Cruising the 3 SOUNDS in NZ

[Cellagirl]

Most New Zealand cruises have three sound cruising days plus sea days which seem a lot to me.  Are the cruising Sound days not to be missed?  Would love feed back from all the experts on these boards.  It will greatly help with our visit to this area.

[Cellagirl]

Tried to edit post to say cruising from Australia to NZ !!!!

[GradUT]

Are you talking about Doubtful Sound and Milford Sound?  Those sounds are too small for cruise ships, so you’d have to take an excursion to go there.

 

I have cruised Doubtful and Milford Sounds and they are very scenic.  Whether you should do 1 or more sounds depends on your interests.  The boat trips on the sounds are basically sitting on a boat and looking at scenery.  If you enjoy that sort of thing, you’ll love the sounds.  If you prefer a more active day, these trips will be boring. 

 

 

[Cellagirl]

Thank you for your reply.  I didn’t look at the dates of the scenic cruising for these sounds.  It is all in one day!!!  Not familiar with this part of the world that is why I love this website 

[GUT2407]

Usually they visit them in one day, not take three days.

 

double check your itinerary

[Cellagirl]

 

Posted 1 hour ago

Thank you for your reply.  I didn’t look at the dates of the scenic cruising for these sounds.  It is all in one day!!!  Not familiar with this part of the world that is why I love this website 

 

[GUT2407]

10 minutes ago, Cellagirl said:

 

Posted 1 hour ago

Thank you for your reply.  I didn’t look at the dates of the scenic cruising for these sounds.  It is all in one day!!!  Not familiar with this part of the world that is why I love this website 

 

Don’t be surprised if they take you through more than just three either.

[Chiliburn]

8 hours ago, GradUT said:

Are you talking about Doubtful Sound and Milford Sound?  Those sounds are too small for cruise ships, so you’d have to take an excursion to go there.

 

I have cruised Doubtful and Milford Sounds and they are very scenic.  Whether you should do 1 or more sounds depends on your interests.  The boat trips on the sounds are basically sitting on a boat and looking at scenery.  If you enjoy that sort of thing, you’ll love the sounds.  If you prefer a more active day, these trips will be boring. 

 

 

I m currently on ovation and we just cruised Milford,dusky and Doubtful.

Edited January 29, 2019 by Chiliburn

[Swissmiss6253]

It is a stunning day, not to be missed.

 

[Mike From Syd]

Have your camera ready - you will see some beautiful waterfalls.

 

Which ship are you going on?

[SinbadThePorter]

As far as I know, almost all cruises will go through Milford, Dusky and Doubtful Sounds. They spend a couple of hours in each.

 

If your cruise is coming from Australia, then you will do Milford Sound first. This is a cul-de-sac where the ship goes in and out the same way.

 

If your cruise is coming from New Zealand you see Dusky Sound first. Both Dusky and Doubtful are sail throughs. You go in one entrance and come out another.

 

Be prepared for cold weather at any time of year.

[possum52]

The only reason you won't go through the sounds is if the weather conditions are not suitable.

 

Enjoy, it is a memorable day. Make sure you have a waterproof jacket. In November we started Milford Sound with jackets, scarf and gloves. 

 

Leigh

 

 

[whimsy7]

we did the 3 Sounds in one day. we loved the scenery.

at Milford Sound, the ship goes in and does a 180 degree turn giving you a good look of the area.

for me, it was the best way to see the Sound as I would be car sick on the roads in/out of the area.

we were lucky to be there on a sunny day and to see a pod of dolphins that live in the waters there.

we were there in the month of February and it was cold on deck! we were prepared with our winter gear/jackets and scarves.

this day was the highlight of our NZ cruise

[Cellagirl]

4 hours ago, Mike From Syd said:

Have your camera ready - you will see some beautiful waterfalls.

 

Which ship are you going on?

Celebrity Sostice.  We are looking at dates in April 2020.  I need to do a lot of research!!!!

[Kristal Blade]

We cruised the Sounds on Radiance of the Seas. We had a sunset cabin, right at the back of the ship. I took some lovely photos, enjoyed a wonderful few hours soaking up the scenery, seeing seals, dolphins and sea birds. It is a wonderful day. Hope you enjoy it.

[Cellagirl]

There is so much I need to research for this cruise!!  Is there a month that you would NEVER cruise this area?

[SinbadThePorter]

9 hours ago, Cellagirl said:

There is so much I need to research for this cruise!!  Is there a month that you would NEVER cruise this area?

 

Personally I would only cruise the Sounds (or NZ) in February or March. You need the full summer, or at least as summery as NZ gets.

 

Also remember this is a stormy part of the world. There is nothing between southern NZ and Antarctica except penguins. The area catches the full force of the Roaring Forties.

 

Of course, there are no cruise ships around from May to September anyway.

[OzKiwiJJ]

SinbadThePorter is right. April is very late in the season to do any cruise around the bottom of NZ. In fact I'm surprised that Celebrity are even offering a NZ cruise departing in mid-April. We're on Solstice Auckland - Sydney in late March this year and I suspect we'll only have a 50-50 chance of getting down to the Fiordland. We've seen it before so it won't be a big deal to us but missing Dunedin would be as my brother lives there. If the Fiordland scenic cruising is important to you then you might like to consider coming down under earlier.

Edited January 31, 2019 by OzKiwiJJ

[ROCruiser]

Not to be missed! We did this on Radiance OTS and we did not do the small boat excursion.

[jshli]

We will be taking the Celebrity overnight shore excursion from Milford Sound on Nov. 1st. Has anyone done this and what can we expect?

[Chiliburn]

45 minutes ago, jshli said:

We will be taking the Celebrity overnight shore excursion from Milford Sound on Nov. 1st. Has anyone done this and what can we expect?

Haven’t done that excursion but the only problem with it you will miss the rest of the fiords and that’s the main attraction.

 I d suggest if you are coming from the states ,fly into Auckland then to Queenstown,then onto Sydney.

 

Edited February 2, 2019 by Chiliburn

[Chiliburn]

On 1/29/2019 at 11:25 PM, Cellagirl said:

Celebrity Sostice.  We are looking at dates in April 2020.  I need to do a lot of research!!!!

Later in the season there’s more chance of the weather being bad..

november or February is my suggestion,the school holidays from mid December to the end of January will be a bit more expensive.

[jshli]

Thank you ChiliBurn, I really appreciate your opinion. After reading your post, I second guessed myself and read reviews of this excursion. There were so many wonderful reviews, (didn’t see a negative one), that we have decided to stick with the Celebrity shore excursion. We fly into Sydney and home from Auckland and have all our air and hotels set. I am sure we can’t go wrong either way. 

[portcbob]

hi ozkiwijj.

 

Hope you are wrong about your weather prediction for fjordland/Dunedin. We are going on the same cruise leaving Auckland in late march for April. Last year we went earlier to see it all in January however missed Dunedin and all the sounds due to a cyclone. We have tried again to see what we missed and now we are worried going later that we may still miss it all down south. 

If it happens again to us I think we’ll be done.

We are now thinking celebrity should probably shorten the cruise season to nz to give cruisers a more realistic chance of seeing fjordland.

Anyway mate, he’s hoping.

Cheers Bob.

 

[Globaliser]

On 2/2/2019 at 11:30 AM, jshli said:

We will be taking the Celebrity overnight shore excursion from Milford Sound on Nov. 1st. Has anyone done this and what can we expect?

 

On 2/2/2019 at 2:10 PM, jshli said:

After reading your post, I second guessed myself and read reviews of this excursion. There were so many wonderful reviews, (didn’t see a negative one), that we have decided to stick with the Celebrity shore excursion.

 

Is this the excursion that goes one way from Milford Sound to Dunedin with an overnight in Queenstown (or vice versa)? If so, you will find some previous discussion about this idea from this search.