We are taking a cruise from Sydney to Auckland next January. We will be spending time in Australia prior to boarding the cruise. The cruise has many stops in New Zealand. How many days should we allow in Auckland when we dock there. What are the places to see?

I'd say 2-3 days, there was a post recently asking what to do in Auckland, so do a search here to see if you can pull it up. There's the Auckland Art Gallery (the Triennale starts there on 10th May) and the Auckland Museum. There's good shopping, if that is of interest, around Vulcan st and in Ponsonby, NZ designers are very interesting (Zambesi, Nom D, Karen Walker, Caroline Sills, Sakaguchi).

Susan 7, it's Vulcan Lane. The Auckland Museum is of interest if you like history and it has an excellent Maori gallery with meeting house, waka, store houses and small artefacts. The Auckland Art Gallery has a good collection of early 19th century New Zealand landscapes and Maori portraits. You could take the hop on hop off bus which starts near the entrance to the cruise ship terminal or you would also be able to book a longer tour on board the ship before it docks. Another nice trip is to go on the ferry to Devonport, we had three huge cruise ships in today and a number of passengers were doing this. The pier is next to the cruise ship terminal and the trip across the harbour takes 12 minutes. Devonport is an old marine suburb with lovely old villas and plenty of excellent cafes. You can stroll the village and also take a short tour that leaves from there. Do a google search for Devonport. I was there today.
We have excellent wineries within easy distance of the city, there are numerous half day and day tours for those that also take in the west coast beaches which are spectacular.
We are the sailing capital and therefore there are a lot of options for getting out on the water, cruises on America's Cup yachts are popular.
I live here and never run out of things to do so three days does not touch the surface but gives you an overall glance.
Forget dress shops, you can do that at home.

I guess you must be a bloke, Golfernz, hence no interest in shopping You can't see NZ designers easily outside of NZ and they really are fantastic. If, of course, Donna is a shopper.

No I'm not a bloke and thank you for your presumptuous comment. 'Hence no interest in shopping', how arrogant is that. Too many people comment on here with little knowledge of the subject matter.

Dear me, chill out Golfernz.