Hiring a Cab for the day 'vs' hop on hop off bus Auckland
 

We will be in arriving in Auckland 12:45pm and fly out again 7:15pm - coming from the Cook Islands - so not sure about immigration at the airport? I am considering hiring a sightseeting taxi for the day, $50NZ hour charge. OR Taking a taxi into the city and utilizing the hop-on, hop off bus, then taxi back to the airport. (the airport shuttle looks like it takes an hour vs taking a taxi of 1/2 hour?)
Can anyone give me so advice? How much to take a taxi into the city? Does the Hop/on Hop/off have any naration on the sites?
Any other suggestions?? I readily apoligize for trying to "see" Auckland in an afternoon!

Thank you!

Customs will take about 1.5-2 hours to clear given that there are 3 different checkpoints you have to go through. A Taxi ride into downtown Auckland takes about 30-40 minutes depending on traffic and the cost is about$50-60 NZD. If you are looking to save some money I would recommend hoping on one of the shuttles. The cost for two people was $29 NZD and it took the same time (it could be more if you have a lot of dropoffs). The only problem you may encounter is if your next flight is international and the checkin time is about 2 hours before departure. If this is the case you may not have time to get into the city. If you land on time and everything goes perfectly you may be able to get to the city by 3pm (unlikely though). Then you have about an hour in the city before turning around to come back for a 5:15pm checkin.

Wow - had no idea customs would tie us up that long???
Guess we'll see how it goes.
Thanks

If you get into town, forget the bus. You will spend more time waiting for it than you can spare. ((#))

Hi there Jeepsterchick

You will be desparately unlucky to rake 1.5 - 2 hours to get through customs. Yes it does on occassion take that long, but it is rare. I have cleared customs a fair few times at Aucklnd and never been more than an hour.

A couple of weeks back I picked up my Aunt who had flown in from Canada. She was through in less than an hour and this was wearly in the morning when all the North American flights had landed.

You may well be better off taking cabs ffrom spot to spot.

In the time you have you may wish to limit yourself to just a few locations anyway, say the museum, the waterfront and the skytower.

Aucklands better attractions are out on the Hauraki Gulf, up on teh North Shore or out on the west Coast beaches. Sadly you will not really have time to have a look at these (Except maybe a short ferry ride over to Devonport to try out a cafe or restaurant for lunch).

If you are not checking your bags right through, there are left luggage facilities at the airport.

Hope this helps.