We chose this itinerary because it left from Melbourne and we really wanted to see the sounds and explore more of New Zealand.

I will start with the positives first, some of the staff were immensely helpful and friendly, embarkation and disembarkation were half an hour each (which in my book is great!) we found our oceanview stateroom was big enough and loved the wardrobe, plenty of drawers and room for the cases under the bed. I loved the amount of pools on board and found the terrace on back of boat to be the warmest at 25'degrees and generally uninhabited as was the lovely alfresco area we ate most of our meals at which you can find at the back of the boat outside Horizon Court, say hello to Joe he is gorgeous. We both loved movies under the stars and appreciated the movies and Tv channels in the room. Neither of us care much for shows but we loved the piano entertainer AJ Clarke and the classical trio that played in the piazza. We enjoyed all ports except Akaroa due to gale force winds.

Now for some negatives.....our room flooded as mentioned below, we didn't complain the first time as our cabin steward was very attentive and we dismissed it as an accident, the second time we went to guest services, whilst he organised a room for the night while they rectified the room, he seemed to be more concerned that this was the first time we had complained???then 4 days after the event he sent us canapés for our inconvenience. We both felt it could have been dealt with a little better. Read more