Thursday Dec 15
We flew from Queenstown to Auckland - departing at 10:40am and arriving at our hotel, the Sofitel around 1pm. We decided to have lunch at the Sofitel restaurant as it was getting late and of course we get half-price dining with Accor Advantage.
We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the waterfront where the weather ranged from driving drizzle to sunny. All the waterfront pubs and restaurants were totally packed even at 4pm - Christmas parties in full swing.
We had dinner at the Sofitel as we had been unable to get reservations anywhere - with Christmas peak we had left it too late. Fortunately the food was excellent as we were planning to have dinner there again the following day. Being platinum Accor members we also had lounge access for happy hour canapés and drinks.
Friday Dec 16
The day started off very cloudy but fined up - we spent the day walking around the city and not doing much of anything. Happy hour and dinner was a report of Thursday.
Friday Dec 17
We had a very early start to catch our 9am Air NZ flight to Sydney - the flight was fine but we both found thier business class layout (1–1-1) very weird. Due to the 2 hour time difference we were back home at 10:30am.