true paradise. Life is good and we are humbly blessed!