Our family decided on this cruise as I had met my husband in NZ over 27 years ago (on a Contiki bus tour) and always wanted to take the kids back because it is such a beautiful country. We travelled with my sister in law and brother in law who had always wanted to see NZ also. Not that we needed one but we used the excuse for this cruise to celebrate my 50th, our 25th wedding anniversary and brother in law's 60th. This is our 5th cruise but we have only experienced P&O before so this was still a first. We couldn't fault the staff on the ship and the photos we'd seen lived up to the expectations we had. Our room attendant made us towel animals every second day so there was always a surprise on our neatly made bed every second evening which was lovely and nothing was too much trouble for her, especially when we encountered a problem with our phone charger not fitting in the wall socket and needing to get a power board even though we had the correct adapter. We had one delivered within the hour. Our table waiters and drink waiters were superb. We felt very special when only after night 2 we had our drinks already waiting for us when we arrived at dinner and our drinks weren't even finished when our drinks waiter would ask "another one maam?" which made our drinks package very worthwhile indeed. Our waiter had a great sense of humour and also was a dab hand at magic tricks and card tricks which kept our 16 and 19 year old amused to no end. Dessert was always introduced with "it's now yummy yummy time" as they'd hand our the menus. I also loved how all the restaurant staff sang in Italian one night, got everyone involved in the Makerena dance and sang "I still call Australia Home". I had read a lot of reviews before we sailed and I can't agree with any of the negativity shown. We never had a problem getting a window seat at Windjammer every morning for breakfast. The only time it was an issue was disembarkation day which is to be expected because everybody was up early to get off the ship at their required times and not all the restaurants were open. We always had a good choice of pool lounges to lay on whatever deck we chose to be. Mind you we did spent more time indoors than intended as towards the middle of the cruise in the south island the decks were very very gusty winds and not comfortable to walk on at all, nearly blew you backwards in some places. Thoroughly enjoyed the Solarium though and will never forget swimming in the pool and looking upwards towards the sheer cliffs as we cruised out of Milford Sound. Truly spectacular. We had been up on top deck for most of the day taking in the magnificent views and photo opportunities so that was a fitting end to a wonderful day. We love taking photographs and had heaps of opportunities as we wandered around the ship. Mitch our cruise director was brilliant and very very informative and funny. Loved the ice skating shows the most. Found the RC broadway shows a little "old" for my liking. They performed too many 1930's music and the tribute to the movies music even though I love my theatre I hardly recognized. Guest entertainment was fantastic. Best one was Killer Queen tribute band, but laughed along with Shane St James (hypnotist), Marty Coffee (juggler) and Keith Scott (comedian) as well as Tom Burlinson - all well known names. 16 yr old daughter loved the cup cake making course she did and learning all the napkin folding techniques she would practice at dinner while 19 year old son joined a soccer game or two, loved the Flowrider and both accomplished the rock wall. We all enjoyed the mini golf and trivia competitions as a family. Only negative we had was that Windjammer started to get a bit boring for lunch after a while so we ended up at the dining room and loved getting the special waited on treatment and also the Photo Department needs to get their communication a lot better. On the last full day at sea we were told our photos, USB and DVD's would be ready at 10 am, then 2 pm and then 10 pm that night only to be told that the printer machine had broken down (not the staff's fault) but that they had run out of USB's and were going to print our photos on CD and they would be delivered either overnight in our door pocket otherwise if not we had to come back at 6.30 the next morning to find out where they were. Not something you should have to worry about on disembarking day, queuing up for photos. After all that, we ended up getting ours on a USB after all but sister in law's USB had someone else's photos on hers! The male photographers and the Manager Martin were lovely to speak with but the female photo staff I found quite rude even when taking photos throughout the cruise, quite condescending. Loved the Captain's quirky comical updates on where we were at all times and appreciated that we extended our stays in nearly every port and sometimes even arrived early. Loved our choice of shore excurisions, probably saw too many cultural shows but that was our fault nobody else's and wished we'd had more time to enjoy Larnach Castle. We did a combined Castle and Speights Brewery tour and I thought we spent too much time at the Brewery and Larnach Castle was rushed. Just got there, straight to lunch, straight to a tour of castle and then back on bus. Would have liked to have spent more time photographing the gardens and seeing the souvenir shop. Best stop for me though was Napier, what beautiful people and lovely atmosphere. We did the Hawkes Bay Express Tour - highly recommended and back at port all the vintage cars were lined up and a jazz band was playing and locals so keen to have their photo taken with you. Fantastic. In summary I would travel with RC again but wish we didn't have to pay gratuities. Would much rather pay the individual staff who attend to us on our cruise as we have done with P&O. Also Sailaway was bit disappointing as we rushed dinner to get up on top deck thinking that was where all the action was as we sailed out of Sydney Heads only to find out later that all the action seems to happen on Promenade Deck on Deck 5 but that's only because we were comparing it to what we knew from P&O. Overall the friendly, helpful and very amusing staff were the best part of the whole experience.