Weekend in Rotorua

Friday Jan 11

Another flight! 9:30 AM flight. Left for the airport around 8. Checked in at a kiosk, dropped my bag on the belt, then walk over to the gate. That’s it. Not even a metal detector.

That afternoon, we went to Te Puia, where we took a tour of the nature reserve, saw the geyser and mud pools, and participated in Te Po, a cultural event much like a luau. There was storytelling, singing, dancing of the haka, and a buffet dinner. All in all, it was a pretty full day.

Geyser

Saturday Jan 12

FREE DAY! I finally got sleep in! Marshall and I had massage appointments at 12:30 at the Polynesian Spa. If you ever get the chance to go there, DO IT. We soaked in the natural hot pools beforehand and then relaxed with and Aix treatment. The Aix treatment begins with a body scrub, and then you get a massage while they rinse the scrub away with a shower right over the massage table. It’s extremely relaxing and fairly unique.

All three of us on the chairlift

At 6:00 PM, all 9 of us traversed the entire 5km to the Skyline Gondola for more luging! This gondola was less steep than in Queenstown, which made for a much more enjoyable 7 minutes. At the top, only 7 of us decided to actually luge, but Mom and Mike had a good time hanging out at the café and taking pictures. In Rotorua, the luge track is open until 10 PM for night luge! For the normal price of 3 luge rides, you get 5 luge rides in the DARK on a lighted course. The sun didn’t set until 8:45, and Nolan, Marshall, and I had booked a private spa back at the Polynesian for that time. So at 8:00 PM, after only TWO rides down the course, we split and went to the spa.

Except Mom had the car keys with her at the top of the hill.

After a minute of panic, Nolan hopped back into the gondola and raced (at 5mph) back up the hill, where Mom was waiting at the top with the keys in her hand. The operator told Nolan to stay in the gondola and just handed him the keys as he crawled by. We made it to the spa 5 minutes before our booking. Crisis averted.

The view from our deluxe spa

After our sunset dip (it was raining) we went back to the hill and they let us finish our luge rides in the dark. Everyone else had left by then and were probably all together enjoying a nice dinner and laughing at us for forgetting the keys.

Luging in the dark is AWESOME! The course featured colorful lights in the trees and there were way fewer people, so it was a really good time. We finished our last ride right at 10:00 PM and went to Burgerfuel for a late dinner.

-->