[Sam'n'Kelv]

Someone has very kindly offered to meet us at Auckland airport on our arrival in New Zealand. Could someone give us an idea of how long it is likely to take a family of six to clear immigration. We have the blue stickers in our passports and have been granted PR.

Only a few months to go.... it's getting scary.

[jackie m]

Hi
We only had 2 children but it took the same time as arriving at any airport & getting luggage etc. The only difference when we handed in our passports they double checked the childrens passport then with a big SMILE welcomed us to New Zealand & our new life went well !!!
So far so good haven't looked back. Everyone we met when we first arrived welcomed us with open arms when we told them we were here to live not just a holiday.
So I wish you well & Hope your new life is as good as ours:nice1
Jackie

[Trigirl]

i reckon it actually takes a bit longer to clear auckland airport than most as you have to queue to clear biosecurity.

we've done it three times and its probably taken about 40mins - 1hr.

[KerryS]

It depends on what time of day your flight arrives too. If you are on a late night flight when most of the immigration desks are closed you can queue for over an hour just to get through.
Early morning is usually quite easy - especially if you're one of the first planes to arrive.
But, as Trigirl said, there is the additional bio-security check of your luggage to be done, which can make the process longer. Ensure that anything you have is easy to access to show the MAF officer. (Food etc)

[khhill]

We always bring something that we can declare as in our experience, the declaration lines are always much shorter when you are going through customs. Dramamine (flight sickness medicine) or anti-histamine is our usual declaration and we've always gone through quickly.

Note: DO NOT BRING FRUIT! This will cause major delays and fines. I've seen a woman who had previously had a bananna in her carry on bag and the sniffer dogs could still smell it. She had to have every bag fully searched.

Have a good flight :D

[willowshouse]

Sometimes you can be really unlucky and arrive just after another international flight arrives .. this happened to our visitors and it took them almost 2 hours to get through everything! It is very difficult to tell how long it wll take but if we are picking people up at the airport we plan to arrive at the airport a half hour after the flight lands .. and take a newspaper .

Any of your kids under 5? They put you in a different queue if they are. We got picked for the under 5's queue even though our daughter is a very tall 7 year old .. mind you she is cute :D This could certainly shorten your queueing time.

[Kim39]

When we came in(family of 4) in Nov 05 it took around 45mins -1hr, but when we picked up Stevie D 3 weeks ago it took them around 1.5hrs. Don't think you can really put a time on it, but as a safe measure i would go at around the hour and above mark.

Kim

[Croft]

This is something I've been wondering about, if you have PR, do you go through the 'normal' immigration, or though the 'NZ Residents' line (if such a thing exists) the first time you go through to activate the visas?

[veronica]

helps if you get seats at the front part of the plane as you can then get out of the plane quicker and be early in the queue for immigration,

[Trigirl]

croft - we went through the NZ residents line :)

[Croft]

croft - we went through the NZ residents line :)

Thanks Trigirl!

[speckythecky]

We always bring something that we can declare as in our experience, the declaration lines are always much shorter when you are going through customs. :D

When we arrived on our visit 10 years ago the declare line was massive and the non declare had no one. All we had open was some powered baby milk so we went to the non declare line and asked if we needed to declare, they said no and we sailed through. Remember this was 10 years ago, things may have changed

[Sam'n'Kelv]

croft - we went through the NZ residents line :)

We've been told by NZ Airlines that we have to join the 'Visitor's Line'. Of course, being British, our worry is that we'll push into the wrong queue only to be told by an immigration official, 'Sorry you need to join the other queue' then have to walk back past all the scowling faces to join the back of the queue we should have been in in the first place. The stuff of nightmares!

Many thanks for all the useful tips and advice.

Kelvin and Sam :cheers

[willowshouse]

When we arrived on our visit 10 years ago the declare line was massive and the non declare had no one. All we had open was some powered baby milk so we went to the non declare line and asked if we needed to declare, they said no and we sailed through. Remember this was 10 years ago, things may have changed


I reckon this can go both ways. I've heard this trick mentioned before - take some prepacked smoked salmon (or similar) and join the shorter 'to declare' line. The first time we came here we had to join this queue as OH realised he had Golf shoes in his bag .. it took FOREVER! Yes the queue was a little shorter but OMG every single person took 10-15 mins whereas in the 'no declare' queue they took 2-3 mins .. it definitely took much longer for us.