dlwfarm Posted January 10, 2019 #1 Share Posted January 10, 2019 Trying to figure out what tour is good or if there is a way to get around and see the sites without a tour. Did anyone do anything there that they thought was really good? Thnaks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dkata Posted January 10, 2019 #2 Share Posted January 10, 2019 Yes, we took the WETA workshop tour. Wellington https://www.wetaworkshop.com/visit-us/workshop-tours/ Also rode the cable cars from Lambton Quay to the top of the hill and back You could also visit the Te Papa Museum or visit Zealandia Animal Sanctuary Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GradUT Posted January 13, 2019 #3 Share Posted January 13, 2019 We spent most of a day at the Te Papa Museum during our trip (not a cruise) to NZ. It's an excellent museum and admission is free. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Korimako Posted January 13, 2019 #4 Share Posted January 13, 2019 When are you there? Between now and 22 April, Te Papa has an exhibition of the Terracotta Warriors. Google their website for more information. Also at Te Papa and finishing in April is the Gallipoli exhibition - well worth a visit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kiwi Kruzer Posted January 13, 2019 #5 Share Posted January 13, 2019 Wellington is a very compact City easily done on your own. As well as the above suggestions , if you want something different , free tours of the NZ Parliament are available . They are conducted hourly and bookings are recommended . .... google NZ Parliament-guided tours for information. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fletch1 Posted January 14, 2019 #6 Share Posted January 14, 2019 We have caught the cable car up the mountain and walked back down through the rose garden and cemetery. Not too many places in the world where they build a freeway through the middle of a cemetery!!! (you will see what I mean). Another time, we walked to the train station and caught a local train to a beach at the end of the line (can't remember the name of the place, but the lady who sold the train tickets was very helpful!). It was a very scenic ride along the coast. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kurgan Posted January 15, 2019 #7 Share Posted January 15, 2019 On 1/10/2019 at 4:59 PM, dlwfarm said: Trying to figure out what tour is good or if there is a way to get around and see the sites without a tour. Did anyone do anything there that they thought was really good? Thnaks We took shuttle to the city, across of street from information centre took free shuttle to Zelandia park( which was great), spent there time to walk through park/forest, use shuttle move to Botanical garden ( near top cable car station), walk donw through rose garden to city. Easy day DIY. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tsutt35 Posted January 16, 2019 #8 Share Posted January 16, 2019 We did our own thing in Wellington after using the Princess shuttle into the town centre. I blogged about the day and what we did. Hope you find it useful. https://tanyastravelblog.wordpress.com/2017/12/15/wake-up-wellington/ 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cruise kitty Posted January 18, 2019 #9 Share Posted January 18, 2019 We took the free shuttle into the city, then rode the cable car up. Walked to Zealandia (highly, highly recommend, it's like a real jurassic park but with birds) then we walked back to the cable car area, walked through the botanical gardens, visited a lovely cemetery, & waked to the Parliament area.... very cool buildings Finished up with a nice lunch & beers.... we could have fit in a couple of hours at Te Papa, but we decided we liked New Zealand so much we'll be back again on another cruise & go there next time. Picked up some wine to take back to the ship & then headed back. If you're interested I've got a link to my photo review with more detailed instructions on what we did. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karen NY Posted January 20, 2019 #10 Share Posted January 20, 2019 We did a seal safari on a 4X4 in November and really enjoyed it. I would not recommend this if you have back issues or get car sick as the terrain can be very rough and uneven. The tour was great fun and our guide got us up close and personal to fur seals. This is the group we used https://www.sealcoast.com/ Have a good time Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hvbaskey Posted January 21, 2019 #11 Share Posted January 21, 2019 We arranged a private tour with ZEALANDIA (eco-sanctuary). I blogged our experience here (including costs):https://baskeytravels.com/wellington/ A few photos from our amazing, inspirational day: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marbella Posted January 27, 2019 #12 Share Posted January 27, 2019 On 1/13/2019 at 2:41 AM, Korimako said: When are you there? Between now and 22 April, Te Papa has an exhibition of the Terracotta Warriors. Google their website for more information. Also at Te Papa and finishing in April is the Gallipoli exhibition - well worth a visit. Thank you for the suggestions! We are going to be there near the end of February and really lookin forward to our visit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marbella Posted January 27, 2019 #13 Share Posted January 27, 2019 On 1/15/2019 at 10:09 PM, tsutt35 said: We did our own thing in Wellington after using the Princess shuttle into the town centre. I blogged about the day and what we did. Hope you find it useful. https://tanyastravelblog.wordpress.com/2017/12/15/wake-up-wellington/ Really enjoyed your blog--cheeky and very helpful!! 🙂 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tsutt35 Posted January 27, 2019 #14 Share Posted January 27, 2019 7 minutes ago, Marbella said: Really enjoyed your blog--cheeky and very helpful!! 🙂 Thank you. Sometimes my warped sense of humour isn’t quite appreciated. 😉 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swissmiss6253 Posted January 29, 2019 #15 Share Posted January 29, 2019 On various trips we have visited the small Wellington Museum (highly rate this attraction), Te Papa (just visited the Terracotta warriors - amazing. Gallipoli also stunning). We just did the Weta Workshop tour - fantastic. Easy city to get around by yourself too. One tour we did, because there was a stretch that you can only access via tour bus or push bike or walk was one called variously the Pencarrow Trail treck or the Shipwreck coast tour. Really enjoyable, amazing coastal scenery. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Globaliser Posted January 29, 2019 #16 Share Posted January 29, 2019 1 hour ago, Swissmiss6253 said: Te Papa (just visited the Terracotta warriors - amazing. Gallipoli also stunning). I wish I'd known about the Gallipoli exhibition! I saw posters for the terracotta warriors, but I've seen that exhibition elsewhere before, so I didn't look further into what else was on at Te Papa. I'd have happily taken a couple of hours out one day to see the other one. Not that I was short of things to do in Wellington, mind you. If anyone reading this thread wants to do something a bit off the wall, I'd suggest heading to Martinborough to do some wine tasting. It's a relatively compact area that produces some very fine Kiwi wine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ROCruiser Posted January 31, 2019 #17 Share Posted January 31, 2019 This was in 2014. We took the cable car up and walked through the botanic garden, rose garden, and cemetery back to town. Here are pictures of our day in Wellington. Have a wonderful cruise! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lou33 Posted February 1, 2019 #18 Share Posted February 1, 2019 Wellington was our favorite port and it's a perfect place to do on your own. We loved Zealandia and the Botanical Gardens. Zealandia was actually the best part of our cruise and we wished that we spent more time there. From the ship they had a free shuttle that made two stops, one by the parliament building and the 2nd in the central business district. We went to the 2nd stop where the city runs another free shuttle to Zealandia. You can walk through Zealandia on your own or take one of their tours. Then the free shuttle can drop you off back in the CBD where you got on, or it can take you to the top of the cable car, which is also the top of the botanical gardens. From there you can take a leisurely walk "downhill" through the botanical gardens to the parliament building where you take the shuttle back to the ship. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aSiAnRiCk Posted February 11, 2019 #19 Share Posted February 11, 2019 Hello everyone, our cruise is in two weeks and currently I have nothing booked in Wellington. At first, I thought going to Te Papa museum and taking the cable car uphill and leisurely walk down thru the rose gardens and cemetery then tour of the parliament would be sufficient for our day. But I'm debating whether we should go ahead and book the Weta Workshop tour. But we also don't want to take most of our time in port just to do the Weta tour. We'd like to explore the city as well! What do you guys think? We're going with HAL Noordam and will be in Wellington from 8 am until 4 pm. Thank you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dkata Posted February 12, 2019 #20 Share Posted February 12, 2019 23 hours ago, aSiAnRiCk said: Hello everyone, our cruise is in two weeks and currently I have nothing booked in Wellington. At first, I thought going to Te Papa museum and taking the cable car uphill and leisurely walk down thru the rose gardens and cemetery then tour of the parliament would be sufficient for our day. But I'm debating whether we should go ahead and book the Weta Workshop tour. But we also don't want to take most of our time in port just to do the Weta tour. We'd like to explore the city as well! What do you guys think? We're going with HAL Noordam and will be in Wellington from 8 am until 4 pm. Thank you. We took the free shuttle from the ship to the CBD at 9:00 am, We had an hour to walk around Cuba street ( most shops were closed at that time of the morning), and the harbor area near Te Papa. But there wasn't enough time to visit Te papa. AT 10:30 am We took the WETA cave studio Tour (there and back- includes transport from the CBD) It was a 2.5 hour tour that left down the street from the I-site visitor center. It included the The Thunderbirds tour. Great inclusive tour. We loved it! WETA has shorter combo tours, but you will need your own transport up there and back. So if time is limited, consider taking a taxi from the Ship or CBD to WETA and take the shorter Studio Tours combo (2 hours). Then take a taxi back by 11:00am to the CBD and you'll have the afternoon to visit other areas. The tour with transport got us back to the CBD around 1:30 pm or so. We had enough leisurely time to walk over to the Cable Car at Lambton Quay and take it up, look around the museum, get pictures at the overlook and do a short walk into the garden, I felt we didn't have enough time to walk through the gardens back down to the CBD ( estimated to be 45 minutes to an hour) ., so we nixed that idea. We took the Cable Car back down, did a leisurely walk via shops in the CBD to the shuttle pickup point. We boarded the shuttle at 5 pm, as our ship left at 6pm. It was not rushed but we didn't get to see everything we wanted too. As your ship departs at 4 pm. You'd want to be on the shuttle back to the ship by 3:15 at the latest. So if you took a Taxi at 8 or 830 from the ship to WETA and left by 11:00 to back to the CBD, you'd have 3 hours to visit the CBD area to do the cable car and back or maybe Te Papa. You'd certainly have enough time to walk around the CBD and harbor area. You might also consider third party tours (not affiliated with WETA) that will pick you up from the ship, bring you to WETA. You do the short tours on your own, and then they bring you to other places in lesser time than we took. Wife and I are Lord of the Rings Fans and loved movie making in general, so WETA was #1 on our agenda. The Cable Car was #2 and everything else was icing on the cake. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aSiAnRiCk Posted February 12, 2019 #21 Share Posted February 12, 2019 Thank you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tsutt35 Posted April 22, 2019 #22 Share Posted April 22, 2019 I blogged about our port stop to Wellington. We explored on our own. https://tanyastravelblog.wordpress.com/cruises-2/december-2017/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2Scots Posted May 12, 2019 #23 Share Posted May 12, 2019 Aloha, We will be in Wellington in early October on the Radiance of the Seas. We have been to Wellington in the past and this time wanted to do something different. Has anyone tried going to Martinborough on a winery tour for half day? I have found a Viator tour that takes you to 3 wineries and it is about 1 hour outside Wellington. Comments are appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare OzKiwiJJ Posted May 13, 2019 #24 Share Posted May 13, 2019 7 hours ago, 2Scots said: Aloha, We will be in Wellington in early October on the Radiance of the Seas. We have been to Wellington in the past and this time wanted to do something different. Has anyone tried going to Martinborough on a winery tour for half day? I have found a Viator tour that takes you to 3 wineries and it is about 1 hour outside Wellington. Comments are appreciated. Martinborough is a lovely place to visit and the drive there and back is very scenic. Which wineries does the tour go to? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2Scots Posted May 13, 2019 #25 Share Posted May 13, 2019 Thank you for your response. The tour stops at the following 3 wineries: Palliser, Poppies and Te Kairanga. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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