Jump to content

Wellington Tour


semlohah
 Share

Recommended Posts

We will be in Wellington all day. We can do a full day tour or just a half day and wander the city. i want to see Te Papa, the Beehive, and St Peters. I ambivalent about the cable car having heard of long lines. I have not seen Hobbit movies so Weta Cave doesn't seem too interesting. Feel free to set me straight or make suggestions. We also like wine or microbreweries.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You won't need to organise a tour to do what you want to see. Te Papa could be considered within walking distance of the ship if you are fit. Certainly a short taxi ride.

 

Consider doing this then going up to the National War Museum on Tarinaki Street and doing the guided tour ($10pp). This is well worth it.

 

The cable car is nothing special but the gardens at the top are lovely if you are into that type of thing.

 

Parliament is also within walking distance and the tour is great.

 

In reality I would allocate 2 hours for Te Papa (maybe more if you like to linger). 1.5 for the war museum and and hour for parliament.

 

If you are going to walk then I would

 

- walk along the water front to Te Papa

- head up taranaki St to war memorial

- walk from there to St Peters

- walk down the hill, through the main part of town to Parliament

- head back to the ship

 

This route will get you through the main shopping areas of Wellington (Willis St / Lampton Quay). It is also lovely around the water front etc.

 

It will also take you past a number of bars that sell micro brewery beer - check out http://craftbeercapital.com/ for details.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We will be in Wellington all day. We can do a full day tour or just a half day and wander the city. i want to see Te Papa, the Beehive, and St Peters. I ambivalent about the cable car having heard of long lines. I have not seen Hobbit movies so Weta Cave doesn't seem too interesting. Feel free to set me straight or make suggestions. We also like wine or microbreweries.

We leave on our cruise next week, and for Wellington I pre-booked this half-day tour. They added a bus with a pick-up at the port for our ship. They cover much of what you listed, and then leave half the day for wandering around. I can't vouch for them directly as we haven't been there yet, but their TA ratings were good and they've been good so far emailing back and forth.

 

http://www.wellingtonsightseeingtours.co.nz/tour/wellington-city-sights-coastline-tour/

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As another alternative...we contacted the local tourist office (site below) and had a great walking tour of Wellington that still left us plenty of time to do things on our own. The tour ran about 2 1/2 hours.

 

http://www.walkwellington.org.nz/

 

The cost is $20 NZD per person, so very cheap especially with the exchange rate. If you look at the site you'll see they run a special walking tour when cruise ships are in just for the passengers. They meet at the train station, instead of downtown at the I-Site. The train station was very close to the pier, just check it out on google earth. It was maybe 2-3 blocks.

 

My husband and I sent an email and signed up for the walk and it turned out we were the only ones who did so we had a private tour all to ourselves.

 

Our guide, John, was a retired foreign service worker and he was great to talk to. We saw all the sites and then he pointed us in the direction of the Te Papa museum where we spent a lot of time before returning to the ship.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A couple of tips for you. Do book any of your independent touring as soon as you can. NZ is incredibly busy this summer, so if there's something you want to do, lock it in now! You may not get space if you try and book it on the day. The I-SITE will know what's still available on any given day.

 

Weta's great if you're interested in how movies get made - they've also just opened a new Thunderbirds experience as they're making the revamped Thunderbirds programme for ITV - great one to do with kids, or if you're fond of the puppet-y originals!

 

Wellington is really walkable, so if you do end up at Te Papa, you're very close to craft beer heaven. Head upstairs to the Fork and Brewer (1 minute walk from the I-SITE Information Centre) and order one of their tasting trays. There's about 40 beers on tap and they brew onsite as well. Or right next to Te Papa is Mac's Brewery - a bit big in scale to be 'craft' now, but one of the early breweries to take on the big guys.

 

If you want to take the Cable Car, just schedule it for the afternoon. It's a nice way to get to the top, and then walk back down through the Gardens to Parliament Buildings.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Te Papa was great - I highly recommend it. If you are interested in nature and New Zealand flora and fauna, Zealandia was a great stop too.

 

Zealandia has a shuttle that picks you up from the top of the cable car. Visit their website for details.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just wondering if i waned to do a self walking tour and wanted to see Te papa, cable car, parliament building and st Pauls, what would be best course to take and see 1st to last

Thanks in advance for help

I really don't know, but here's some walking tour maps that might help...

 

http://www.gpsmycity.com/gps-tour-guides/wellington-430.html

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 months later...
We leave on our cruise next week, and for Wellington I pre-booked this half-day tour. They added a bus with a pick-up at the port for our ship. They cover much of what you listed, and then leave half the day for wandering around. I can't vouch for them directly as we haven't been there yet, but their TA ratings were good and they've been good so far emailing back and forth.

 

http://www.wellingtonsightseeingtours.co.nz/tour/wellington-city-sights-coastline-tour/

 

What was your opinion of this tour? Where did you meet the tour guide?

We are researching our future cruise ports now. Any other hints you can give would be appreciated!

 

Cheers,

Carol

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We were in Wellington in Feb this year on the Diamond Princess. We docked some way from the center of town and the ship arranged shuttles buses at a cost of $10 per person round trip to take us into Wellington Center.

 

The shuttle buses stopped right opposite the entrance to the cable car. We caught one of the first shuttles and got straight onto the cable car. We walked a little at the top then came back down and wandered to Te Papa. Then a short walk back to get the shuttle bus back.

 

We had friends with us that do not walk long distances or up hill or we would have walked back down through the Botanic Gardens rather than ride the Cable car back down and could have seen Parliament buildings on our way down. The cable car costs NZ$7.50 for the round trip. Te Papa is free to enter.

 

Wellington is not a big city center and you can walk to most places if you don't mind hills and winds. It is nicknamed "Windy Wellington" with good reason.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Great War Exhibition at The National War Memorial is excellent.

It was created by Sir Peter Jackson.

$15pp with optional guided tours an extra $10.

 

Is it a good idea to book tickets ahead of time? Our ship will be there on Easter Sunday.

Thank you for the hints.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Is it a good idea to book tickets ahead of time? Our ship will be there on Easter Sunday.

Not for just the admission I wouldn't have thought necessary.

 

The guided tours are every 30 minutes with 15 people.

If your timings are critical you could book, but my guess a month or two out would be fine.

 

It's a 1.2km, 15 minutes walk from Te Papa if you are also planning on going there.

Edited by Opua Kiwi
Link to comment
Share on other sites

What was your opinion of this tour? Where did you meet the tour guide?

We are researching our future cruise ports now. Any other hints you can give would be appreciated!

 

Cheers,

Carol

We were pretty happy with it. It was your basic bus tour. Nothing really WOW about it, to be honest, but nothing to complain about either. Drop-off and pick up was easy (right near the ship). Some of our group stayed on the bus to return to the ship, while a few of us stayed downtown at the end of the tour. Then they provided return shuttles from a central spot downtown that we could hop on to get back to the ship.

 

One slight negative - they didn't stop at the Beehive for pictures. They stopped at all the places listed on the website, but that's it. But it is just a 2.5 hour tour, although if I remember right ours lasted about 4 hours.

 

Check with them to see if they have a specific cruise port pick-up for your cruise, as they did for ours.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now
 Share

  • Forum Jump
    • Categories
      • Welcome to Cruise Critic
      • New Cruisers
      • Cruise Lines “A – O”
      • Cruise Lines “P – Z”
      • River Cruising
      • ROLL CALLS
      • Digital Photography & Cruise Technology
      • Special Interest Cruising
      • Cruise Discussion Topics
      • UK Cruising
      • Australia & New Zealand Cruisers
      • Canadian Cruisers
      • North American Homeports
      • Ports of Call
      • Cruise Conversations
×
×
  • Create New...