Milford Sound excursion

[Beaches57]

We will be on a 14 day.  We cruise  from Sydney to Auckland next January 2024.  In looking at the excursions available through HAL the Milford Sound one is indeed interesting but also VERY expensive!  Is it worth it?  Would like to know what you see from cruise ship as far as the fjords go or do you see way more on land?  Any feedback would be great.

thank you 

[GeezerCouple]

1 hour ago, Beaches57 said:

We will be on a 14 day.  We cruise  from Sydney to Auckland next January 2024.  In looking at the excursions available through HAL the Milford Sound one is indeed interesting but also VERY expensive!  Is it worth it?  Would like to know what you see from cruise ship as far as the fjords go or do you see way more on land?  Any feedback would be great.

thank you 

 

Does your HAL ship go *into* Milford Sound?

When we took a HAL cruise Auckland to Sydney (Noordam), our ship went into the sound (it's actually a fjord).  It was indeed incredible.  I actually didn't believe what they were telling us about the top heights on either side of us, so I checked online.  Yup, astonishingly high!

I'm not sure what else an excursion would include, but it's an amazing area.  And it would probably be a breathtaking drive, at least part of the way. 🙂 

 

We loved every minute of our trip, including some special activities on our own for a few days afterwards in Sydney.

 

GC

[Over from NZ]

5 hours ago, Beaches57 said:

We will be on a 14 day.  We cruise  from Sydney to Auckland next January 2024.  In looking at the excursions available through HAL the Milford Sound one is indeed interesting but also VERY expensive!  Is it worth it?  Would like to know what you see from cruise ship as far as the fjords go or do you see way more on land?  Any feedback would be great.

thank you 

Are you looking at one that lets you off and then picks you up in Dunedin? 

[Beaches57]

Yes, that’s the one I’m wondering if it’s worth the money.

[CU64]

12 hours ago, GeezerCouple said:

 

Does your HAL ship go *into* Milford Sound?

When we took a HAL cruise Auckland to Sydney (Noordam), our ship went into the sound (it's actually a fjord).  It was indeed incredible.  I actually didn't believe what they were telling us about the top heights on either side of us, so I checked online.  Yup, astonishingly high!

I'm not sure what else an excursion would include, but it's an amazing area.  And it would probably be a breathtaking drive, at least part of the way. 🙂 

 

We loved every minute of our trip, including some special activities on our own for a few days afterwards in Sydney.

 

GC

We will be in Sydney 3 days post cruise. What did you do that you most enjoyed + any particular restaurants?

[Over from NZ]

22 hours ago, Beaches57 said:

Yes, that’s the one I’m wondering if it’s worth the money.

If your cruise ends in Auckland - fly down to Queenstown would be a far better idea if you can extend the holiday (and probably cheaper). 

[dcbiker97]

We considered doing it in November.  Folks on our recent cruise that did it enjoyed it, but it was way too much time on a bus for us to do it. Just make sure you’re comfortable with that by doing Google maps from Milford to Queenstown and then onto Dunedin. 

[GeezerCouple]

23 hours ago, CU64 said:

We will be in Sydney 3 days post cruise. What did you do that you most enjoyed + any particular restaurants?

 

We stayed one night (the first night after the cruise) at the then brand new Hotel *IN* the Sydney Zoo.  We were up and down much of the night, watching the koala right outside our window, in its treetop perch.  It moved around occasionally.  Very nice.  Expensive, however.  But for us, that trip was probably a "once ever", so we didn't want to plan any "maybe we'll do that next time..."

 

The next morning, DH was at the main ticket office before it opened, to get 2 of the 4 daily "Meerkat Experience" tickets.  We got to go inside their huge outdoor "cage", with a zookeeper and a zoo photographer.  They put waterproof tarps on our laps, and pretty soon, some meerkats started jumping around, and on our laps.  We've got one priceless photo of a meerkat in "classic meerkat sentinel position", standing on DH's lap.

That was quite a special experience.  (The zoo has a few different "experiences", and in some cases, they differed by day of the week.)

 

We were in Sydney during those horrible wildfires, so that cramped our style.  A lot.  The hotel kept all but one door locked.  At times, we could barely see the big building across the street from our hotel... in downtown Sydney.  But we mostly felt so bad about what was going on, and it continued for way too long.  Just devastating, literally.

And it was just after our cruise that the White Island volcano erupted in NZ, killing too many and injuring more.  That put a damper on our mood.  I don't think our cruise had offered that excursion (?), but we still had just sailed right by the area a few days earlier.

 

Unfortunately, we had to cancel our tour of that amazing Opera House.  The smoke was getting to us.

(And when we arrived home, on the other side of the planet, about 2 days later, it turned out that I was carried off the plane and then in hospital for 10 days on oxygen.  I had caught RSV, something we'd never heard of before.  Now everyone knows about Covid, flu, *and* RSV. 😱 ) 

 

We'd love to go back, but the way things are going, we are very glad we were at least able to do what we did while we were in NZ, Australia, and on the cruise during that trip.

 

One of our best memories was in Hobart, at an animal sanctuary.  The animals are rescues, and have been determined not to be safe to return to the wild.  The were a bunch of kangaroos hopping off in the distance while we turned our attention to a koala "up close and personal" (before the zoo in Sydney).  Suddenly, DH was whispering in my ear, "<name>, you are *surrounded* by kangaroos!"

Indeed!  There were about 5 or 6 right around me.  Our guide then gave me some approved food to offer them, and they gobbled it up from my hand.  That was unreal!  They were smaller than I was expecting, although full grown.  One had a very little joey in her pouch, peering out.  That really "made the day!" 🙂

 

There was also an oddball activity, hidden away in a large but basic shopping mall (!).

It was a "Flight Experience" and they have a *real* Boeing 737 flight simulator (without movement, but all the controls and visual simulations).

I got DH the long version (90 minutes, I think), so in addition to learning the basics of some of the controls work (there are just too, too many switches to learn a lot of it in one session, of course), he then got to select several airports of his choice for simulated take-offs and landings.

 

We had always been leary of flying into Aspen (so we would drive from Denver), so we chose that as one of them.  Um, right... glad we drove.  There is no good "second chance there", and there are occasional crashes (but not usually with the specially trained commercial pilots).  Not as bad as some in the Himalayas, where the runway ends in an X,000 foot sheer drop, but still...

We also did our home airport, Washington National, etc.

I sat in the "jump seat".  I was offered a few minutes to have a turn, but... I actually found those controls VERY intimidating!  Perhaps I'm starting to lose some marbles, but I may well have felt the same way 20 years ago.  There were buttons and switches *everywhere*. 

It was a bit nervewracking, even knowing we were on the ground, in a simulator.

He/we only "ran off the runway" once upon landing; at least it was at a "safe airport", so "we just ended up on the grassy area near the very end of the runway".  😉

But it does represent the actual airport conditions and location, etc.   At least we didn't "smack into a mountain when trying to land at Aspen" or whatever!

 

Enjoy!

 

GC

[CU64]

4 hours ago, GeezerCouple said:

 

We stayed one night (the first night after the cruise) at the then brand new Hotel *IN* the Sydney Zoo.  We were up and down much of the night, watching the koala right outside our window, in its treetop perch.  It moved around occasionally.  Very nice.  Expensive, however.  But for us, that trip was probably a "once ever", so we didn't want to plan any "maybe we'll do that next time..."

 

The next morning, DH was at the main ticket office before it opened, to get 2 of the 4 daily "Meerkat Experience" tickets.  We got to go inside their huge outdoor "cage", with a zookeeper and a zoo photographer.  They put waterproof tarps on our laps, and pretty soon, some meerkats started jumping around, and on our laps.  We've got one priceless photo of a meerkat in "classic meerkat sentinel position", standing on DH's lap.

That was quite a special experience.  (The zoo has a few different "experiences", and in some cases, they differed by day of the week.)

 

We were in Sydney during those horrible wildfires, so that cramped our style.  A lot.  The hotel kept all but one door locked.  At times, we could barely see the big building across the street from our hotel... in downtown Sydney.  But we mostly felt so bad about what was going on, and it continued for way too long.  Just devastating, literally.

And it was just after our cruise that the White Island volcano erupted in NZ, killing too many and injuring more.  That put a damper on our mood.  I don't think our cruise had offered that excursion (?), but we still had just sailed right by the area a few days earlier.

 

Unfortunately, we had to cancel our tour of that amazing Opera House.  The smoke was getting to us.

(And when we arrived home, on the other side of the planet, about 2 days later, it turned out that I was carried off the plane and then in hospital for 10 days on oxygen.  I had caught RSV, something we'd never heard of before.  Now everyone knows about Covid, flu, *and* RSV. 😱 ) 

 

We'd love to go back, but the way things are going, we are very glad we were at least able to do what we did while we were in NZ, Australia, and on the cruise during that trip.

 

One of our best memories was in Hobart, at an animal sanctuary.  The animals are rescues, and have been determined not to be safe to return to the wild.  The were a bunch of kangaroos hopping off in the distance while we turned our attention to a koala "up close and personal" (before the zoo in Sydney).  Suddenly, DH was whispering in my ear, "<name>, you are *surrounded* by kangaroos!"

Indeed!  There were about 5 or 6 right around me.  Our guide then gave me some approved food to offer them, and they gobbled it up from my hand.  That was unreal!  They were smaller than I was expecting, although full grown.  One had a very little joey in her pouch, peering out.  That really "made the day!" 🙂

 

There was also an oddball activity, hidden away in a large but basic shopping mall (!).

It was a "Flight Experience" and they have a *real* Boeing 737 flight simulator (without movement, but all the controls and visual simulations).

I got DH the long version (90 minutes, I think), so in addition to learning the basics of some of the controls work (there are just too, too many switches to learn a lot of it in one session, of course), he then got to select several airports of his choice for simulated take-offs and landings.

 

We had always been leary of flying into Aspen (so we would drive from Denver), so we chose that as one of them.  Um, right... glad we drove.  There is no good "second chance there", and there are occasional crashes (but not usually with the specially trained commercial pilots).  Not as bad as some in the Himalayas, where the runway ends in an X,000 foot sheer drop, but still...

We also did our home airport, Washington National, etc.

I sat in the "jump seat".  I was offered a few minutes to have a turn, but... I actually found those controls VERY intimidating!  Perhaps I'm starting to lose some marbles, but I may well have felt the same way 20 years ago.  There were buttons and switches *everywhere*. 

It was a bit nervewracking, even knowing we were on the ground, in a simulator.

He/we only "ran off the runway" once upon landing; at least it was at a "safe airport", so "we just ended up on the grassy area near the very end of the runway".  😉

But it does represent the actual airport conditions and location, etc.   At least we didn't "smack into a mountain when trying to land at Aspen" or whatever!

 

Enjoy!

 

GC

Dear GC.

Thank you for your interesting & very enjoyable post. Your experience in Sydney must have been something…what good sports! …And big animal lovers. I smiled reading…

I wish I knew you in person. 😍

[SueMo]

On 3/6/2023 at 5:46 PM, Over from NZ said:

If your cruise ends in Auckland - fly down to Queenstown would be a far better idea if you can extend the holiday (and probably cheaper). 

We are cruising the opposite direction next February, Auckland to Sydney, and we were planning to do what you suggest--fly into Queenstown for a few days pre cruise, then fly to Auckland for another couple days before beginning our cruise.  There are quite a lot of tour operators that offer day trips out of Queenstown.  We have our eyes on some (Shotover Jet boats, cruise & BBQ at Walter Peak, Hooker Valley hike, Arrowtown & Gibbston Valley) .  Is there anything you can suggest as a "must do"?

[Over from NZ]

4 hours ago, SueMo said:

We are cruising the opposite direction next February, Auckland to Sydney, and we were planning to do what you suggest--fly into Queenstown for a few days pre cruise, then fly to Auckland for another couple days before beginning our cruise.  There are quite a lot of tour operators that offer day trips out of Queenstown.  We have our eyes on some (Shotover Jet boats, cruise & BBQ at Walter Peak, Hooker Valley hike, Arrowtown & Gibbston Valley) .  Is there anything you can suggest as a "must do"?

Hi. All depends on what your interests are. If you're into the thrill-seeking stuff like bungy-jumping.. shotover jet etc.. or other things like wineries etc. Seeing the area is probably the big attraction. Will you have a vehicle?