30th wedding anniversary trip of a lifetime!

[grottyrotty]

Hi

Really looking to pick brains here please New Zealand/stop over virgins

We have 3 - 4 weeks to play with in Jan/Feb 2020. We want to fly to New Zealand with a stop over for a few nights on the way and possibly on the way back too.

Considering flying London to LA to pick up a flight to the Cook Islands for 3 nights. Then onto Auckland for 3 weeks in NZ (1 week North Island/2 weeks South Island), then flying onto San Francisco for a couple of nights before heading back to the UK.

So...
- I thought I'd be best going through a travel agent for all this - any suggestions?
- is this do-able, or should I consider other stop overs and if so, where?

Any ideas for NZ itinerary? And what about travel and accommodation in NZ - do they have the equivalent of Travelodge or Premier Inn - reasonable accommodation at reasonable prices?

Would love any information that is forthcoming

Deb

[Mrs Red C]

Probably best via travel agent.

Been twice to New Zealand but last time was 1998 so things will have changed!

We've stopped in LA and Singapore .

Places to see

North Island
Glowworm caves
Sailing in Auckland Harbour
Hot Water Beach, my favourite!
Cape Reinga coach trip with driving down 90 mile beach
Rotorua thermal pools etc

South Island
Milford Sound boat trip
Queenstown for more adventurous trips...
Dunedin - nearby for going to see albatross, amazing!
Helicopter trip up Franz Joseph Glacier with views of Mount Cook

Obviously, some of these things may no longer be available but they were great.

We hired a car for 2 weeks, we stayed in pre booked motel rooms.

Happy planning!

[hideinpockets]

Enjoy! We stayed in motels and hostels when we were in NZ, we were travelling so had limited money, but we actually just booked places when we turned up in the town or the night before! Totally not saying you should do that but it is possible to if you want the flexibility. We were very fluid with our road trip so never knew where we’d end up in the evening so didn’t do too much planning!

Otherwise NZ is beautiful. Definitely spend longer on the South Island than North! But do try and do Hobbiton on the North Island, it was great fun!

I’d always say go and book it yourself because I love the planning and organisation of it all, but otherwise someone like Trialfinders would probably be a good company to speak too ☺️

[grottyrotty]

Thank you

Deb

[grottyrotty]

Finally got the anniversary/retirement trip sorted.

It feels really strange applying for an ESTA and not going to Florida

So, we are flying from Manchester to Heathrow to:
- take a flight to Shanghai for 2 nights
- from Shanghai we fly to New Zealand (planning 8 nights North
Island,
16 nights South Island). Car hire booked but no accommodation
after the 1st night - will hopefully book as we go mmmmm what
could possibly go wrong
- then flying from Christchurch to Auckland where we pick up a flight
to San Francisco - hotel booked for 3 nights
- then flight to Washington DC - hotel booked for 4 nights
- then home with a week to get over the holiday before starting a
new part time job

So, ESTA application has changed since I last did it. You now have to upload a pic of your passport

I need to check out a transit visa for Shanghai - anyone done this? It's very confusing!

And then the New Zealand visa.

This is planning with a capital P just for the damned visas

Deb

[Guest]

I used to live down under, albeit Australia but travelled to NZ a few times for work and we did a big holiday there once.

You definitely don’t need to use a travel agent, it is all easily done by yourself, I would have no issues with that, but I would be a bit concerned about the no accommodation plan. This is peak holiday season in Australia / NZ, their long summer holidays are longer than in Uk and will be most of January and February. I would at least get some accommodation booked.

The big trip we did focused on the South Island. Queenstown is beautiful and worth a visit in the summer even though it is primarily a winter sports resort, but we spent a happy few days there in February. We also went to see the sounds Milford and Doubtful. We also visited Christchurch but it doesn’t need long, after that we drove up to Kaikoura for whale watching, we stayed in these tree houses and it was magical. We finally drove up to Marlborough and spent a few days touring the vineyards.

hapukulodge/accommodations

I was interested to see you were thinking of the Cook Islands in your first post. We are having a trip back in 2021 and are planning on the Cook Islands so it would have been lovely to find someone else that was going or had been.

I thought a NZ visa was issued on arrival for UK tourists. I could be wrong, we have NZ permanent residency so didn’t need tourist visa.

[klr15]

No advice in terms of the trip, but if you haven’t already applied for your estas, you don’t need to upload a passport photo, you can input the information manually, much easier.

[grottyrotty]

Thanks Claudette.

As of 1st Oct you have to have a visa for NZ and also pay a tourist levy too. Works out at $47 NZD each. Applied for ours and got them straight away.

ESTAs applied for so fingers crossed no hitch with those. Glad to see the price hasn't gone up since 2017 when we last got them.

China transit visa - seems we pick one up when we get to Shanghai... just a tad concerned about this one.

I like the sound of tree house accommodation - will have a look.

We've booked the ferry from North to South Island and I've just booked a apartment hotel in Wellington for the night before the crossing. It's a studio with a washer/dryer so will give us opportunity to do some laundry after 10 days 🤣

Deb

[grottyrotty]

Oops sorry - 're the Cook Islands - we decided it was adding too many flights so decided to have 2 nights in Shanghai and a couple of extra nights in USA

Deb