Happy ANZAC Day to you too, Chadmat.
Hi Chadmat!
We flew with Thai Air the first time we visited NZ (Jan 2006).
Bascially, Thai Air was cheaper for us and we had no problems with them at all, other than a little bit of personal nit-picking. I was on crutches at the time and they looked after me well. The first leg of our flight was in an old plane which was a bit rattley, but that might just have been from this part of the world, as we also had the same thing when we flew with Malaysia Airlines the last time we went. The second plane out of Bangkok was much better. I hear that there is a new airport there now, otherwise I'd have mentioned that it was very run down. I’d hope the new one would be a lot better.
During the flight we found it odd that they insisted on all the window shutters being kept closed for the entire trip, so we never knew whether it was day or night. I don't know whether that helped in some way, but we didn't suffer from jet lag at all. The food was pretty good, both on the plane and in the hotels we stayed at for our short stopovers (7 hours going and 18 hours returning), but that depends, of course, on your taste for oriental food. The hotels they put us in were fine, not what you’d call modern and glossy and not in the best part of Bangkok, but they were clean and we were happy enough. We did manage a quick trip to some shops on the return journey and had a quick look around on the way. The only reason we didn’t fly with Thai the last time was because of the insistence by our travel agent that we’d get a very good deal from Malaysia Airlines. You can read the whole sad story about our dealings with her
here . As it turned out, we’d have been better to have stuck with our idea of flying with Thai a second time instead of listening to her. In fact, we’d have been better staying away from her altogether as we ended up paying through the nose to fly with Malaysian, yet the service was no different to Thai who would have been quite a bit cheaper, I'm sure
.
On here, you can see how
Thai Air shapes up and, if you click on Passengers Comments under the red stars it’ll give you some personal thoughts on the airline.
Hiring a motorhome seems to be a very popular way of seeing NZ. You have a home on wheels and are free to go wherever you wish without having to worry about booking hotels or motels. I believe you can just pull up at a spot of your choice (within reason, of course
) and set up camp there, you don't necessarily have to use the campsites, although you wouldn't get the accompanying facilities. Most of the campsites in NZ seem to be clean and tourist-friendly so there shouldn't be a problem.