Today we disembarked in Auckland from the Royal Princess. It started with a room service breakfast ( it sounds grand but the coffee is American style drip, which is poor substitute for brewed coffee. )
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| Cruise terminal and Hilton Hotel |
Regardless, it did the job of starting the day as we did a final check of the mini-suite. The most important part was saying farewell to our room steward Vadym. He was a credit to ship, friendly, professional and very helpful to us during our stay abroad. Our exit from the ship was smooth and took probably an hour from our cabin to the road via security, customs and bio-security. The nicest part is the terminal is modern and well set out leading directly into Auckland. The terminal also has a Hilton Hotel and apartments above it which was interesting for us and hotel guests as we docked.
We enjoyed our cruise with Princess. We saw New Zealand from a different perspective and did tours that enriched our understanding of the country and its people as well as sea animal & birdlife. Like most cruise lines we have used, it did some things very well like logistical organisation, crew professionalism, tours and general look and feel of the ship, while other areas needed improvement. Nothing was a fail, just not as good in certain categories as other lines we have enjoyed. We found tours to be generally above average to excellent but as often too expensive for what you get. It really depended on third party tour company that Princess engaged. Out of two cruises with Princess, we have 3 out of 5 tours to be excellent. Probably the only other item specific to the Royal Princess was the lack major stage shows due the design of its stage. The Acts presented were excellent but not of same size or composition as the Grand Princess.
Once in the city, we stopped to have real coffee and purchase a LOTR guide book for movie locations. The coffee was superb! An Uber followed and half hour later an we arrived at the airport commercial area to pick our Prius hybrid Car. We selected a hybrid because fuel in New Zealand ranges from $2.50 to $3 a litre which can add up quickly on a 7 day road trip. According to Prius range indicator, we have 880 km range before refill but time will tell.
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| Our car |
Journey out of Auckland on the motorway was like travelling on a similar road in Australia, with most drivers doing the right thing with a few fools and lunatics sprinkled in for excitement. ie one two wheeled, temporary New Zealander, learner? bike rider weaving in and out of 100km/hr traffic on a damp greasy road. 😳 Once off the motorway, the roads changed to a gobsmacking beautiful path through rolling hills, pastures of crops and animals, pleasant tree bordered valleys and quiet creeks cutting through the green landscape.
Welcome to New Zealand and Hobbiton country near the town ship of Matamata. We of course did reconnaissance to The Shire’s rest to check our times for tomorrow’s visit to Hobbiton. After a quick recon we checked into quaint Maple Lodge Motel in Matamata, it is very clean, certainly well maintained 1970’s style motel about 15 minutes from The Shire’s rest.
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| Main Street Matamata |
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| ISite Matamata |
Matamata is clean orderly place with many eateries of various types and budgets. Our interaction with the locals was friendly. (They must get sick of tourists asking the same sort of questions). The iSite (information centre) is designed to look like LOTR buildings and is very well done.
After visiting the Main Street we decided to explore the county side surrounding the town where we found the Waitere Falls. Very beautiful area!
For Dinner we chose the pub called “The Merchant of Matamata ”. The food was excellent and so was their own “Good George” beers. An eventful day to be sure!
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