Flight from Detroit to RAR

I have been looking at going to the Cooks for some time. I have recently tried to put some hypothetical itineraries together from Detroit. It seems to be very easy to get to Auckland via San Francisco or Los Angeles but there is an 11 hour layover for the flight to Rarotonga from Auckland. Anyone out there have any suggestions on flights or connections that shorten the layover?

On Sundays there is a non-stop flight from LAX to Rarotonga.

The Friday flight from LAX gets into Auckland at 7:05 am and departs at 8:35 am for the Cooks.

As silvanocat noted, you are far better off using the Los Angeles to Rarotonga non-stop than flying to Auckland and then coming back to the Cooks. Currently Air New Zealand and CI Tourism is offering a US$100 rebate on flights booked prior to Nov 17th with travel completed prior to February 28th. Visit Air New Zealands website for additional information.

The difficulty I have found is that the flights are on particular days, if I try to put in the days I have available which is not say Saturday to Sunday they have long layovers. At this point I am looking at my options for the spring. Mexico (Cheap,Cheap),Africa (Not Cheap) or Cooks (sorta in the middle). We shall see.

I believe the LA-Rarotonga direct flight is no longer in service. Can anyone else confirm this?

kia orana,

i can't confirm this, we still have the direct flights from los angeles to rarotonga and return as well.
have a great new year

Air New Zealand Los Angeles to Rarotonga flight is indeed in service. Only one flight a week, leaving at 10:00 PM local time on Sunday night.

Papa Mike

These flights that cross the international dateline get confusing. Flight NZ14 departs Auckland on Sun. night but arrives on Rarotonga Sat. night and departs Raro for LAX on that same Sat. night.

I ended up doing the Mexico thing this time, RAR is still in the radar for 2010. I will have to have a good block of time to accomodate the flight situation though.