It took a couple of days to reach Tahiti. I think this all depends on the flight from Auckland to Papeete at 3pm . To get to Auckland with a sufficient gap (of a couple of hours), we had to take the 7.20am flight from Sydney. And this meant we have to fly to Sydney the previous day. So we took the 2pm flight to Sydney and stayed overnight in the airport hotel - as we had to be at the airport very early there was little incentive to make any more of our time and we just sat in our room
Fortunately, on the second day everything ran smoothly, it was just boring. The flight to Auckland is only about 3 hours and the flight to Papeete is just under 5.
Still it was after 10pm when we landed and took a taxi to the hotel, where we're staying just one night.
