We had a 2 night stay in a Riverside Chalet with Breakfast and Dinner Included…read more Pros. View is absolutely unmatched. Chalet was very nice and recently updated. Service. Location to Milford Sound. Cons. Sandflies. Makes outside area unusable at times. Breakfast. Very Subpar. Location. Close to nothing else which is both and pro and con. Price. It's extremely pricey. Despite the price I would recommend it for a 1 night stay. Go early to Milford Sound and get to hotel at check in and soak it up.

Nice place to stay. Only game in town so prices are high. Bring bug repellent and use it! Two…read morenights is plenty as there are only 3 short hikes and the cruises to experience. Other hikes are 40km away which makes for long travel Too and fro. We left a day early. No refund policy but even that didn't keep us there.

The best holiday park I've stayed in yet in South Island! The Wanaka Kiwi Holiday Park is very…read morespacious and has all the amenities you'd need. The layout of the site is also well planned where you don't have to walk too far to access the kitchen, grill area, and bathroom areas. There have been other holiday parks I stayed at in which you have to walk 5 minutes to get to the showers or kitchen. There are 3-4 washers/dryers each, so you won't have to worry about fighting other guests for the machines. If you prefer to air dry your clothing, there are more than enough clothing racks to dry your items. There are 4 toilet stalls and 4 showers in the women's bathroom. There are also two hair dryers available for use as well, which is a very nice touch. The kitchen is very spacious and there are 6-8 hobs available for use. Due to the limited number of vehicles and lodges they have onsite, I found the amenities to guest ratio quite fair. Even during the busiest hours of breakfast, lunch, and dinner, guests never had to wait for hobs or sinks to open up. I'd highly recommend staying at this holiday park if you're in the area.

Good choice for budget accommodation near Queenstown. We stayed in one of the cabins, it was rustic…read moreand comfortable, everything exactly as advertised. Bathrooms and kitchen were busy but never too crowded. It's a short drive to town, and they run a free shuttle for the carless.

I stayed here for 2 nights. We took the family room. Inside can fit 6 people. The location was…read morequite far from the cities around 9km or 5 miles. The cellphone signal was really bad here. The room was good and clean enough. Free wifi only 250mb. If there is free unlimited wifi probably i will give 4 stars. CONCLUSION = RECOMMENDED if there is free unlimited WiFi!

When people asked us about our favorite part of our trip, I always answered with these…read moreaccommodations! The site itself has two shower/bathroom facilities, a kitchen, an office, and lots of camping spots. We reserved the large glamping tent - technically it sleeps 6 but just for us two - as some spacious lodging during our time in Wanaka. The inside had a large bed, lots of interior space to unpack, a kettle and mini fridge, dressers, lofted bed, and couch. It was perfect for our stay! Outside, we had an incredible view of Lake Hawea to ourselves, tucked away from the other campsite guests. We had a porch with table and chairs, Adirondack chairs at the edge, a large table and grill for preparing food, and a porta-potty so we didn't have to trek to the shared restrooms each time. I think the view speaks for itself - just unreal! Our only wishlist item would be a screen for the door so we could have the view without welcoming in the bugs. We didn't have wifi here (free for 30 minutes during stay) which annoyed us at first since we had limited wifi, but we ended up loving it - we spent a lot of time enjoying the nature and reading our books. We absolutely loved this spot - can't recommend it enough!

After sailing for two days from Hobart, Tasmania, Australia, we first arrived in New Zealand to…read moreenjoy its UNESCO World Heritage Park, Fiordland National Park, located on the southwest coast of the South Island. Milford Sound/Piopiotahi was our first New Zealand destination, after which we cruised by the other Fiordland parks, the Doubtful Sound/Patea and Dusky Sound/Tamatea, for another full day before reaching the lovely and historic town of Dunedin. Because our arrival at the Fiordlands Constituency's Milford Sound was scheduled for early morning before sunrise, the captain of our cruise ship scheduled a 7:00 am passenger call to enjoy the approach from the bow of the ship. When we got to the bow, only four other couples were standing outside in the very brisk, cold sea air under the still-dark skies, where we also managed to stargaze until I felt like my eyelids were frozen to my eyes. Several other fellow passengers came out with cups of hot coffee, but huddled together with blankets from their cabins because they hadn't brought cold-weather gear other than light sweaters. We stood at the bow for over twenty minutes, enjoyed the sunrise, and watched a small boat come out from Milford Sound to guide our ship in. We returned to our cabin, then seated ourselves for breakfast onboard while our cruise ship made its way into Milford Sound, soaking in the gorgeous scenery. Along the way in and out, our ship's guest lecturer provided us with facts about the formation, Maori and Scottish discovery, and the inhabitation of Milford Sound. The highlights of the scenery were Mitre Peak, Stirling Falls, Lady Bowen Falls, and the remote village of Milford Sound at the head of Milford Sound. Milford Sound, the village, is noted for its hydroelectric power plant, which the Bowen River and Lady Bowen Falls feed. After finishing breakfast, we rushed out to our cabin's veranda to see if we could spot dolphins, penguins, or New Zealand fur seals, but unfortunately, no one saw any. Still, we managed to view and enjoy the awesome scenery, landmark waterfalls, and low-hanging, almost ethereal clouds over the Milford Sound during our cruise ship's entrance and exit. We were told that we had come into Milford Sound on a "sunnier" day, so we missed seeing hundreds of waterfalls along the sheer cliffs that appear after the frequent rainstorms. We'd love to return and sign up for a guided 5-day/4-night, 33-mile hiking tour of the Milford Track during the Southern Hemisphere's Summer or Fall season. But that'll be in a couple of years from now, after I get my other knee replaced.

Coming here was a bucket list experience for me and seeing IS believing!! The fjords are beyond…read moregorgeous in person IF you are lucky and have good weather when you visit. I would suggest staying in the Queenstown or Te Anau region for 2 consecutive days if you are able to just to maximize your chances for having a day of beautiful weather. Getting here + trip planning suggestions: Whew, okay so you will likely start initially in Queenstown and then take a tour bus or do what we did and use your rental car to drive down. What we did which is what I recommend bc you will simply be physically and mentally exhausted trying to go to see the Fjords from Queenstown and come back in one day is this: - Drive down from Queenstown with snacks + breakfast packed away in the afternoon and arrive to Te Anau at a hotel overnight. - the next morning, EARLY around ~5:30 am, wake up and drive to the Fjords to arrive ~7-7:30 am - take either the cruise to explore (I did not do this) OR what I recommend is: Go to Roscoe's Kayaks and make a tandem kayak reservation in advance to go on the open water and kayak at the fjords. You will feel close to the water as opposed to being up on a boat, bring sunscreen and possibly sandfly repellent, warm clothes and layer up!! But it is a magical experience I cannot recommend enough. The Fjords themselves are gorgeous and deserve the ability to be experienced up close.

I needed a place to camp for the night and did not have a res, but the gal in the office was very…read morenice and hooked me up w/a nice tent site for $20NZ. The site was fine and though it was close to road, the noise was not bad in the night, in the morning however, you could hear the traffic. The bathrooms were clean and there was a hairdryer. They also had a TV lounge and wifi was available there. You could get up to 200MB per 24hrs free and pay for any additional. It was a nice, cheap stay for a night and with Lake Wanaka right across the street, a good location for the price!

Not the best! This…read moremay have a lake view but only for a few sites and then only way across a rugby field, road and through the trees into the distance! We were not aware of the work being done until we arrived, one toilet block for at least 30-40 peopled on top of that they changed the female block into unisex! REALLY! Small play area for size of site. Not very close to town. Internet a waste of time! No discount offered for all the work going on!

There are several competing Jet Boat companies in Queenstown, but Lord of the Rings fans will want…read moreto go with Skippers. $159NZ isn't the cheapest, but this includes a very scenic, and scary, 4WD bus tour of Skippers Canyon and Shotover river where you'll see some LOTR shooting locations for Mordor and the part where Arwen uses river magic to kill the ring wraiths. If you're really scared of heights, you might want to skip this, no pun intended. Skippers Canyon Road is a narrow gravel road that goes alongside dangerously steep cliffs...thank goodness for our expert driver!. But the entire one hour drive there and back is very scenic with stops for gorgeous photo opportunities of Mordor. The jet boat ride itself is thrilling fun, be prepared to get wet! Midway through you'll see the location where Arwen fought off the ring wraiths. There is an opportunity to use the toilet after the boat ride, but I'd highly recommend going wee wee before you hop on the bus.

This was a great jet boat tour. We picked it to get the tour and history with the jet boating, and…read moreit didn't disappoint. They stopped a few times for pictures, the first time at a beautiful overlook. They told us lots of lord of the rings trivia if that's your thing, and there are lots of lots of the rings backdrops along the way. The drive took maybe an hour in, less time out. The jet boat time is about 25 minutes, faster down than up. The driver is very good but the ride wasn't as white knuckly as I expected. We stopped by a house with bathrooms afterwards. We'd paid for a longer tour with museum stop and gold panning but it was a cold drizzly day so they nicely offered us the chance to switch to the shorter tour, which we did. They take a typical amusement park photo at the beginning. They pick up the the station bus stop on camp street, which is labeled as such, and which is a tourism store, not a city bus stop or anything like that. It's at the end of camp street closer to arrowtown. We were able to book on very short notice, but it was low season.