I stayed at Fiordland Lodge for 3 nights and from there we drove down to Milford Sound and did a cruise on Doubtful Sound - the latter was by far the most spectacular. You do need a few days here to give the weather a chance to brighten up.

The Lodge was the most expensive place we stayed during our month of driving around NZ. We enjoyed our time there, the design was superb, the service excellent and we had some nice meals and wines. However, I'm not sure that NZ is really the place for pricey places like this - we actually preferred staying at the clean and modern family-run motels and going out to restaurants than the fancier place. We also stayed at a wonderful self-catering place right in the middle of the Blenheim area vineyards, bought our own food and wines and ate facing the iconic label of Cloudy Bay. For real.