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New Zealand Cruise with or without land based extension


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My husband and I celebrate our 25th in Nov. 2019. We are thinking of going to New Zealand for our celebration vacation. I am looking for suggestions on resources to research what we would most want to see/do in NZ.

 

Also, is November a good time of year to go? Can you swim in the ocean at that time?

 

Can we see enough during a cruise or is a land based extension a must? And if so, would North or South Island be recommended?

 

Thanks in advance

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We did a cruise similar to yours. It was November....Sydney to Auckland on Celebrity Solstice, via Fjordland...we then flew to the South Island, did a 10 day self drive tour and flew home. The cruise will only give you a taste. If you're coming all the way from Canada, I'd add in a land trip. If you have the time, a couple of weeks to do both islands. If you are short of time, choose one island and spend a week driving around. My favourite is the South. Swimming? For an Aussie...too cold. For a Canadian....perhaps perfect !

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November is a perfect time to visit NZ.

 

My suggestion would be to do a land tour of the North Island, before taking a cruise from Auckland. The driving distances are short, so plenty of time for sightseeing.

 

Three favourite scenic destinations are from the Bay of Islands north, Waiheke Island and the Coromandels.

 

If you visit Hot Water Beach on the Coromandels, you can build a personal spa in the sand with hot water from below, mixed with cold water of the ocean. Just remember that the NZ sun is hot and you will get sunburnt if you spend too long on the beach, as we did one November.

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Definitely recommend a land tour. We did one pre-AUK to SYD cruise. We purposely went to places and picked things to do that would not be reasonable to do from a cruise ship. Then we supplemented our land tour with ship excursions.

 

We spend most of our time on the South Island and loved it. Flew into Christchurch and took the train to Greymouth where we picked up our rental car. Then drove counterclockwise back to the Christchurch airport where we flew to Auckland. A couple of days later, we boarded our ship.

 

My only regret is not having more land time. If you are doing an AUK to AUK cruise, and feel you can handle driving on the wrong side of the road, with the steering wheel on the wrong side of the car lol go for the land trip.

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Fly to Auckland (or Sydney) spend time in NZ, cruise to Sydney (or Auckland) spend t8me in Australia, fly home.

 

I agree coming all that way you want the best bang for your buck . As a suggestion , fly into Auckland , rental car and drive to Bay of Islands for a few days , back to Auckland fly Queenstown return, (visit Millbrook) , back to Ak and join 12 day cruise to Sydney via Tasmania and Melbourne. A few days in Sydney ,fly to Cairns, Great Barrier reef fly home from either Brisbane or Sydney.

(ps I love spending other peoples money:D:D)

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I agree coming all that way you want the best bang for your buck . As a suggestion , fly into Auckland , rental car and drive to Bay of Islands for a few days , back to Auckland fly Queenstown return, (visit Millbrook) , back to Ak and join 12 day cruise to Sydney via Tasmania and Melbourne. A few days in Sydney ,fly to Cairns, Great Barrier reef fly home from either Brisbane or Sydney.

(ps I love spending other peoples money:D:D)

Sounds like a wonderful trip, although I would prefer to do it the other way around so that you start with northern Australia first before it gets to hot and wet and by the time you get to NZ it would be a bit warmer for swimming as well.

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My husband and I celebrate our 25th in Nov. 2019. We are thinking of going to New Zealand for our celebration vacation. I am looking for suggestions on resources to research what we would most want to see/do in NZ.

 

Also, is November a good time of year to go? Can you swim in the ocean at that time?

 

Can we see enough during a cruise or is a land based extension a must? And if so, would North or South Island be recommended?

 

Thanks in advance

Hi, I see your location is Canada so if you have toured the Rockies which we adored by the way I would tour the north island.

The South Island is beautiful but it is like a mini Rockies,so if you haven’t time for both stick with the North

Cheers Carole

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  • 2 weeks later...

We are flying to Auckland after our Tahiti cruise. We will have about 10 days in New Zealand and two weeks in OZ. We are struggling with which island. We live near the Canadian Rockies so are wondering if we should focus on the North island. We have also visited Alaska twice and Norway and cruised those fjords.

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