We had spent 9 lovely days in Boston, starting out with some glorious Autumn weather and then getting to experience some New England November cold. As we flew out of Boston, with the sun-setting on Thursday the 2nd of November, we had a last lovely view of the city.

Our flight time on our Alaskan air flight was a rather lengthy (for a domestic flight) 6 hours and 45 minutes. We all watched a few movies, on own devices, as there were no back-of-seat screens. We did have free WIFI onboard, and our American sims still had plenty of data, so we had fun messaging everyone back home in Australia giving updates about which part of the US and Canada we were currently flying over.

The flight was very uneventful, and with plenty of Boston airport Dunkin donuts to fuel us, we weren’t that fussed by the only light snack provided. When we landed in San Francisco the tiredness did start to hit. It was now 11pm Boston time but only 8pm in San Francisco.

San Francisco to Nadi…

Luckily we’d managed to check our bags all the way through to Nadi with our connecting airline. This meant a quick change of terminals on foot. Followed by a rescreen for TSA, that was thankfully a bit quicker than the last one in Boston. We ended up with about 90 minutes to kill and not much was open in this terminal. 

Astrid and Soren had slept a bit on the flight, but Zinnia and the adults all had no more than a 5 minute doze, so we all sat around trying to stay awake and wishing the next flight would hurry up and board! Finally we were onboard our Fiji Airways flight to Nadi and took off around 2.30am Boston time (11.30pm local). It had now been a very long day, so everyone was keen for some sleep.

No one had wanted food while we were waiting around in San Francisco, but as soon as we were onboard everyone was keen to eat. The kids declared they weren’t going to sleep until they got their meal. Unfortunately, straight after take-off we hit turbulence so the meals and drinks were delayed. This resulted in some very tired kids (and adults).

Finally after 3 hours into the flight we all gave up on the movies for a bit and got some dozing in. Astrid and Soren spent most of the rest of the flight obtaining snacks and drinks from the flight attendants at the back of the plane, scamming extra snacks by looking cute. I gave up counting how many lemonades and packets of chips the ended up obtaining.

Despite being generally happy with our Fiji Airways flights, we did find their service painfully slow at times. The turbulence at the start of the flight didn’t help this time. Despite being an entirely overnight flight, they did turn all the lights back on about 2 hours after the first meal service eventually concluded, and commenced another 2 hour service of breakfast. We then had another 2 hours to kill before we landed. In the 10 hour 30 minute flight everyone got well less than an hours sleep and watched a lot of movies!

Fiji time…..

We had crossed the international dateline a couple of hours before landing so we only experienced a couple of hours of November 3 during our nighttime flying. As we flew into Nadi, Fiji the sun was now rising. It felt like an incredibly long time ago we’d flown out of Boston as the sun was setting. It was indeed close on 21 hours earlier, so we were definitely happy to see some sunshine, even if it was 4.50am local time in Fiji.

The humidity of Fiji hit us like a tonne of bricks as we walked through the open air parts of the terminal and into immigration. We were greeted with the lovely sounds of the Fijian band and the kids were all presented with frangipanis.

At this point we were glad we were not getting on another plane quite yet, or sitting around the airport terminal. We were all looking forward to some warm weather and a day of laying by the pool.

Breakfast by the pool…..

It was a mere 6am by the time we’d cleared immigration and found our waiting bags. Somehow it felt like we’d been awake for at least 2 days though!

It was a very pleasant 25 degrees, humid and sunny as we found a taxi big enough for all 6 of us and our bags. The 10 minute drive to Mercure Nadi airport (which is not really ‘at the airport’ but one of the closer hotels) left us noticing how much Nadi had changed since our last visit, which had been a number of years earlier.

The Mercure staff were, in typical Fijian fashion, extremely welcoming. They did inform us the hotel was at capacity the night before, so they couldn’t give us our rooms until they’d been cleaned which might be a few hours, given the cleaning staff hadn’t yet arrived for the day. They did take our bags and point us in the direction of the restaurant, where we were duly seated by the pool, in the glorious sunshine.

It had been quite a few hours since everyone had eaten on the plane, and with plenty of time to kill, we enjoyed the array of fresh fruit, pastries, hot food and very necessary coffee. After the last few days of cold in Boston and a lot of time on planes, with little sleep, it was wonderful sitting out in the warmth and sunshine with proper coffee and food.

Swimming off the jetlag……

Since we had a few hours until we could get into our rooms for a much needed nap and showers, we figured we’d make the most of the time. We had anticipated not having a room when we arrived so had some fresh clothes and our swimmers in a packing cell on top of one of the suitcases. This meant it wasn’t long before we were sitting by the pool reading on the lounge chairs and swimming in the warm water……

A fellow guest had some spare drinking coconuts. So, the kids all had their days made by a coconut and swim.

It was definitely a struggle to stay awake by this point, and there might have been some napping in hammocks. It certainly beat sitting around airport terminals! We could have had a 6-odd hour layover in Nadi and then a flight to either Sydney or Melbourne, and then a connecting flight to Canberra. However, we thought the 28 hours in Nadi, with a proper break, and then a direct flight to Canberra the next day, was a much better option!

We passed 2 hours with swimming, reading by the pool and the kids playing on the playground. Our rooms were ready around 10am, which was actually pretty good given the afternoon check-in time. With showers and fresh clothes we decided we’d better stay awake a little longer so decided to go for a little explore and pick up some water and snacks.

There were a few markets open just across the road, so we wearily had a look. While the warmth and sunshine when we first arrived in the morning had felt glorious, it was now well over 32 degrees and we were all a little less enamored with the hot and sticky conditions.

Soren was feeling particularly weary, but was happy to find potential dinner options and assist us with purchasing many snacks for eating by the pool during the afternoon.

Jetlag and cocktails….

By 11.30am we’d all succumbed to the desperate need to sleep. Even the sunshine and humidity wasn’t keeping us awake any more. With the airconditioning pumping in our hotel rooms it did not take long for everyone to collapse asleep. The sensible grown-ups had set multiple alarms, and while no-one was convinced on getting up after an hour of sleep, our future selves would thank us!

A lazy couple of hours by the pool and everyone was slightly more awake. Well, everyone but Soren. He was trying to repeat his jetlag performance of San Francisco, on the outbound leg of our trip, where he slept through most of San Francisco!

Poor old Soren was not really keen on being awake, no matter how much we poked and prodded him. We’d all decided we needed some tropical cocktails (or mocktails for the kids) to make the most of our relaxing day. Soren was going to sleep through that too!

Zinnia and Astrid were doing their best to look awake with their drinks. They did better than Soren, but weren’t overly convincing……

4pm curry and an early night….

On our wander out during the morning, we’d found various tasty looking food options a short distance from our hotel. A well-rated Indian restaurant, Marsala Twist, just across the road, happened to be open all afternoon. So given we’d last eaten breakfast by the pool at 7am, and our bodies weren’t sure what day or time it was, we decided 4pm dinner sounded just fine.

An outdoor table, with plenty of friendly restaurant cats, cold drinks and spicy curries seemed like a good way to end our holiday. The kids were still rather tired, and Zinnia wasn’t particularly eating anything, not even her favourites of butter chicken and fresh roti. The other kids did a bit better, and the adults quite enjoyed our meal, even if it was at a bit of a random time.

By 6.30pm the kids had declared they were done for the day and were all in bed fast asleep. Definitely not putting up any resistance to an early bed time for once!

The adults thought we’d at least make the most of the nice weather and sit on our balcony in the now much more pleasant temperature for a bit. We did attempt to finish off a bit of our gin we’d carted from the US, but one drink and we were all struggling to stay awake so we didn’t make it past 8pm either.

Sunny Sunday breakfasts

We had an early flight out of Nadi so there were no lazy sleep-ins but everyone did manage to sleep pretty well given the time zone change. We were all up by 5.30am and downstairs for another breakfast by the pool in the sunshine.

Soren was now seemingly over his jet-lag and he and Astrid decided to make the most of the buffet and ate like we hadn’t fed them for a few days.

Sadly there were no lazy days by the pool. Zinnia was rather annoyed that her first visit to Fiji was so short. We tried to placate her by reminding her we had a Fiji island holiday booked for the coming January, so she was definitely coming back and next time for much longer.

Farewell Nadi…..

Our trip back to the airport was again a pretty efficient 10 minutes. Although, Fiji being Fiji, the hotel decided that all 6 of us and our bags could definitely fit in a regular sedan sized taxi. This was rather amusing and very squishy.

We made it to the airport just after 7am and were through check-in and security in record time, leaving us a lot of time to sit in the currently being renovated gates, wishing we were back by the pool.

The Fiji layover had been infinitely better than the extra time in terminals and flights and we were all feeling like we were mostly on the right time zone after a day of sunshine and resting. Fiji is only a hour ahead of Canberra, and sadly everyone was back to work and school the next day so it was looking good for a smooth transition back to real life.

Our flight was delayed due the incoming aircraft being late. We did eventually board 45 minutes late and we were all looking forward to continuing our movies we’d not quite finished on the San Francisco – Nadi leg the other day.

Sadly, after a run of quite nice planes both out of Canberra and to and from the US, we ended up being swapped to an older plane than what we were originally supposed to be on and there was no inflight entertainment. None of us had seen the update so we were a little unprepared. It was a long 5 hours ahead! Astrid and Soren decided they’d use the time to fight with each other. Mikl, Anto and Zinnia wisely napped.

The blessing of a direct international flight into Canberra, a rarity, since we have so few direct options, was that we were off the plane, through immigration, customs and had our bags a mere 30 minutes after landing. This meant we were in the car and home well under an hour after we’d landed, a much easier day than we usually have when flying internationally.

This had been the kids first trip to the US and they all thoroughly enjoyed it. As we were travelling to attend the wedding of Paul and Kate, we decided we’d just stick to Boston and use our time to explore city at leisure. We had the layovers in San Francisco and Nadi, Fiji, which gave us some bonus places to visit and did break up the long trip a bit. The timing of the trip meant we were able to stay on for Halloween in Boston which was a fun experience for all, and has definitely ruined Australian Halloweens! We aren’t sure when our next US trip will be but I’m sure we will head back that way one day. In the meantime the kids were getting their wish to return to Fiji with a tropical island holiday in January. That will be the next series of posts, with plenty of sunshine, snorkeling, diving and a few sharks 😉