Don & Kully's World Cruise on Viking Neptune

2/3/2024

Auckland, New Zealand — Day 42 of 138

Today was our second of three days in Auckland, we decided to take the Viking include tour, “Highlights of Auckland.” This was one of the best of the included tours that we have taken so far. We took a driving tour around the city center/business district where the major shopping districts were pointed out as well as the city’s center piece, the “Sky Tower”. From there we drove through the suburb of Parnell with it’s quaint colonial style homes and shops. We then went on to the highlight of the tour, the Auckland Museum. The museum is located in the middle of the city’s largest park the Auckland Domain. The museum is home to one of the world’s largest collections of Maori and Polynesian artifacts, including an 82-foot-long Maori canoe carved from a single tree. The museum is also home to the military memorial and war museum, a natural history collection and an interactive area for children. We highly recommend this tour and frankly, if we were to do the tour again, we would have left the tour and stayed longer at the museum and taken the city bus or taxi back to the ship.

Restored WWII New Zealand Spit Fire and Japanese Zero

After a late lunch break on the ship, we struck out on our own with friends for a little shopping and a visit to the Sky Tower. The Tower is the tallest manmade structure in New Zealand at 328 meters, or 1076 feet tall. That’s roughly the same as standing 37 city buses end to end. The structure is 8 meters or 26 feet taller than the Eiffel tower. There are two public observation platforms, a bar, and three restaurants all offering a 360-degree view of the city and surrounding area. Believe it or not, you can also bungy jump off the tower, but the cost is $280 (NZ dollars) which is approximately $176 (US). I was thinking about doing it until I saw the price tag and then my “cheapskate” kicked in.