Australia / New Zealand Cruise or Cruise Tour

[CABCruiser]

This past January we flew from Chicago to Sydney to do the Princess Ultimate Australia 7 day cruisetour, followed by the 12 night Australia/New Zealand cruise on the Diamond. We loved it! We wanted to see as much as we could on our visit, knowing it was unlikely we would ever be back again. It's true, we sometimes only spent a half day in some of the cities, but we were there! I would rather get a short visit to places I've longed to see, than no visit at all. Yes, it was hot in Australia, but we expected that, and the buses and hotels always had air conditioning. It was much cooler in NZ. Didn't expect that, but easily layered up.

 

I'd say please consider doing this. I do not like being away from home for much longer than 3 weeks, so we felt this was a great choice for us. We did the land tour first because we felt the cruise would be more relaxing, and it was. We had calm seas the whole trip.

 

So just let Princess do the planning for you, and enjoy!

 

 

 

 

 

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[pppatpc2]

For my two cents, I think you can see so much more (and more conveniently) on a cruise and try to avoid land tours at all costs. We will be on the Diamond for the Sydney to Auckland trip. This will be our 4th bucket list trip and always do 5 days on the front end to experience a city and get over jet lag, Princess cruise in the middle, and two days on the end. This minimizes packing/unpacking and gives you the flavor of many different spots. It saves so much time to know that you are being comfortably entertained, fed and are able to sleep while being transported to a new destination. Also, the more you travel on a cruise the more likely you are to stop places that would not be on a land tour ("throw-in ports") which have become several of our favorite memories.