The Adventure Begins — Almost!

 It started off well. Friends gave us a ride to the local ferry to Logan Airport and we arrived very early (there are not many ferries that stop at the airport) but expected to wait in line for security. There were no lines, so we went right through.

After a few hours wait, our plane arrived. We filed on and we were ready to go before the scheduled time. All was looking good. Oops! The aircraft had a navigation light that was not working and needed to be replaced. An hour later we were on our way.

We assumed we'd never make the connection since the original connecting time was only about 45 minutes and the original arrival gate was nearly 20 minutes away. But the airline went out its way to get us there in time. As there were 12 people on the plane connecting to the New Zealand flight, the airline arranged to change the arrival gate to the one next to the Auckland flight. 

We arrived with about five minutes to spare and got off the plane as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, we were the furthest back of the Auckland-bound passengers and even though the crew asked the rest of the passengers to please wait, they didn't. But we still arrived at the departure gate on time.

As we were the last off the plane, we were also the last in line. They stopped boarding at the folks in front of us. Because of the cyclone still brushing New Zealand, they had to take on more fuel to skirt the storm, making the plane overweight if they boarded us.

All that excitement getting there on time and still not enough. They eventually booked us onto the next day's flight and got us a hotel (a Super 8 ... groan)—and flight vouchers worth nearly twice our fare.  We didn't get to bed until almost 2 AM EST.

A Kiwi friend of ours noted that they once had a similar situation where they were offered an upgrade on the next flight and overnight accommodations to give up their seats. They decided not to take the offer and regretted it as the turbulence was more than uncomfortable on their flight. Being that our scheduled flight was already over 15 hours in the air, the additional time and bad weather was probably a good thing to avoid. Our host on Waiheke also emailed us that the ferries to the island were not running on the day before we were to arrive due to the weather, so the delay might be even more beneficial.

 We have pretty good seats for tonight, relatively early boarding, and the cyclone is even further away from New Zealand. We have found a quiet, almost secret lounge at the terminal which will be our home for the next 11 hours.