My wife has always wanted to go to New Zealand. A few years ago we looked at coach tours, but before we were able to book anything my wife was ill and now suffers from limited mobility, making a coach tour unsuitable. Some friends of ours who have been on a number of cruises mentioned a 12 day cruise starting in Auckland and ending in Sydney. Cruising was something that we had never considered but after looking at this one in more detail we decided to give it a go. We booked the cruise through a TA and as this was our first cruise and my wife uses a wheelchair they provided an excellent service and an excellent price which included gratuities and transfers.

We flew from Manchester to Auckland via Singapore and spent 3 nights at the Auckland City Oaks which was an Aparthotel. We had a studio which had all the necessary facilities including a dishwasher and a washer/drier. We thought that the Celebrity Solstice was amazing. We had an Ocean View Stateroom with a balcony on Deck 9 and it was fabulous. The cabin attendants were lovely and couldn't do enough for us.On my wife's birthday they left an ice bucket with a large bottle of Champagne in our cabin. The restaurants were great, the food was delicious and the waiters looked after us really well. We went on a number of excursions, were helped on and off the boat and had the front seats reserved for us on the coaches. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, were really spoiled and could quite easily become hooked on cruising. We have already booked a family holiday for 2014 but will certainly be looking for our next cruise in 2015.