I know that cell phone coverage will vary depending on where we are in New Zealand but I was wondering if someone can give me some kind of expectations?
We have all of our reservations in our emails and the question becomes whether we can access them via cell towers or whether we'll be dependent on wi-fi in specific locations.
Thanks for any thoughts...

We visited the South Island in May/June 2016, and the only place we didn't have cell coverage was Milford Sound.

What places are you planning to visit?

Lee Ann

No cell phone reception on Kawau Island and it's patchy on Great Barrier Island. No coverage either in the Lake Waikaremoana area. These are pretty remote areas so you should be fine in most populated places.
I always print off everything as well.

We're all over the south island. I'm not surprised about Milford sound....
Queenstown, Wanaka, Mt. Cook, Te anau, and up around Abel Tasman National Park, i.e Motueka, Picton, etc.

Thanks Tasmangirl. Trying my best to be eco conscious and not print out where not necessary.

If you don't want to carry paper, Save them as pdf files stored directly on your phone if your phone has that capability (most decent ones do, depending on what amount of memory you have free)

Personally, I tend to lose more on electronic devices than papers, so I usually carry it both on phone & paper

we spent 6 weeks touring New Zealand and for the most part had fairly good cell phone reception except in a few of the more remote areas. Every lodge and hotel we stayed at had adequate WiFi and we found plenty of free WiFi at restaurants & bars around the country.

Now, for what it is worth, during our trip we stayed at different lodgings every 3rd night and not once during our trip did we ever have to show or give anyone our reservation confirmation number.