We arrived at the chaotic Port Vila airport to discover the situation was even worse. These excess baggage fees, we learned, apply to each sector of a two-sector trip to the Solomon Islands ‒ although both flights were issued in a single ticket. For the courtesy of transporting our two 15kg suitcases, Fiji Airways charged us $420 in baggage fees to get to Honiara from Port Vila, on top of the $650 we paid for two one-way economy seats. Oh, and they only accept cash payment, they informed us with a smile.
This costly mistake is one of a series of self-inflicted idiot errors which this veteran traveler committed when recently exploring the South Pacific. In total we burned more than US$1,000 due to such mistakes. It’s a steep price for a complex island-hopping itinerary spanning 14 flights, nine hotels and one trans-oceanic cruise.
As the travel industry increasingly unbundles pricing and charges separately for each service element, the opportunities for mistakes and price gouging rise exponentially. There are no industry standards when it comes to pricing. Policies vary widely between carriers and travel providers. I’m sharing these idiot errors as a cautionary reminder to mind the small print, to triple check before you click buy, and to make no assumptions.
THE PLAN
We set out to visit a variety of remote Pacific locations by sea and air. Flights between the islands are infrequent and expensive, and assembling this itinerary felt like trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle in which the pieces do not neatly fit.
For the first two weeks of this five-week sojourn, we sailed from Sydney to Papeete, stopping in exotic ports including Pago Pago and Bora Bora along the way. Rather than linger in French Polynesia, we wanted to explore Melanesia, a virgin region for both of us, concentrating on New Caledonia, Vanuatu, Fiji and the Solomon Islands.
With fewer than 30,000 visitors last year, the Solomons rank as the seventh least visited country in the world. Thailand, by contrast, received some 28 million international arrivals last year. During our visit to the Solomons the only other visiting foreigners we encountered were military police from Australia and Papua New Guinea (PNG), who were temporarily stationed in the country to help keep the peace during the elections that coincided with our visit. One PNG officer with whom I spoke said he’s bracing for some “action”.
As it turned out, the action occurred 1,600km to the south.
New Caledonia erupted in pro-independence protests a couple weeks after our visit, resulting in a weeks-long state of emergency, more than €1 billion in damage, seven deaths and hundreds of injuries. The international airport closed for nearly three weeks, stranding an estimated 3,000 tourists. In late May French President Emmanuel Macron hastily travelled to the overseas territory to quell the riots.
THE IDIOT ERRORS
My first idiot error involved tripping over the international date line. I booked the twice-a-week direct flight between Papeete and Noumea, arriving in New Caledonia a day after our original domestic flights were set to depart. We had to forfeit those internal flights and purchase a new set of domestic tickets for $200.
The next idiot error occurred when I double booked a hotel reservation on a non-refundable basis. Fortunately, I caught the mistake early. After two calls, the Holiday Inn Resort Port Vila graciously agreed to cancel the duplicate reservation without penalty.
My final idiot error happened when we signed up for the open bar package on our cruise ship. In buying this package I assumed, based on prior experience, without reading the fine print. While I could drink unlimited margaritas, unbranded bottled water and branded coffee are priced a la carte. That $400 drinks package was mostly money down the drain.
Amidst these idiot errors, we were again exceptionally lucky in timing: the international airport in New Caledonia closed, and the flag carrier of Vanuatu collapsed, just weeks after out visit.
THE SMART MOVE
When booking flights with connections, I follow a golden rule to allow ample time in case things don’t operate on schedule – typically a 2x or 3x multiple of the published minimum connecting time, which varies by airport. Case in point: our flight from Honiara to Brisbane was nearly two hours late, which threatened our connecting flight to Asia. The helpful ground staff and cabin crew of Solomon Airlines went out of their way (and bent some rules) to check our bags all the way to Phuket, although the Asian flights were on a separate carrier and ticket.
THE VERDICT
The South Pacific has a reputation for priciness because of its remoteness. These are hard-to-get-to islands; everything just costs more. Still, we had sticker shock over mediocre $30 sandwiches and $60 taxi rides in vehicles way beyond their prime. But it’s hidden fees on top of the already inflated prices that feel, at times, like opportunistic price gouging. Many car rental companies assess cleaning fees, for example Want eggs with the breakfast you already paid for? That’ll be extra. And if you pay for those eggs by credit card, you can add another 2.5%. It all adds up.
There are two standouts from this seven-territory adventure: Vanuatu (see last month’s Phuket Globetrotter) and the idyllic atoll of Ouvea in New Caledonia. Ouvea is naturally stunning. It takes much for an island to wow us – after all, we live in the Phuket area. But Ouvea’s fine, pristine white sand and surrounding palettes of blue totally turned our heads, especially when viewed through the lens of our drone.
I will go to any place once, but not every place deserves an encore. The people are wonderfully friendly and hospitable on every island we visited, and some of the islands are indeed gorgeous. But the travel infrastructure is often too limited, ground transportation too inconvenient and air transport too fragile. Independent travel in the South Pacific can at times feel like a burden, especially for the value that is delivered. There are many compelling travel experiences elsewhere on the planet that yield more juice from much less squeeze.
After five weeks of travel through the region we found the grass isn’t always greener. Sometimes there’s no place better than home, especially when that home is in paradise in Phuket.
HOW WE TRAVELLED
We sailed on Norwegian Cruise Line’s ‘Spirit’, which was making its way to the northern hemisphere for the summer. Repositioning cruises like our Sydney-Papeete sailing can offer unusual itineraries as the ship relocates from one region to another in the change of seasons.
After disembarking, we used a variety of airlines to hop between the islands. Other travellers with whom we spoke, especially in Vanuatu, experienced delays, cancellations and heaps of frustration. Air Vanuatu, notorious for cancellations, filed for bankruptcy protection two weeks after our trip. Fiji Airways has a reputation for unbundling baggage fees, as we painfully learned. Brisbane and Sydney serve as the primary international hubs into the region for travellers originating from Asia, and it’s advisable to build buffers in any itinerary in the event of travel hiccups.
We were pleased by all our hotel choices, which we felt were fairly priced in contrast to food and transport in the region. When choosing hotels, we select properties that have a critical mass of reviews with favourable scores exceeding 90%+. This proved to be an effective strategy in Melanesia. Two hotels in New Caledonia merit a mention: the all-suite Chateau Royal Hotel in Noumea, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year and functioned as a Club Med property in a prior incarnation. On Ouvea we stayed at the Paradis d’Oveau, the best on the island. The food was surprisingly good given the property’s remoteness and the lack of competition. I’m still salivating over their coconut crab. Both hotels were very helpful in organising ground transportation and excursions. In Honiara we stayed at the Coral Sea Resort, which was a welcome refuge from an otherwise drab capital city.
Many nationalities do not require advance visas for travel in Melanesia and the South Pacific.
Adventurer and author Todd Miller has explored more than 100 countries on all continents. His Amazon bestseller ‘ENRICH: Create Wealth in Time, Money, and Meaning’ was lauded by Forbes, USA Today, Entrepreneur, and other global media. He resides at Natai Beach. www.enrich101.com