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Auckland roundtrip January 13, 2018 review


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Three week tour of Australia and New Zealand in January 2018.

I am 63 and my husband is 65.

We splurged and flew Business Class with Air New Zealand. What class!

Our land tour of Australia was arranged through Kensington Tours. Loved the small groups.

Visited Sydney, Yulara (the Outback) and Cairns. 7 nights and 8 days total.

Boarded the Sun Princess on Saturday 1/13/18 in Auckland. We had room B404, a mini suite. We love the size of the mini's and especially the ones on the Sun. This is the "square" shaped mini not the long thin mini. I much prefer these as they feel larger. With the long thin mini you have to walk past the end of the bed (very narrow) to get anywhere in the room.

The Sun Princess is old and is showing its age. We found lots of things that could be done to make her feel nicer such as the carpet in our room. The carpet itself appeared rather new but it hadn't been cut to fit the room. Next to the sliding door the carpet just curled against the edge. Very sloppy. See picture.

Next day was Bay of Islands. We took the Princess excursion - Puketi Kauri Forest, KeriKeri and Meetinghouse. The meetinghouse was the highlight of the tour though it was all beautiful.

The next 3 days were at sea. It was supposed to be only 2 but we hit some weather. 30 to 36 foot waves at the worst time. Not fun. BEWARE THE TASMAN SEA!

Sydney was next. Since we had been there earlier on our trip we took the ferry over to Manly Beach and walked around The Corso.

After another day at sea, Sunday found us scenic cruising in the Fiordlands. The weather was decent. Cool with some sun and a little overcast. Overall beautiful and worth the trip. Reminds me a lot of Tracy Arm in Alaska. Same kind of majestic beauty.

Monday was Port Chalmers/Dunedin (dun - eadun). We took a tour with Good Company Tours. Because our time in port had been shortened, our roundtrip train ride to Taeiri Gorge became a one way train and one way bus. It actually worked out better as we got to see more of the beautiful countryside.

Our next port was Wellington. This was my favorite port. Very walkable city. We walked over 7 miles according to my phone. We took the free Princess shuttle to downtown. We headed down the street and found the cable car. Beautiful trip straight up the side of the hill. Great shot of the bay and downtown from up there. We opted to walk back down through the Botanical Garden. You end up in the government section of town but you are only a few blocks back to where you were dropped off. We continued walking down the shoreline and went to Te Papa, the national museum. Fantastic! We probably spent over an hour and could easily have stayed 3 or 4. Wonderful display about Gallipoli.

Wednesday was Napier. Caught a shuttle to town and walked around. Very pretty town in pastel colors. We also visited the National Aquarium of New Zealand.

Next was Tauranga. We took the ships tour to Hobbitton. I was a little skeptical at first but this tour was worth every penny. It is an hours drive from the ship with not an awful lot to see on the way. Once there I must have taken about 100 pictures! Our guide was Nikko and he did a fantastic job of telling stories of how it was built and the filming of The Lord of The Rings movies.

Back to Auckland. Here is where Princess screws up. This cruise is actually 3 possible cruises. You can get on in Sydney and come back to Sydney. You can get on in Sydney and get off in Auckland. You can get on in Auckland and come back to Auckland. We did Auckland roundtrip. There were NO disembarkation tours for those of us getting off in Auckland. As I am from near San Francisco, this left me with 11 (yes, eleven) hours to fill till my flight with no help from Princess. We talked to a number of people who would have bought something to fill the hours til their flight to the States if Princess had provided it. The only thing Princess offered for purchase was a bus to the airport. It left at 9 am. My flight was a 8 pm that night.

We walked off the ship by 9 am and went over to the Ferry Building about a block away. For $10 NZD per piece, we left our luggage with the place that sells tours. We then bought tickets for the Hop-On, Hop-Off Bus. We spent the rest of the day touring on our own including a long stop at the National War Museum up on the hill. Well worth the time if you have it.

Back at the harbor, we bought tickets for the Sky Bus to get us to the airport. We had to walk about 1 1/2 blocks with our luggage to get the bus but our price was $36 NZD for 2 people. I was told a taxi would be at least $95 NZD.

This trip was a bucket list trip and we are both so glad we did it.

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Thank you for your interesting review. Pleased you enjoyed your bucket list trip.

 

We have had a lot of cyclonic rough seas this summer, so you were unlucky to experience a rough Tasman. However, it can be calm. Glad you got to see the beautiful fjordlands, as some ships have missed it this season.

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