Best Hal excursion?

[clr0806]

Trying to plan and not very many reviews on their website. What tours have you done and would you do it again?

[Keith1010]

Trying to plan and not very many reviews on their website. What tours have you done and would you do it again?

 

You really should list the ports of call and even the excursions if you know them.

 

Keith

[clr0806]

You really should list the ports of call and even the excursions if you know them.

 

Keith

 

Dunedin, Napier, Wellington, Tauranga, Picton, Burnie and Melbourne.

[bet410]

When we were in Dunedin, we did a full-day shore excursion called "Nature's Wonders: Wildlife Cruise & Penguins". We really enjoyed it. The cruise took us along the Otago Peninsula, and we had a chance to see some albatross as well as a penguin swimming in the water and several seals along the coast. When we got off the boat, we visited an interesting wildlife center before continuing on to a private farm where we boarded 4-wheel drive vehicles that took us to areas where we were able to see more seals and even got a glimpse of the rare yellow-eyed penguin.

 

Admittedly, I'm a huge animal lover, but I would do that shore excursion again in a heartbeat! It was wonderful!

 

Being a Lord of the Rings fanatic, in Wellington I went by myself on a HAL shore excursion that visited many of the LotR filming sites. The tour guide had been an extra in one of the movies, and he was a wealth of information. Of course that's a special-interest shore excursion, but it's well worth it if you happen to like Lord of the Rings.

 

I can't add info on the other NZ ports as we had friends who picked us up in Napier and delivered us to Tauranga so we didn't do shore excursions there, and we didn't stop in Picton.

[bet410]

In Melbourne we did a shore excursion that took us out of the city to some nature reserves where we were able to see kangaroos and koalas (as well as other indigenous wildlife - various birds, etc.) in the wild. We thoroughly enjoyed it. The only drawback was that we saw very little of Melbourne itself, and we hear that it's a wonderful city!