Kia Orana,

Rarotonga is a fairly remote destination, in the scheme of things. While more well known amongst New Zealanders and Australians, the name “Rarotonga” as a destination usually elicits a response of “Where??” from potential visitors in other parts of the world. But Rarotonga is more convenient to get to than you might think!

The international airlines that service Rarotonga are Air New Zealand, JetStar, Hawaiian Airlines, Air Rarotonga, and Air Tahiti Nui. Although most flights arrive/depart from Auckland New Zealand, there are three flights a week from Sydney, Australia and Papeete, Tahiti, plus one flight a week from Honolulu, USA.

The main thing to bear in mind when booking your flights to and from Rarotonga is to pay careful attention to the arrival time AND date. Many of our flights cross the dateline (so you may leave Auckland on a Tuesday but actually arrive to Rarotonga on a Monday) or arrive overnight (your flight may be arriving on 03 May, but at 12.30AM on 03 May – so you’ll need to secure accommodation for the night of 02 May in this instance). Having said that, there are plenty of flights that arrive during the afternoon as well.

As a result of the sometimes odd flight arrival/departure times, Palm Grove offers guests the option of prebooking a guaranteed early checkin or late checkout. This allows guests to go straight into their room from a 6am arrival flight, or continue to have use of their room well past standard 10am checkout should their flight depart late in the evening. Please contact us directly to enquire about the costs and availability associated with prebooking these guaranteed options.

If you are at all unsure about what dates you need to book your accommodation based on your flight schedule, send your flight itinerary along to us and we will happily advise you. And as mentioned in a previous blog post, we often have limited availability – so you may want to check with us to see if your dates are available even before you book your plane tickets.

If you have any questions about any part of this blog post, or perhaps have a suggestion for a topic for a future blog post, please feel free to contact me directly at beach@palmgrove.net

Kia Manuia, Betsy