10 days with three year old?
 

We will likely be travelling in early November. Kindly share your insight into this itinerary: Auckland 1 night, Bay of Beaches 3 nights, Rotorua 3 nights, Christchurch 3 nights. Seeing we have a young child and will not be doing extreme sports, does Christchurch rather than Queenstown make sense? Also, can we do a glacier tour from Christchurch by helicopter? Many thanks!

Do you have a special reason for allocating 3 nights to Rotorua? If not I'd make it 2 and add another day to the South Island.

Christchurch is a nice little city but in itself has limited attractions; Queenstown is much more scenic and you don't have to do anything extreme there.

"Bay of Beaches" - do you mean Bay of Islands?

How do you propose to travel around?

Definately stick to Queenstown. There are many sght seeing tours that go out of there and much nicer atmosphere than Christchurch. Check out the Windy city, Wellington if you ar planning to ferry to the south Island.Bay of Island is gorgeous and s sail trip from there is fairly worthwhile. Bay of Islands was my favorite to Queenstown. Rotorua is ok, 1-2 days max for a Mauri feast. A longer stay in Auckland would be ok too. Good luck!

Hi Marys555

You're covering some fairly large distances there esp with a youngster in tow. Travel time from the Bay of Islands to Rotorua alone will take 6 - 8 hours by car.
Have you considered concentrating on one Island and returning to see the other at some later date ?

Thanks for your valuable input! My husband usually insists on 3 nights min/max per hotel, but it looks like we should shorten time in Rotorua. He would like to concentrate on one island - must revisit and revise itinerary...many thanks!

Hi Marys555
I think your decision is a wise one.
IMO spending 3 nights in Rotorua may not be as daft as it sounds ( ! ). There are some very worthwhile places to visit within one hours drive of Rotorua. It could make for a good base.

I also think Queenstown would be fine with a 3-year-old. There's a bird park in town where you can actually see kiwi birds, among other birds. You can also take the gondola up to the top for a nice view.

We loved Patagonia's in Queenstown, which has good ice cream, chocolates, and an amazing waffle dessert with a fresh waffle, ice cream, melted gourmet chocolate, etc. You could share it.

If you have a car, it's about a 40-minute scenic drive from Queenstown to Glenorchy. Take a picnic with you.

You might consider staying at the Villa del Lago apartments in Queenstown. We stayed there for 3 nights. We had the 1-bedroom lakefront apartment. Each apartment has a small washer and small dryer right in your apartment, very handy. It's less expensive than a lot of the hotels. It's about a 25-minute walk along the lakefront from Villa del Lago into Queenstown, or a quick drive.

Have fun!

great advice all - I will definitely check into the apartments, sounds so practical! We managed to get more time off for vacation so think we will do the following-

3 days Auckland region
3 days Bay of Islands
fly to Queenstown
3 days Queenstown
drive to glaciers (spend 1-2 nights along the way)
take tranz alpine into Christchurch
3 nights Christchurch/Kaikoura
fly to Auckland night before morning flight and stay at airport.

many thanks for advice, tips, etc., etc.

Your revised itinerary looks better, although still busy. We did this trip with a 3 year old last year, but over 21 days. However, we had been traveling for four months by the time we got to NZ. We were somewhat tired.

I would suggest only 2 nights in Christchurch/Kaikoura. Spend an extra night between Queenstown and the glaciers.