[Oregonkiwi]

We're arranging to have the rest of our boxes shipped from California to Auckland. We have to decide between delivery to the port or to our house.

The advantages of "to port" seem to be that it's cheaper and we'd avoid the whole moving company MAF fee rip-off that I've read about on here. Has anyone had experience of collecting their stuff from the port?

[kanatakiwi]

this may or may not be accurate, and would like to hear what others think, but I have a friend who collected her stuff from the port and said it was a nightmare, she had to do a lot of running around getting customs forms approved, she was charged GST on a bunch of stuff etc. she believes she would not have been had the goods been delivered to her door. We had our stuff shipped door to door, and apart from the annoying charge re MAF (all our stuff to be checked was in one big box ) it was absolutely painless. sometimes its worth paying the extra $250 to save yourself a lot of hassle.
|G

[Bruckner]

We took the door-to-door option and asked that the MAF fees be billed directly to us. MAF charged us directly but when I called the shipper to complain he just asked MAF to bill their account directly. Problem solved.

Now the amount of damage to your furniture, stolen items and missing items shipped somewhere else overseas and can't be located are a whole other story.

Emily