For Senior Travel Advisor Cindy Moore, one of the best parts about being a Provident Travel advisor is helping her clients experience luxurious cruises to incredible places around the world. So, when it came time for Cindy and her husband to plan their own long-dreamed-of trip to kick off 2024 in style, they chose a 12-day cruise to New Zealand and Australia with Norwegian Cruise Line.
It was wonderful! It checked all the boxes for R & R and unique experiences. This was our first time visiting New Zealand and Australia, and our cruise itinerary allowed us to see so much of these countries without following the typical tourist route.
We’re nearing retirement, so we wanted to get these places on the books and really enjoy all of the different aspects of them. Everything from the breathtaking natural scenery to the fascinating culture to the friendly people make a cruise to New Zealand and Australia a bucket-list experience.
We sailed on the Norwegian Spirit, which has been completely refurbished with the adult cruiser in mind. While the Spirit has a guest capacity of 1,972, the ship felt much smaller and more intimate. We never felt crowded, and it never seemed like there were a lot of people traipsing around the ship. Also, there were no dining delays or waits for any of the amenities.
We sailed from Auckland [New Zealand] to Sydney [Australia], with stops along the way in Tauranga, Napier, Wellington, Lyttleton and Dunedin in New Zealand and Melbourne, Tasmania and Eden in Australia as well as cruising Dusky Sound and Milford Sound.
We had an amazing excursion to Hobbiton, aka ‘Middle Earth,’ putting us right on the set where they filmed The Lord of the Rings. It’s a place anyone who is a Lord of the Rings aficionado must visit. My husband also took a shore excursion into Wellington to the Wētā Workshop, Director Peter Jackson’s own movie studio where much of Lord of the Rings was filmed. Wellington, which is known as ‘the coolest little capital,’ is full of cultural sights and has a great café scene.
Tauranga had wonderful Māori cultural experiences. Napier is full of Art Deco design, fun shops, inviting cafés and fabulous beaches. Dunedin is one of the best-preserved Victorian and Edwardian cities in the Southern Hemisphere. And we saw so much wildlife, from albatross to blue penguins that are the smallest in the world.
And the scenery from the ship as we cruised Dusky Sound and Milford Sound was just jaw-dropping! Crossing over to Australia, Sydney was the most amazing city! During our post-cruise visit, we hired a private driver for the day there and toured top to bottom, east to west, of the city and harbor before checking into our hotel. The next day, we toured the Opera House, which is truly an iconic building, both architecturally and artistically for sound.
My husband loves the ‘old’ way of dining—that is, having the same waitstaff for each dinner. Even with Norwegian’s famous Freestyle Dining [with no set seating times for dinner], he still could step up to the maître d' each evening and request our favorite server. Norwegian has wonderful staff and entertainment, great food—including elevated dining experiences—and spacious cabins for a large ship.
When my husband and I vacation, we want as much R & R as possible, but we also want unique activities and lots of pampering. A cruise to New Zealand and Australia offers all that and so much more.
Sometimes, as we talk with our clients about what they want in their vacation, we together discover that, while they thought they wanted X, they really want Y. We can help them find that perfect match.
Helping clients make the best choices for what they are hoping to do is why we, as an industry, no longer call ourselves travel agents. We are advisors and consultants, meaning that we collaborate with our clients to understand what they envision when dreaming of a particular vacation—what they are hoping to see and experience on their adventures. Then, with our professional insight and guidance, we reach out to our travel provider partners to create the vacation of their dreams.