Australia & New Zealand Featuring Tasmania

Embark in Auckland, known as the City of Sails, and explore the city’s waterfront setting on New Zealand’s North Island. You can visit the Auckland Art Gallery to see works by Māori and Pacific artists, take a day trip to Hauraki Gulf islands such as Waiheke or Rangitoto to experience vineyards, lava caves, and wildlife, or visit Mount Eden for views from its dormant volcanic summit.

On Day 2, you visit Tauranga at the entrance to the Bay of Plenty and see Mount Maunganui’s volcanic cone rising from the harbor peninsula. You can explore the geothermal landscape of Rotorua, visit Hobbiton or the Coromandel Peninsula, or experience white-water rafting on the Kaituna River.

Gisborne on New Zealand's North Island was named for the Maori ancestral canoe Takitimu, which ran aground here around 1450 AD, with Kiwa as a leading figure aboard. Captain Cook made his first New Zealand landfall here, and the city is today a major center of Maori cultural life. As the first city in the world to see the rising sun, Gisborne combines surfing beaches with a strong connection to its colonial and indigenous past.

Napier is the world's most complete Art Deco city, rebuilt almost entirely in the style following a 1931 earthquake and today protected as a unique urban heritage site. Cape Kidnappers, a short drive away, hosts one of the world's largest mainland gannet colonies, while Hawke's Bay's celebrated wine producers and a breezy two-mile Marine Parade complete an exceptional port call.

Wellington, New Zealand's compact capital on Cook Strait, combines a vibrant cultural life with remarkable natural accessibility. Te Papa Tongarewa — the national museum — is among the Pacific's finest, the Zealandia nature sanctuary lies minutes from the city center, and the cable car to the Botanical Gardens rewards with a view over the harbor that defines Wellington's appeal.

Days at sea are the perfect opportunity to relax, unwind, and pursue personal interests, whether visiting the gym, the spa, or simply watching for whales from deck. These blue sea days offer an ideal balance to busy days spent exploring ashore.

Settled by the Scots in 1848, Dunedin is known as the Edinburgh of the South, with Gothic revival architecture including a grand cathedral and a university with a glorious clocktower. The Otago Peninsula coastline is home to Yellow-eyed penguins accessible via cliffs laced with tunnels and hidden walkways, alongside sea lions and seals on windswept beaches. Dunedin also claims Baldwin Street, celebrated as the world's steepest residential street.

Stewart Island — Rakiura — is New Zealand's southernmost inhabited island and a national park of extraordinary forest wilderness. The aurora australis illuminates the skies above Halfmoon Bay on clear winter nights, kiwi birds forage on the beaches after dark, and the Rakiura Track is one of New Zealand's Great Walks through temperate rainforest of Fiordland character.

As with all of New Zealand's fiords, Doubtful Sound is a masterpiece of nature. The only way to reach it is by boat, crossing Lake Manapouri. Because of the Sound's inaccessibility, very few people are encountered as you float through the silent waterways. Doubtful Sound is home to the rare Fiordland Crested Penguin, and the region is famous for its seven-meter annual rainfall.

Milford Sound sits within South Island's Fiordland National Park, part of the UNESCO World Heritage site Te Wahipounamu. The fjord is approximately 16 kilometers long and more than 290 meters deep, with steep cliffs and several impressive waterfalls. Halfway down is Stirling Falls, the second tallest, while Mitre Peak rises to 1,692 meters near the end of the sound.

Days at sea are the perfect opportunity to relax, unwind, and pursue personal interests, whether visiting the gym, the spa, or simply watching for whales from deck. These blue sea days offer an ideal balance to busy days spent exploring ashore.

Hobart, Australia's second-oldest city, sits beneath the looming form of Mount Wellington and is home to the Saturday Salamanca Market, drawing visitors from across Tasmania. The city produces acclaimed wines and holds Australia's oldest brewery, while international award-winning whiskey distilleries operate nearby. Animal sanctuaries in the surrounding area introduce visitors to the Tasmanian devil and other endemic wildlife.

Days at sea are the perfect opportunity to relax, unwind, and pursue personal interests, whether visiting the gym, the spa, or simply watching for whales from deck. These blue sea days offer an ideal balance to busy days spent exploring ashore.

Eden sits in New South Wales's Twofold Bay, founded as a whaling center with a unique symbiotic relationship with killer whales known as the Law of the Tongue: orcas would herd baleen whales into the bay in exchange for the tongues of freshly caught whales. The skeleton of Old Tom, the most famous orca accomplice, is displayed at Eden Killer Whale Museum. Ben Boyd National Park offers birdwatching and rock arches rising beside fire-red cliffs.

Sydney Harbor frames the city's defining image: the Opera House's shell vaults and the Harbor Bridge's steel arch framing the skyline from every angle. Beyond the icons, Sydney offers the Bondi-to-Coogee coastal walk, the galleries of the Art Gallery of NSW, and the remarkable Aboriginal heritage of the Blue Mountains within 90 minutes of the city center.