Rangers4me

I am planning to spend 13 days/12 nights in New Zealand in December. Here is my current itinerary - many which is open ended.

Any suggestions of hotels or any changes that you think I should make?

Day 1: Land in Auckland - travel to Waiheke Island - where to stay?
Day 2: Explore Waiheke Island - where to stay?
Day 3: Drive to Taupo - Waitomo Caves - Hilton Lake Taupo
Day 4: Taupo - Tongariro Alpine Crossing - Hilton Lake Taupo
Day 5: Taupo - Hot Springs or Rotorua - Hilton Lake Taupo
Day 6: Taupo to Hawke's Bay - Biking & Wine Tasting - Farm at Cape Kidnappers
Day 7: Taupo to Hawke's Bay - Kiwi Exploration - Farm at Cape Kidnappers
Day 8: Fly to Te Anau - Where to stay?
Day 9: Day in Te Anau - Milford Sound - Where to stay?
Day 10: Drive to Queenstown - Sofitel
Day 11: Queenstown - Sofitel
Day 12: Queenstown - Sofitel
Day 13: Queenstown - Fly Home

Mwenenzi

Have you looked at the many other threads on the same topic?

The usual comment is you trying to visit to many places in too short a time.
Travel times between destinations can be significant.

Late December is a peak of the peak. Accomadation may be hard to get, unless you have already booked.

NZbutterfly

Sounds like you're aiming high end so waiheke there's delamore lodge. Can't think of any hotel brands. Otherwise book a bach (but you'd be doing your own catering) has some nice places or try wotif.co.nz

Te Anau Fiordland lodge might be the place to stay and you could make Milford a day trip.

PsiFighter37

I'm also doing NZ in December. I would definitely get on booking accommodations quickly...I booked all of my places a few months ago at the latest.

A couple of comments from me based on my research for my own trip:

-I presume you are going back to Auckland first from Waiheke Island before proceeding to Taupo?
-The drive from Taupo to Tongariro isn't far, but after hiking 18 miles I highly doubt you will want to spend 1+ hour each way driving there and back (or even sitting on a bus). We ended up booking time at the Chateau Tongariro to avoid having to make that trip.
-You cannot fly directly to Te Anau - you will have to fly to Queenstown and drive (about 2 hours or so)
-I think that is a lot of time in Queenstown - while I know it's the adventure sports capital of the world (or that is my sense), it's not a hugely populated town. I'd probably add more time to Te Anau or see if taking a trip to Mt. Cook for a day or 2 would be worthwhile.

Travel K

In Auckland or Waiheke, the best of the best, if it is available, is St Mary's residence. Waiheke has Delamore or Boatshed. In Auckland CBD, Skycity Grand is really good.

If you plan on going this December, you need to book immediately. Most places are full now.

Rangers4me

Thanks for the suggestions! Do you think this makes more sense?

Day 1 Auckland/Waiheke (Day Trip)-Overnight Auckland
Day 2 Taupo-Overnight Taupo
Day 3 Taupo-Overnight Taupo
Day 4 Taupo-Overnight Taupo
Day 5 Taupo/Hawkes Bay-Overnight Hawke's Bay
Day 6 Hawkes Bay-Overnight Hawke's Bay
Day 7 Hawkes Bay/Fly to Queenstown/Drive to Fiorland-Overnight Fiorland
Day 8 Fiorland/Milford Sound-Overnight Fiorland
Day 9 Fiorland/Queenstown-Overnight Queenstown
Day 10 Queenstown/Franz Josef-Overnight Franz Josef
Day 11 Franz Josef/Queenstown-Overnight Queenstown
Day 12 Queenstown-Overnight Queenstown
Day 13 Depart

PsiFighter37

Queenstown to Franz Josef shows up as a 4.5-5 hour drive (and everyone here says drives inherently take longer than they map out)...thinking that doing a quick turnaround will be tiring, and you may not get to enjoy the area as much as you'd like. We ended up booking 2 nights in Franz Josef primarily so that we would have plenty of time to do a heli-hike and still have enough time to explore the surrounding area.

worldiswide

If you are staying in Taupo a couple of other suggestions. Go to Orekei Karako for geothermal instead of Rotorua ..it's closer and less people. DeBretts hot springs is right next to the Hilton, can walk. See if you can book lunch at Huka Lodge. If they are not full, they will book you for lunch. If you doing Tongariro agree you might want to stay there at the chateau rather than driving back to Taupo. Huka jet and then you dont need to do shotover in Queenstown.

Franz josef and glaciers is a special part of NZ. Don't cut your time short to race back to Queenstown. You do need 2 nights if you want to fit in helI hike ..you can't drive do the hike and drive back to q town in a day...and you don't really want too..

What are your interests and what do you most want to see. You have a lot of variety and levels of accommodation listed.

Milford, drive,bus, one way and book flight back.,busy time and flight needs to be booked in advance..or stay overnight on a boat in Milford to see and experience when everyone else has hone home.

Also don't know if you are over Xmas, but plan accordingly since lots is shut down Milford does run on Xmas.

Less places and more time to enjoy them will enhance your experience best parts of NZ are small towns, short walks, mountain and lake scenery. You can't do it all in one trip no matter how hard you try.

Go to the Gannett colony near Cape Kidnappers in Hawkes Bay.

Rangers4me

Thanks for all the suggestions! Maybe I should ask this differently - if these are the things that I want to see/do - what's the most efficient way to do in 13 days/12 nights?

Flying into Aukland
1. Black Water Rating / Worm Caves
2. Tongariro National Park
3. Hawke's Bay
4. Milford Sound
5. Franz Josef
6. Queenstown

worldiswide

Ok.. you say these are what you u want to see..some are easy to get to and see and others The actual thing you want to do takes time.. meaning

Are you doing the Tongariro crossing. If so, it's a full day just to do that activity. And you have to be there the day before and maybe night of., The same for franz josef and the helI hike and Milford. So that's half of your days right there.where were you going to go rafting? That's a half day at l east.

Why Hawkes Bay. Are there special wineries or are you looking for the experience of farm at Cape kidnappers. There is wine and nice lodges on the south island

You have an itinerary that's split between both islands and kind of disjointed. How are you getting between islands? Are you self driving? Do you have a navigator? Used to driving on the left?

Lastly, what do you want to do in q town. Adrenalin activities.. otherwise much better towns in NZ.

And December is busy time in NZ. Your key activities like Milford esp the flight, heli-hike should be booked in advance and accommodation as well.

My two cents

PsiFighter37

I personally would recommend letting go of Hawke's Bay - I was thinking of a way to fit it into our itinerary (which is actually pretty similar to yours, except starting in the South Island), and it frankly didn't really work out too well. The other issue is that the airport you need to fly out of (ZQN) is between Milford Sound and Franz Josef - so there is really no good efficient way of hitting all of the sites. Here's a rough cut for you of how I would try to fit this in:

Night 1 - stay in Auckland. Probably a good idea to rest up after the plane ride out to NZ instead of hitting the road right away.

Night 2 - stay in Taupo. For Day 2 and most of Day 3, you can probably fit in the rafting and the glowworm caves.

Nights 3 & 4 - stay in Tongariro National Park. You can drive up from Taupo later in Day 3 and arrive at the chateau for the night. Hike all of Day 4

Night 5 - stay in Napier. It's a 2.5-hour drive (at least on Google Maps) to Napier, and you can probably see a couple things.

Night 6 - stay in Christchurch. You should be able to fly NPE-CHC (probably via WLG)...perhaps a bit counterintuitive, but it will be more interesting to drive to Franz Josef from Christchurch instead of doing a round-trip on the same route to/from Queenstown (and it's about the same amount of time).

Nights 7 and 8: stay in Franz Josef. The drive from Christchurch is ~4.5 hours (on map), so you will spend most of Day 7 driving, but you can always stop at Arthur's Pass to do some hiking if you want. Feel free to staple another night onto here if you want.

Nights 9-12: stay in Queenstown. The drive to Queenstown is also ~4.5 hours, so most of Day 9 will be driving. Plenty of time to do activities. From ZQN you can look at flights to Milford Sound and see if there are any that would get you an overnight trip. Given the driving time from Milford Sound is nearly 4 hours (by map, so account for it being longer), I think that it doesn't make sense to drive all the way out there.

Kiwi Flyer

Even flying Hawkes Bay to Queenstown isn't the easiest requiring multiple flights and potentially long transits. Easiest is NPE-CHC-ZQN if schedules cooperate, otherwise NPE-AKL-ZQN.

SeriouslyLost

Christchurch to Franz in 4.5 hours? Not a hope IMO - not for someone that is seeking to have a holiday, enjoy the drive, and isn't familiar with driving in NZ. If they're planing on enjoying the drive, stopping every so often, and accounting for the usual driving patterns out there, I'd call it an 8 hour drive easily.

I'd almost be tempted to suggest taking the TranzAlpine train from CHC to Greymouth (does it still run?!) and then pick up a rental car and down to FJ, eventually dropping it off in Queenstown.

Mwenenzi

You still do not seem to be considering this (see the posts above)

Runs every day. The Greymouth railway station is also a rental car depot

PsiFighter37

Train is a good idea as you suggest...I'm driving it (and well aware it will be a haul) because we want to stop in Arthur's Pass for a short hike along the way.