Sisterhood and Travelling Plans: Planning Phase #Part2

Bungy jumping is one preference activity of the trip

There are several requirement that we determined for this planning phase as follow.

1. Trip preference survey

A questionnaire survey was conducted to have a general idea about the purpose and preference of each participant on the trip. A general question about destinations, transportation, accommodations, food and drink and as well as specific concern that should be known by everyone. Individual preferences then combined to be group preferences that will be the main plan of the trip. Several aspects of the survey are summarized as follow:

1) Purpose of the trips
The survey result shows that most participants want to gain new experience in New Zealand and also spend some time together with their travel mates. Furthermore, the participant wants to experience some New Zealand adventurous activity, nature, and also a culture with the top activity to do skydiving and experience Maori Culture.

2) Transportation arrangement
In this section, the transportation preference of the participants is discovered. They are preferred to rent a car and drive along the trip. 75% of participant have driving licenses.

3) Accommodation arrangement
The participants prefer to stay at an Air BnB house where we use the entire house which located in a suburb area. All of them are willing to share a bed with each other that they are fine with a double bed.

4) Food and drink preference
The participant agreed to cook sometimes and also eating out sometimes. They prefer halal food. And only one person that has allergic to meat.

5) Other concern
The concern from the participant only about sharing stuff on the trip. The other one hopes that everyone enjoys the trip.

2. Trip duration and date selection

The date and trip duration are determined based on the schedule and availability of each participant. Because it is recommended that the minimum duration of the trip should be 10-14 days, we decided to follow that recommendation. However, Sari, a nurse who worked in a hospital, only can take her holiday leave for 10 days from 9th – 18th August 2019. Lany and Ami, who are a little more flexible with their holiday time from work, were agreed with any time. Debby is also flexible with the time since she would finish her semester in July and wait for her graduation in September. So, considering the above conditions, we’ve decided to have a 10 days trip from 9th – 18th August 2019.

3. Destination selection

Destination preference from each participant has been gathered in the trip preference survey. From the below figure, the main destinations of the trip are sky-diving, bungy jumping, Maori culture, Hobbiton, and tracking activities. Bungy jumping was excluded from the list because of budget and time consideration.

trip preference survey result

The description of each selected destination and activities are embedded as follow.
1) Sky-diving
Sky-diving is chosen because we want to experience something new that we have never tried before. Baumgartner (2012) stated that skydiving is about the idea of freedom. Moreover, most people do skydive because it’s a major milestone in their life, and skydiving also a way to celebrate the miracle of friendship (skydiveperris, 2018).

I recommended doing skydiving in Queenstown with the operator NZOne Skydive and took 15,000ft tandem skydive package which cost NZD 459 per person. Based on several the review in Tripadvisor, NZOne has an excellent review rating at 4.5 out of 5. Manjunath (2017) also recommend doing skydive with NZOne in Queenstown because it has a remarkable mountain range view like in the Lord of The Rings Movie.

2) Maori culture
The other reason for travelling is to get to know the culture of the place we visit. And New Zealand has Maori Culture as its traditional culture. Experiencing a Maori culture is also a must doing activity when visiting New Zealand. It is recommended to experience Kiwi Haka performance in Queenstown. It has an excellent review of 4.5 out of 5 in Tripadvisor, and many reviewers recommend having Gondola and Haka performance that cost about NZ 39 per person.

3) Hobbiton
I know that some of us like the Hobbit book and movie and I am sure that Hobbiton is one of a must-visit destination for you. I recommend the 2 hours tour that cost NZD 84. Hobbiton that have 4.5 out of 5 rates in Tripadvisor offers an experience to explore The Lord of The Rings and The Hobbit trilogies movie set.

4) Tracking activities
Mt Cook hiking is also a famous destination that offers you the experience to walk to the highest peak in New Zealand, which have remarkable scenery. Carlson (2016) recommended taking the Hooker Valley track that is quite easily accessible and great for everyone. This track offers an outstanding view along the way and also the glacier lake in front of Mt Cook. Other than that, Mt Cook has the maximal rating of 5 out of 5 in Tripadvisor.

4. Transportation selection

Based on Debby and her friend's experience of her almost 2 years stay in New Zealand, they recommend renting a car and drive when travelling together on the trip to New Zealand. Website backpacker guide.nz recommend renting a car on the top two of their recommendation lists of 10 Best Ways to Travel around New Zealand after buying a car. Renting a car will provide us with flexibility to move around from one place to another (Backpacker Guide NZ, 2019). We also have a similar view to this. Furthermore, there are three people who have driving licenses and comfortable to have a long drive that will take the driving shift during the trip. Therefore, we decided to rent a car both in North and South Island for the trip.

5. Accommodation selection

During this trip, a private space to do activities and games that potentially noisy is required. It is recommended to stay at a homestay that rent the whole house that could accommodate activities and games as well as avoiding disturbing another guest or neighbour. Furthermore, a home-stay also could be found in a very spread location, which would be convenient to choose one that closes to the selected destinations that have been set. It is more efficient in time. The location of the accommodations of this trip is listed in appendix-1.

6. Food and Drink selection

You are all have been agreed through the trip preference survey that we will cook sometimes and eating out sometimes. As we are all may remember that we like cooking together back then in our flat many years ago. We all had fun and full of laughter on our achievement in cooking our hometown cuisine. So, cooking is a recommended activity for this trip because it generates togetherness at one point, and also decreasing the budget at the same time. Felicity (2016) stated that cooking could improve communication and a way to bond with friends. Cooking together also improve team building skill and discover something new.

Our trip menu

7. Sisterhood games and activities selection

There are several games that we usually play when we got together back some years ago:
a. Truth or Dare
The property needed: Water bottle
How to play: the participant sits in a cycle either on the floor or using a table. The first person who spins the bottle. The one who is pointed by the bottle when it stops is lost. The others, the winners, could ask that person to choose between truth or dare. When the truth is chosen, this person needs to answer all the questions given honestly. On the other hand, if dare is chosen, this person should do everything the winner asked.

b. UNO
The property needed: UNO card
How to play: everyone is given a set of cards and play with it. The one who has most card at the end of the game will be lost.

c. Word Guessing
The property needed: paper and pen

How to play: two groups should be formed. Each group prepares several words that should be guessed by the other group base on the theme provided. The game will be in pair from two different groups, the one group asking a question to the guesser that close to the word chosen within the time set. If the guesser can guess the word right, her team got the point. If not, the other group will gain the point.

Booking and other arrangement for the trip

There are some preparations that should be done before the trip to ensure that everything will smoothly run as planned, including entrance ticket booking, transportation booking, accommodation booking, and restaurant booking.