Today was, for the most part, a carbon copy of yesterday. So much so that I took hardly any photos - but if you look at yesterday's photos while reading this blog post, you won't go much wrong.

Another good night's sleep although we woke earlier after an earlier night last night. The same breakfast for Mum but I changed to pancakes; they were still meh.

I had another video call with Linda; they were sitting at the gate in Auckland Airport waiting to board their flight to Singapore. It was good to know they were on their way.

Housekeeping arrived to do our room so we decided that was a good time to head back to Jewel for some shopping. Mum was after flight supplies - Strepsils, tissues and the like - and it took us visiting a few shops but we eventually got them all. A last visit to the forest and rain vortex and we returned to our room after the major outing of the day.

A little later I made another trip to Jewel to gather the all important lunch supplies - McDonald's fries for Mum and a Shack Attack from the Shake Shack for me. As I made this trip at the height of lunch hour, I had two long waits for the food to arrive.

After lunch, we enjoyed a nice long afternoon sleep. Our hotel room is much more comfortable than an aircraft seat will be in a few hours time.

Then another trip to the hotel swimming pool. The weather was a lot nicer today and there were more people in and around the pool. Of course, there is a drawback with swimming a couple of hours before flying - wet togs. Nothing that half an hour with a hairdryer won't fix.

By the time we had finished packing it was time to go. Check out was a breeze and the Crowne Plaza was good enough to lend us Jared the Porter to help us and our luggage the 100m to Singapore Airlines check in counter.

Which is where we stayed for the next 45 minutes. Despite the best efforts of the woman on the check in desk, the prebooked and confirmed special assistance wheelchair for Mum continued to be noticeable by it's absence. Eventually, the check in staff nicked a wheelchair unofficially from somewhere and deputised a staff member to accompany us. This seemed to cause them all sorts of trouble when the official service caught up to us at immigration but we were through into the transit area and grateful for their help.

They left us in an out of the way area worth comfortable armchairs and I left Mum there while I went hunting for Linda and her Mum who had landed 20 minutes earlier.

I found them down at the gate that we would be leaving from in a few hours and brought them back to where Mum was. This was complicated by the fact that Mum S really needed a wheelchair as well, but had been left without one (are you seeing a theme here)?

We walked back slowly and reached Mum just as an official assistance chap turned up to take her to her gate. There was just time for a photo and a quick exchange of greetings and she was off.

And so, a lot quicker than I had expected, the first part of my trip was completed and the pre-planned itinerary resumed.

I grabbed a very nice fried rice from the Street Feast type food hall while Linda bought a coffee for her and her Mum. By the time we had finished those and chatted about our respective journeys to that point, it was time to head back to our gate.

At this point, I discovered why special assistance had been so bad. I went to the special assistance hub to arrange for either a wheelchair or a buggy to get us back to the gate. The dispatcher appeared hopelessly inefficient, didn't know who we were (despite me having the sticker we had been given), what to do about us, or even who her staff were (she kept breaking off her conversation with me to ask passing staff members who they were and what they were doing).

In the end I gave up. We managed another slow walk back to the gate, boarded our flight to Amsterdam and off we went.