mlchad147
- Mar 5
- 5 min read

March 4, 2024–Auckland, New Zealand

Well, I suppose it had to happen sooner or later. After more than thirty years of off and on cruising with Royal Caribbean I can’t remember a single time that one of our shore excursions didn’t work out well. Until today. I won’t go into the details, as there’s no point, but I’ll just say that it would be difficult to imagine how the third party tour operator retained by the cruise line to provide our planned excursion could have fouled it up any worse. Fortunately, they made such a mess of it that getting a full refund from Royal was a snap. So there’s that.

That’s not to say that we had a bad day, though. Far from it. We had a good day, and saw enough of Auckland to know that I’d love to come back. It’s a beautiful city, by far the largest in New Zealand, with a population of 1.5 million residents. The next largest is Christchurch, all the way down at 384,000, so in terms of size Auckland really does stand alone, especially when you consider that the entire country’s total population is barely more than five million.

We docked right in the heart of downtown Auckland early this morning, and since our tour wasn’t scheduled to begin until 11:20 am, we decided to set off exploring as soon as we finished our breakfast, and in retrospect that was a good decision. We didn’t have to walk far to find ourselves in the middle of the high end shopping district, and when I say high end, I mean high end. Just two blocks from the pier, a single block of Queen Street included names like Prada, Dior, Bvlgari, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Rolex, and Coach. Clearly there’s money in Auckland.

Wisely skipping all of that, we ducked into a souvenir shop instead, where we bought a few small odds and ends, before scoring a postcard at a nearby convenience store. And how about this? There was a fully operational postal center in the back of the convenience store, where we were able to buy a stamp, so we had the postcard in the mail and on the way to Pennsylvania less than an hour after walking off the ship. That’s a first for us on this cruise.

During our walk around the business and shopping district two things loomed overhead—dark, threatening clouds and the Sky Tower. The weather didn’t become a factor until later in the day, but the Sky Tower is worth a mention now. At 1076 feet high, it was until 2020 the tallest freestanding structure in the southern hemisphere. I rather enjoyed looking at it, and my sense is that it while it dominates the skyline, it enhances it without being at all ostentatious. There wasn’t time to go up to the observation deck, which was fine with me given my fear of heights.

By 11:00 we were back at the pier to meet our tour bus, and despite the fiasco it turned into, our driver did manage to deliver us to two nice spots. The first was the Wintergardens at Auckland Domain, two large Victorian era glass houses containing rare and beautiful New Zealand plants and flowers. I know precious little about flowers to begin with, and the lack of a guide to tell me what I was seeing (one small part of the tour fiasco) left me completely in the dark about the importance of the displays, but I will state emphatically that the flowers were gorgeous. If you’re ever in Auckland I would strongly recommend a visit to the Wintergardens, but make sure you have a competent guide in tow.

The other scheduled destination that our bus driver eventually managed to find was Kelly Tarlton’s Sealife Aquarium, which was hiding (from him, anyway) in plain sight along the waterfront inside the city limits. Once located, though, and our admission grudgingly permitted, the aquarium proved to be a delight. As aquariums go this one isn’t overly large, but it houses some outstanding exhibits, two of which were good enough that I had trouble breaking away. Kelly Tarlton’s has penguins, lots of penguins, including several kings, the second largest of the seventeen penguin species. The penguin habitat is the largest of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere, and worth the price of admission all by itself. I loved it.

However, there is much more to see, including my other favorite, an underwater walkway where sharks and giant stingrays swim on either side of you and directly over your head. I was especially impressed by the giant stingrays, and can say with certainty that I had no idea that they grew that big. I was mesmerized, and probably missed some good photos as a result, but I did get a few that I hope will convey how impressive the display was. If you’re ever in Auckland, especially if you have kids in tow, try to work a trip to the aquarium into your schedule. Like the Wintergardens, I recommend it highly.

That, unfortunately, was the end of our excursion in Auckland. We were supposed to go to the Maritime Museum next, followed by a yacht tour of the harbor, but our tour operator had made such a mess of things that we missed them both. Still, as I mentioned earlier, Royal Caribbean quickly refunded the money we had paid for the tour and was more than gracious in apologizing, even though the mess was entirely caused by the independent tour operator they had retained.

The way we looked at it, we had a nice morning before the tour exploring the city, picking up a few souvenirs, and mailing a postcard home. Then the tour operator did manage to get us to two excellent stops, the Wintergardens and the aquarium. Compared to a couple ports earlier in the cruise that we missed completely because the seas were too rough to tender in, Auckland was a home run. Who knows, maybe we’ll get a chance to come back someday and spend our kids’ inheritance on Rolex watches and Coach bags on Queen Street.

In the meantime, we’re off to Bay of Islands in the North Island’s north country, where we’re promised nice weather and spectacular sights. Can’t wait. Full report afterwards, so until then, kia ora.