Suggestions for ports~ Picton, Wellington, Napier, Dunedin

[bigsky]

We've gone on many cruises, but first time to NZ. We'll be cruising out Feb 9th. We have friends that live in Auckland, so we'll spend 3 days there first, fly to Sydney and spend a few more nights before cruising back to NZ.

We usually do excursions on our own instead of with the ship. I usually have things figured out by now as well. Anything that are must do's in each port?

Any places you reccommend booking excursions thru?

 

Thank you!

[sailingkiwi]

What are your interests? Budget? How active are you? Any disabilities?

 

There is so much to do in NZ!

[bigsky]

On 7/6/2024 at 2:56 PM, sailingkiwi said:

What are your interests? Budget? How active are you? Any disabilities?

 

There is so much to do in NZ!

We like to do a variety of things. We enjoy sailing, seeing wild life… we’re open.

no limitations. Don’t really have a budget, also dont want to spend a fortune. Reasonable priced excursions.

 

Guess it’s not real specific. Thanks for suggestions 

[DTtravelers]

Hi BigSky:

 

Since you are a bit of a DYI type, as are we...  here are some notes from our March trip.

 

Tauranga: Just walk to the beach and swim!  Miles of beautiful beach and not very many people.

 

Gisborne -

Climb the hill.  Excellent views of the ocean.  On the way back, don't forget to count how many logging trucks pass you by.  400 per day (that is NOT a typo).  There is also a steam train ride.

 

Napier -

We took a shuttle to the National Aquarium of New Zealand along the shore.  We payed extra for the back scenes tour and enjoyed it.  They have about 15 small blue penguins that we watched for a lll-ooo-nnn-ggg time (my wife's favorite).  After that, we just walked back to town through the botanical garden, and then spent time wandering through town.  An excellent day you can do on your own.

 

Wellington -

Do not miss Te Papa museum.  You can easily spend hours and hours there.  One of the best museums we have ever seen.  You will get at least a taste of Maori culture.  Warning: It is HUGE.

 

Christchurch - (we got to spend 4 days here)

We spent half a day at the excellent Botanical Garden.  If you want to float the punts on the Avon river, book the day before.  We enjoyed it.  If you are into wine, do a wine tour to Waipara, but note it is an hour north of town.  The wine at Greystone was "knock your socks off" 

 

If you stop at Picton, you can arrange a wine tour of the Marlborough region.  We used Marlborough Wines Tours and only got to taste 27 different wines at 5 different wineries.  I discovered that the NZ Pinot Gris' were actually my favorite. 

 

We missed Dunedin because of weather, but that was the one place that we really had no plans.

 

Other notes (and thoughts):

 

We were fortunate to be able to do a land tour, have time on our own, then do a cruise to Sydney.  The land tour plus cruise was perfect with no overlap.  We really enjoyed both.

 

My take was that the land tour (Mondumo) gave us a "bite" of each place along with a lot more exposure to Maori culture, while the cruise gave us more of a "nibble" of each place, but zero Maori culture (20% of the population). 

 

The time on our own included Waipara and Marlborough wine tours and travel on the Coastal Pacific and Northern Explorer scenic rail, and the Interislander between islands.  Christchurch to Auckland.  Very relaxing. 

 

 

 

 

[Penny Hansen]

Hi BigSky, there are 5 of us that will be cruising out of Sydney on Feb. 9th also.  Are you on Ovation of the Seas? I am just beginning to look at excursions for our port of calls.

[Cleocruiser]

We always do excursions on our own. We were on the Ovation in Feb24.

 

We loved the rafting tour we did in Napier. It was through Raftfish.com 

It was very mild and we got to see some authentic New Zealand countryside.

Deon picks you up and drops you off right at the ship

.

Best tour we had in New Zealand hands down was with Suzie in Wellington.

http://www.utourswellington.nz/   It's a private tour and she takes you wherever you

want to go. She knows when the cable car is not busy and she pretty much covered 

the whole city in a few hours. Also picks up at the ship. She is very knowledgeable.

We stopped for lunch and ice cream along the way. Highly recommended! She books up fast.

 

Also recommend a tour with Matt in Sydney.  http://sydneyguidedtours.com/  

He is a wealth of knowledge and gets you out of the city for the day. Lots of 

wildlife encounters and nature. We got to pet koalas and kangaroos. 

 

The other tour we loved was www.bluemountaintours.com.au.

 

Hope that helps. Just make sure any tour you take will refund you if you don't make it to port.

We missed Auckland due to the crew not being able to get the lifeboat locked from the tender port the day before. We got a refund form our tour guide, but many other lost a lot of money.

 

Have a great time!

[bigsky]

On 7/17/2024 at 8:13 PM, DTtravelers said:

Hi BigSky:

 

Since you are a bit of a DYI type, as are we...  here are some notes from our March trip.

 

Tauranga: Just walk to the beach and swim!  Miles of beautiful beach and not very many people.

 

Gisborne -

Climb the hill.  Excellent views of the ocean.  On the way back, don't forget to count how many logging trucks pass you by.  400 per day (that is NOT a typo).  There is also a steam train ride.

 

Napier -

We took a shuttle to the National Aquarium of New Zealand along the shore.  We payed extra for the back scenes tour and enjoyed it.  They have about 15 small blue penguins that we watched for a lll-ooo-nnn-ggg time (my wife's favorite).  After that, we just walked back to town through the botanical garden, and then spent time wandering through town.  An excellent day you can do on your own.

 

Wellington -

Do not miss Te Papa museum.  You can easily spend hours and hours there.  One of the best museums we have ever seen.  You will get at least a taste of Maori culture.  Warning: It is HUGE.

 

Christchurch - (we got to spend 4 days here)

We spent half a day at the excellent Botanical Garden.  If you want to float the punts on the Avon river, book the day before.  We enjoyed it.  If you are into wine, do a wine tour to Waipara, but note it is an hour north of town.  The wine at Greystone was "knock your socks off" 

 

If you stop at Picton, you can arrange a wine tour of the Marlborough region.  We used Marlborough Wines Tours and only got to taste 27 different wines at 5 different wineries.  I discovered that the NZ Pinot Gris' were actually my favorite. 

 

We missed Dunedin because of weather, but that was the one place that we really had no plans.

 

Other notes (and thoughts):

 

We were fortunate to be able to do a land tour, have time on our own, then do a cruise to Sydney.  The land tour plus cruise was perfect with no overlap.  We really enjoyed both.

 

My take was that the land tour (Mondumo) gave us a "bite" of each place along with a lot more exposure to Maori culture, while the cruise gave us more of a "nibble" of each place, but zero Maori culture (20% of the population). 

 

The time on our own included Waipara and Marlborough wine tours and travel on the Coastal Pacific and Northern Explorer scenic rail, and the Interislander between islands.  Christchurch to Auckland.  Very relaxing. 

 

 

 

 

Thank you...We'll be in Wellington, Picton and Dunedin from your stops...also Napier.

I'm torn with Napier. What you did sounds perfect, but someone mentioned rafting. More research. Thank you for your ideas. This helps!

[bigsky]

On 7/31/2024 at 10:24 AM, Penny Hansen said:

Hi BigSky, there are 5 of us that will be cruising out of Sydney on Feb. 9th also.  Are you on Ovation of the Seas? I am just beginning to look at excursions for our port of calls.

Yep! I replied on our roll call! : )

[bigsky]

On 8/13/2024 at 11:44 AM, Cleocruiser said:

We always do excursions on our own. We were on the Ovation in Feb24.

 

We loved the rafting tour we did in Napier. It was through Raftfish.com 

It was very mild and we got to see some authentic New Zealand countryside.

Deon picks you up and drops you off right at the ship

.

Best tour we had in New Zealand hands down was with Suzie in Wellington.

http://www.utourswellington.nz/   It's a private tour and she takes you wherever you

want to go. She knows when the cable car is not busy and she pretty much covered 

the whole city in a few hours. Also picks up at the ship. She is very knowledgeable.

We stopped for lunch and ice cream along the way. Highly recommended! She books up fast.

 

Also recommend a tour with Matt in Sydney.  http://sydneyguidedtours.com/  

He is a wealth of knowledge and gets you out of the city for the day. Lots of 

wildlife encounters and nature. We got to pet koalas and kangaroos. 

 

The other tour we loved was www.bluemountaintours.com.au.

 

Hope that helps. Just make sure any tour you take will refund you if you don't make it to port.

We missed Auckland due to the crew not being able to get the lifeboat locked from the tender port the day before. We got a refund form our tour guide, but many other lost a lot of money.

 

Have a great time!

Rafting sounds fun. Another posted an idea as well that sounded fun. 

 

That link for Suzie didn't work. Nothing came up. Was she expensive?

We're going to fly into Auckland for 4 days to stay with a friend that lives there. Then we'll fly to Austrailia to spend a few days pre cruise. We have one day we'll be watching a sailing event. Then I do want to go to a zoo.  Have to ck that link out! Thank you!!

[boeckli]

2 hours ago, bigsky said:

That link for Suzie didn't work. Nothing came up. 

 

Try https://utourswellington.nz/ 

[bigsky]

On 7/17/2024 at 8:13 PM, DTtravelers said:

Hi BigSky:

 

Since you are a bit of a DYI type, as are we...  here are some notes from our March trip.

 

Tauranga: Just walk to the beach and swim!  Miles of beautiful beach and not very many people.

 

Gisborne -

Climb the hill.  Excellent views of the ocean.  On the way back, don't forget to count how many logging trucks pass you by.  400 per day (that is NOT a typo).  There is also a steam train ride.

 

Napier -

We took a shuttle to the National Aquarium of New Zealand along the shore.  We payed extra for the back scenes tour and enjoyed it.  They have about 15 small blue penguins that we watched for a lll-ooo-nnn-ggg time (my wife's favorite).  After that, we just walked back to town through the botanical garden, and then spent time wandering through town.  An excellent day you can do on your own.

 

 

 

 

 

Were the shuttles close by after getting off the ship? Were the botanical gardens close to the aquarium? Shuttle back? 

[DTtravelers]

Hi bigsky:

 

The ship arranged free shuttles from the ship to downtown to the aquarium and back.  We chose to walk back to town as there is a park and oceanfront all the way back, including the botanical gardens.  After visiting the town, we rode the shuttle back to the ship.  Easy peasy.  Don't know if all lines do the same, but the shuttles seemed to be specifically for this purpose.