French Polynesia 2018: June 3, 2018-Adieu French Polynesia

Alarm goes off. It is so early! We make final check of room to make sure we've not left behind anything. Roll our luggage to the reception/lobby. Hand over the keys. Express breakfast at the lobby bar is not bad. There's orange juice, coffee, fruit, cheese, meats, croissants, pain au chocolate, apple raisin pastry. I get some juice and some of the pastries. Don't remember if Richard got anything. Our pick up is for 5:00 AM and we are all in the Marama Tours van but are missing 1 couple. The driver has the hotel make a call-probably to the room. He says he'll wait a few minutes more. Everyone wants to get to the airport and they are saying we should just go and this couple can call a taxi to get them to the airport. In the nick of time the couple-last name Hanna who are maybe in their30s/40s-show up.

Pastries

Fruit

Juice and coffee

Meats and cheese

Our transfer to the airport

Arriving at the airport there are tons of people. More than I thought. I figured more would be on the Air Tahiti Nui evening flight. Our Air France flight is AF0077 which departs 7:30 AM. There's a huge line to get boarding passes and to check baggage for this flight. Wait is around 30 minutes in line. Our 2 checked bags are ok. Whew! But then they weigh our 3 carry ons. Maximum weight is 12 kg per person or total 24. We weigh in at 23.7. Whew again!! Next we head over to the place where I hand over my forms/pages that I got from the pearl stores. The guy stamps all the copies. He keeps a set of pink copies, gives me another set of pink copies with the store envelopes for me to mail back to them, and a set of green copies which are for me. The yellow mailbox is right behind me. That's done! Tax exemption forms on their way back to the 2 stores. My next stop is to go to the store I was at when we picked up our rental car on 6/2 to get the CD. Problem-different staff and tons of people. I ask the man for help finding XXL T-shirts but he tells me to just look against the back wall. He doesn't get up from his seat behind the counter to help anyone. The girl also is behind the counter. You are on your own to try to find whatever. Not very good customer service. The money I have left is lots of coins and maybe a few 1000 notes. I want to use my coins to pay for the CD 2000 XPF and then use the paper to make up the difference or put the difference on my credit card. The girl is very rude to me stating she won't take the coins! WTF! I mutter something not so nice under my breath which she hears and the guy then refuses to sell me the CD. There's another guy-Asian-who has the correct change for Tic Tacs and wants to just give the money to the guy so he can make his flight. The guy says no-get to the end of the line which is very, very long. He leaves pissed off too. The girl takes your item. Adds it up on the adding machine. Takes your money. If paying by credit card the guy does that transaction. Why do you need 2 people at the register if there is only going to be the one line?? What attitudes they have. I'm so upset that I forget to take a picture of the departing flights board. Once past security I realize this and I look to take a picture on this side but there are no departing flight information boards! Weird. There are some stores here for last minute duty free purchases. Maybe I can find a CD. No luck. I'm bummed and realize should have bought my CD when I first saw it on 6/2. I do find a nice Hinano baseball style hat which I get for Richard. Cost 3200 XPF. This nice lady counts out my coins, some paper bills. Not quite enough but close enough. What a difference in service. I have a 500 bill left that I find so off to another store to see what I can find. I see a design made from Taro that is 1500 XPF. The girl takes my 500 XPF and puts the remaining 1000 XPF on my credit card. Service is so much better past security! Too bad I can't find a CD of Tahitian drumming. 😞 Time to board the plane.

Taro design

Hinano baseball style hat

Our Air France plane

Boarding

I've booked duo seats again so just the 2 of us in the row. Right after take off we get choice of drink-apple juice-and crackers. For our meal service we are given menus with 2 choices. I select the meal of beef satay/basmati rice/vegetables and Richard gets the yellow fin tuna in white wine sauce/broccoli/buttered boiled potatoes. Each comes with corn salad and baby vegetables with chicken, cheese, Normandy apple sauce tart, coffee, tea. We're also asked if we want wine. We each get a small bottle of white. There's a roll with butter, yogurt, and a container of water. So much food. Impeccable service. Not like flying on a USA airline for sure! Some time later we get another meal-snack of orange juice, fruit cocktail, Babybel mozzarella cheese, Kinder chocolate bar. I get tea. Each seat has its own screen for in flight entertainment. Movies are pretty current. I watch A Wrinkle in Time and Red Sparrow.

Leaving Tahiti

Goodbye Tahiti!

Apple juice and crackers

Small bottle of white wine

My beef satay meal

Richard's yellow fin tuna meal

Final snack/breakfast

Landing at Tom Bradley terminal at LAX around 6:30 PM. Have to get luggage, go through customs, then told to head to Terminal 2 for our Delta flight. By now my feet are very swollen and it really hurts to walk. We get to Terminal 2 where they look at my flight information and tell us we have to go to Terminal 3. However, they can see the difficulty I'm having walking so they check us in at Terminal 2. I'm so thankful. Delta charges $25 for each piece of checked luggage so $50 is put on my credit card. We get our boarding passes and head to our gate where I can sit and relax. Our flight LAX to Detroit is DL1106 departing 10:30 PM so we have a shorter layover returning than our flight on 5/17. We get a drink and snack on this flight. Arrive in Detroit on 6/4 at 6:00 AM. Our final flight is DL3351 to Buffalo departing Detroit at 7:10 AM. Not much time to get to our gate but I manage. We arrive in Buffalo on /64 at 8:20 AM. I call Quality Inn so they can send the shuttle for us. It's cold here! The shuttle arrives and takes us to our car. On the way home we stop at Tim Hortons so I can pick up some donuts! When we get home we take naps-we're so tired. We'll unpack later.