I will say one thing for people who live on the west coast… they have it made when it comes to traveling to the South Pacific! All they have to do is show up at the airport before bedtime, board a big 747 jumbo jet, grab a pillow and go to sleep for 10 hours. When they awake its early morning and there in paradise! For those of us who live on the east coast it’s a little different story… (you can consider this the beginning of my ‘Fiji trip report’ even though it sounds more like a rant!)

Fiji’s Main International Airport – Nadi, Fiji

It’s the layovers that really get you… here, let me lay out our travel schedule for you so you can better understand. The whole trip started when we left for the airport around 11 o’clock Thursday morning. Our 5 hour and 47 minute flight to LAX wasn’t to depart Dulles International until 2:30 pm EST, but we wanted to get there early just in case United Airlines tried canceling the flight again (which they did 2 weeks earlier without bothering to notify anyone!)

After the usual hassles with luggage weight being over by a pound or two and a ticket agent who tries to change your seating with out asking you we finally got through security and boarded the plane. The flight to LA was okay but long! I knew that if I slept on this leg of the trip I would have a hard time sleeping on the overnight flight to Fiji, so I stayed up for the entire 6 hour flight! Thank God for the iPod and audio books… trying to read a book on an airplane always gives me the red eye and puts me out!

The Raffle Resort & Hotel Nadi, Fiji – (where we waited for our shuttle bus)

We landed at LAX about 10 minutes late at 5:30 pm PT and disembarked the plane after a short wait for our gate to clear at the main terminal. We then found our way to the ‘Tom Bradley International Terminal’ where we had to check-in with Air Pacific for the next leg of our journey. Air Pacific is the primary airline for Fiji and the South Pacific and I must say they do a much better job of taking care of the customer than domestic airlines do! We checked in and got our boarding passes without any problems and they even allowed us to check a third piece of luggage (our carry-on bags) for no additional charge!! We then spent the next 4 hours getting dinner and waiting around until or 10:30 pm PT flight to take off for Fiji.

The Shuttle Bus – Our transport from Nadi to the Fiji Aggressor II in Suva

You’re probably thinking this doesn’t sound all that bad so far, but remember that we have now been awake and traveling for more than 17 hours with an 11 hour flight still to come. If the flight to Fiji is event free and we are able to sleep the whole way all will be good in the world… NOT!!! I can’t get good quality sleep sitting up in a chair! I tried everything, I even tried laying down in the isle until a flight attendant made me get back in my seat… she said “You can’t lay in the isle… there are no seat belts down there” (No, really?!!) I hate air travel in general but this trip was beginning to take its toll… all I could think was that eventually I was going to end up in Fiji and that was the light at the end of this very dark tunnel.

A large outdoor market somewhere between Nadi and Suva

I think I may have slept a total of maybe four hours during the flight. The rest of the flight was spent walking around the plane and hanging out in the rear with the other insomniacs, watching several in flight movies (all of which I had already seen), listening to a Dan Brown audio book on my iPod and elbowing the fat guy sitting next to me who could have probably sleep through a plane crash! At some point during the night we crossed the International Date Line and went forward in time, so when we landed in Nadi, Fiji it was Saturday morning or 5:30 am Fiji Time if you prefer!! We have now been on the move for 28 hours with maybe 6 hours of sleep, but wait… There is still more to come! We still have a 3 and a half hour bus ride from Nadi to Suva ahead of us!

One of the resorts on Queens Road in route to Suva

That’s right folks, our flight landed at the Nadi Airport, which is on the northwest side of Fiji’s main island known as Viti Levu. We now get picked up by a shuttle bus at 7:30 am and driven to Suva, the capital city of Fiji, which is on the southeast side of Viti Levu. I’m not even going to start in on the quality of the ride, let’s just say it was bumpy. The scenery along the way was absolutely wonderful; to bad I was too tired to really enjoy it. I did snap off a couple of pictures during the bus ride and I’ll post them when I have time. Anyway, by the time we finally reached the Fiji Aggressor II at the Trade Winds Hotel in Suva it was almost 12 noon Fiji time and 36 hours since I had first crawled from my bed to start this trip. I’m now going to sleep… more to follow!

Some more pictures from Our First Day in Fiji»