New Zealand Travel Forum

Hi,

Can anyone recommend if we should visit milford sound or doubtful sound . Also, is the overnight cruise worth the $$ cos it seems really expensive or should we just go for the 2hr cruise ? Heard that the drive from Te Anau to milford sound is really good, so we should do the drive ? Thanks

Hey there......the following is what we did in Fiordland (Feb 2007) and would do it again, it was awesome.

We spent 4 nights based Te Anau Lakeview Holiday Park (we had a sleeper van from Escape Rentals).
http://www.teanauholidaypark.co.nz/

We spent the first night there and checked out the town which is really nice. Next morning we headed off for our overnight cruise on Doubtful Sound with Fiordland Cruises. http://www.doubtfulsound.com/

They are based at the holiday park and picked us up from there and dropped us off at the end. Because of the link between the 2 companies we were able to leave our sleeper van at the back of the park free of charge for the night.

The trip to Doubtful Sound and the cruise itself is totally awesome and definately worth the money. The boat we cruised on, the MV Waverley is a small boat compared to other cruisers but the thing we enjoyed was the intimacy with the other 6 passengers and 2 crew. We made new friends and got to some wonderful people. The 2 crew looked after us really well. Sorted us out for some fishing and some canoeing.

We got back to Te Anau just after lunch the next day which left us time to do the glow worm caves that evening.

The next day we did a day trip to Milford Sound and a 2 hour cruise with Red Boat Cruises http://www.redboats.co.nz/home/ This was amazing as well.

The drive to Milford Sound is very scenic and we decided to take a coach so we could sit back and enjoy. We made a few stops along the way for some great snaps.

The Milford trip wasnt in our original plans but we are so glad we did it. We actually did the booking for it through the local tourist centre in Te Anau. The lady who served us was most helpful. She even booked us a Jet Boat trip and and dinner at Queenstown Gondola for us.

For us Fiordland was a highlight of our south island trip and doing both Sounds is reccommended by us.

Cheers
Col & Sue

I did both as 2 hour trips from Te Anau. The hotel arranged them for me:
Te Anau Hotel & Villas. http://www.teanauhotel.co.nz/default.asp

Milford Sound as part of an organized small group (10 people) Milford Day Walk trip since I didn't have the time for the full 3 day trek. This included also a visit to the Milford Deep a very unique underwarer observatory.
http://www.milfordtourswalks.co.nz/

Doubtful Sound as a full day trip including transportation (4WD, special narrow bus and 2 boats), Lake Manapouri and the Underground Power station.
http://www.realjourneys.co.nz/Main/Doubtful/

Wouldn't have missed either! Both picked up and dropped off at the hotel. I did skip the Underwater Power station preferring to wait outside on the waterfront. Saw some lovely animal life, heard bird song and enjoyed the peace and quiet of being alone on the quiet shore.

We did both. I am partial to Milford sound because the drive, I thought, was more scenic. We drove on our own from Te Anau; it was not a difficult drive. We only did the two-hour boat tour.

New Zealand south island is the most beautiful place I have ever been. I was told Alaska is more beautiful, but I haven't made it there yet. So . . .

Have fun!

Sue & I are so lucky to be doing Alaska in 7 weeks.....7 day inside passage cruise that will take in Glacier Bay. We will also get to see the Misty Fjords Ketchikan.

Cheers
Col

If you have the time visit both. If you have to choose... I would say if you have not been at Milford Sound you have not been to Fiordland ;-)

Referring to the "easy" drive. The road to Milford Sound is the most accident-prone road in NZ because tourists do not look at the road for all the Ah's and Oh's they have for the stunning scenery. Be prepared to stop for enjoying the views and meet the keas ;-)

hi,
we did the 7 day alaska inside passage cruise with celebrity last may and it was awesome. A pity we didint do the coach tour, so we felt that we didint see enough. But we did find time to do hiking when the cruise disembarked. After that, we also went to the canadian rockies and my husband said its the most beautiful place on earth. So i recommend if you go to alsaka, do spend some time at the rockies, especially if you love nature :)

Sorry, Kyhar. We have digressed and we are now in ALASKA! Thanks for the input; makes me more than ever to want to go see the beauty of Alaska!

Anyway, we did not encounter any problems on the drive from Te Anau to Milford Sound. We were there in the beginning of January and there didn't seem to be a lot of tourists. A tourist bus did pass us while we were taking pictures on the way there.

I did not encounter any problems either - but if you and I did not encounter any problems this does not mean that it is no accident-prone road. Indeed there is not a lot of traffic as on this road there is nearly no other traffic than tourist cars and buses. The problem is that tourists often cross the centre line and crash into other tourists. Or, as somebody I know did, into a pile of gravel beside the other side of the road, seconds before a huge truck passed... Be sure, the statistics do not lie.

Kakapo2, I did not in any way doubted or questioned your statement about the road to Milford being accident-prone. That is why I mentioned the time of year when we did the drive, if maybe that was what made the difference. Also I said "it was not a difficult drive", not to be mistaken with "easy drive". There's a difference there, although one can easily say "easy" is the antonym of "difficult". Not difficult meaning one can't get lost, light traffic, good roads, etc. Easy to me means "not a tiring/stressful drive". Of course, one can differ.

Now we are out of Alaska, we're in semantics! :)

I've done both sounds and also the overnight cruise. Really I can't say which sound is better but if you have to chose, yes take Milford.
As for whether or not the overnight cruise is worthwhile, that depends on what you like. It's lovely to wake up on the sound and to have the trip out to the mouth of the sound. Of course if the weather is bad, it can change everything but they do their best to still make it interesting. However in certain conditions they can't take you out to the sea . And if it is raining and cloudy you may not see the mountain tops. Rain, though, brings spectacular waterfalls that Fiordland is famous for.
I say make sure you go with the right attitude to not be disappointed if the weather is bad. This is a very HIGH rainfall region, so chances are it Will rain.
I agree the drive is spectacular to Milford.

Thing we liked about Doubtful Sound was the remoteness......we only saw 1 or 2 other boats on the sound the whole time. It was so peaceful.

Col