Back from Samoa

Just back from Samoa. Leaving Aggie Grey's Hotel at 1.30 a.m makes it a long trip home. The usually Four hours in the plane was delayed as an elderly passenger was finally taken off the flight suffering from ill health.

We were a little disappointed with a couple of issues we had. The first was just a small one. Being members of the Air New Zealand Koru Club, we do get a special check in station. But.......it is so slow that it is perhaps better to use the normal Check In queue.There is also no special seating on the plane as there is from New Zealand, where you are given the front seats.However, we are certainly very pleased with the ease from the New Zealand end.

The second disappointment was to do with a rental car we hired and paid for online .After booking the package at the Air New Zealand site, information was given about rental cars with Discovery Rentals in Samoa. My husband paid NZ$300 online. There was NO mention of any other costs. On arriving at their office at Faleolo Airport there was a quite different scenario. Firstly you need to pay for a temporary license to drive in Samoa. It costs $12 tala!They were charging $25 tala extra - $35 tala total.....to write up this license!

Next, we were told there was an extra $165 tala cost for taking the car too and from the airport! Then......they wanted a $500 tala fee in case there was any damage. This was not just taking a credit card number, this was actually fronting up with $500 tala. When my husband spoke to the manager - her words were "If you don't like it go somewhere else.....this is our company policy." Needless to say, we left it! And will now have to get our NZ$300 dollars reimbursed!We hired a car from Avis for $200 tala in Apia! And paid the $12 tala for the license.Fortunately we discovered we had free transfers to and from the airport with our package at Aggie's. This was excellent.

Apart from these hick ups it was an enjoyable few days in Samoa. More on that tomorrow.