ademanuele

We are spending some time in New Zealand in January 2025 (as part of a round the world trip) and will be visiting the NZ for the first time. We will be visiting the south of the island and are considering a cruise. Any recommendations on a cruise on Doubtful Sound vs Milford Sound? Is it worth doing an overnight cruise or are we better off staying in a hotel and just doing a day cruise?

RafKa

Disclaimer: never done the Doubtful Sound.

I think the determining factor might be your budget: you can find Milford Sound day cruises to suit every budget. Both day cruise options will take you a full day setting off from Te Anau, with the difference that for Milford, you do the driving part yourself, whereas in Doubtful, you bus your way after crossing Lake Manapouri. The other difference is that your boat is likely to be the only one on Doubtful Sound.

I personally think a day cruise is plenty, but others might disagree. Use the extra day to do a glow worm cave tour from Te Anau.

k2o

I was in NZ last month and I did take an overnight Doubtful Sound cruise. It was definitely worth it. I was in Queenstown and was picked up and transported to Te Anau with a few others. The bus ride was interesting as the driver is also one of the tour guides so he gives lots of good info on the area one is driving through and also what to expect.
There was a ferry and then the ship that we cruised on. The scenery through the fjords was wonderful and I was lucky that the 1st day was sunshine and blue skies..but that meant the waterfalls on the steep mountains were mostly dry and pretty much rock beds...but they were plentiful. During the night we were blessed with a rain storm which was pretty cool to experience on the boat. By morning all those dry rock beds miraculously become waterfalls. It was a really a cool experience.
I booked through Realnz.com

worldiswide

You can't go wrong with either cruise. We've done Milford day, milford overnight and doubtful day as well as an aborted 2d doubtful experience due to flooding and the road washed out a couple of years ago.

Some things to consider

Will you be based in Queenstown or Te Anu to start the journey?

Are you driving yourself to Milford? Or booking a tour?

Doubtful is a really special place and the ride through the pass to get there is really beautiful. I'm not sure they do it anymore but we also visited the manopouri power station as part of the tour. It was pretty interesting.

There will be many more boats and people at Milford than Doubtful. It was one of the reasons we did the overnight at Milford when there are way less boats than during the day and we like the peace and quiet

You have the option to drive or bus to Milford one way and fly back to Queenstown which saves time but also gives you a different view experience each way. Well worth the price to fly one way. Most who were getting on the bus wished they were flying.

Real Journeys runs a bunch of tours to both places. Good place to start.

What else are you planning on south island.

ademanuele

Thanks for all the responses. We are spending 40 days in South Island and will hopefully get a good feel for the place. My current thinking is 3 nights in Te Anau and drive to Milford Sound and spend the day there including a cruise and hiking. Then possibly another cruise to Doubtful Sound, also hope to see the glow worm caves and explore the area. Next stop Stewart Island…

ps I understand Milford is likely to be busy, I guess we should get there fairly early? What time do the car parks start to fill up (mid-February)?

JamesBigglesworth

The buses leave from ~8:30am so you want to be ahead of them if you're driving yourself. So long as you're on the road by 8am you'll be ahead of most of them.

For any of the sounds, near most forest rivers on either Island, or the entire West Coast, TAKE GOOD INSECT REPELLANT. The insects are small, but they are vicious and the operate in armed gangs. They *will* mug you and drain you dry of blood in under 90 seconds. Never leave a vehicle window open in those areas.

worldiswide

40 days is great! you will be able to do and see a lot on the island. We have also done Stewart Island. Are you thinking ferry from Bluff or flight from Invercargill.. Its pretty quiet on the island.. is hiking and the natural park your main interests. Te Anu is a nice place to base yourself for Milford and Doubtful. there are also one day (its really about a half day of hiking) Milford trek tours you can do from Te Anu. Since you have so much time would also recommend the southern scenic route drive. Lots of places to stop along the way. How are you building your 40 day plan?

ademanuele

We love hiking and nature and our trip has quite a bit of hiking, including a three day guided walk in Abel Tasman National Park. I have attached a map showing places we plan to visit on our trip (based on speaking to friends and online research). We had initially planned the ferry to Stewart Island but been advised that it can be a rough crossing, currently planning the flight from Invercargill but would be interested on the experiences of anyone who has taken the ferry...

worldiswide

What a great trip. Abel Tasman is beautiful and pretty easy as NZ tramping goes. Did you look at any of the other national parks multi day hikes? Abel Tasman can be navigated on your own..some of the others I would want a guide. I've done routeburn which was 3 days vs the 4 for milford. Queen Charlotte is also interesting.

ademanuele

We are staying at the Bay of Many Coves and will explore Queen Charlotte from there. We are also staying 3 nights at Arthur's Pass Nat. Park, any recommendations on where to stay? Apart from Abel Tasman, we are only looking for at most half day hikes. We have decided to stay only one night in Blenheim, have not done much reading yet but would like to visit a vineyard that produces Pinot Gris, some more reading needed!

ademanuele

We are staying at the Bay of Many Coves and will explore Queen Charlotte from there. We are also staying 3 nights at Arthur's Pass Nat. Park, any recommendations on where to stay? Apart from Abel Tasman, we are only looking for at most half day hikes. We have decided to stay only one night in Blenheim, have not done much research but would like to visit a vineyard that produces Pinot Gris, some more reading needed!

worldiswide

Have not stayed at Arthur Park so can't recommend. Are you planning anytime in Nelson? Nice town great weather a nice Saturday morning food/art Market and surrounding area includes farewell spit a sand dune/bird sanctuary and Te Waikoropupū Springs, some of the clearest water anywhere besidezof course Abel Tasman that you ate alrrady visiting. There's a nice short uphill walk called the center of NZ.

I realize you have a lot of time to explore the island and it's always a balance of how long to stay in one place vs being constantly on the move to see the next attraction. We've found we e never had enough time for everything we planned and wanted to do. Even we have done all our planning a visit to the I-site on each town we visited always yielded something we had not thought about doing and added to our itinerary.

ademanuele

Thanks for the tips. We are planning one night in Nelson (after Abel Tasman), and possibly one night before, am considering Motueka as an option as it is closer to Abel Tasman and also gives us the opportunity to go up to Te Waikoropupu Springs and drive up towards Collingwood (if anyone has been there would welcome your thoughts).

We are trying to spend 3 nights in quite a few places so that we have time to explore.

ademanuele

worldiswide we have not come across the I-site network, just googled it (I wrongly assumed it was a camper site stop, we will rent a car!). Would you recommend using I-site?

worldiswide

Farewell spit is near Collingwood. The eco tours to the spit leave from there.

I site is the visitor network throughout NZ. Every town of any size will have an isite location on the main street. They are a wealth of local information including maps attractions etc. Even though we will have planned out an area we always stop in to see if there is anything else we might have missed and want to add to our time. Moteuka is a pretty small town and yes it is closer to Abel Tasman but I'd still say Nelson is worth a day or two ..there's a lot to.do that can be covered in a couple of days.