Auckland and Brisbane

This is part one of a three-part, seven-week trip traveling through New Zealand, Australia, Japan and Alaska.

• Part 1: Auckland and Brisbane
• Part 2: Cruising through Japan from Okinawa to Otaru
• Part 3: Crossing the Pacific from Japan to Alaska

Introduction

In late February, I got a last minute cruise offer for an oceanview cabin on Carnival Luminosa’s 29-day April 3rd sailing from Brisbane, Australia to Seattle, Washington, by way of Japan and Alaska. I’d been looking for a way to take this cruise for nearly two years. When the opportunity arose, I was ready.

Flight to Auckland

Once the cruise was booked, I aimed to depart the US around ten days before the sailing. Since I’d never visited New Zealand before, that was my first choice, and I lucked out.

American Airlines had several business class flights from Dallas to Auckland for just 65k miles + $40, and I was able to add the Columbus leg in first for free. The cash rate would have been $7,300.

To pay for this, I used the 70k-mile signup bonus from the Barclay AAdvantage Aviator, acquired two months earlier. This card awards its bonus after your first purchase, which can be as little as a can of coke.

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Auckland

Arriving in Auckland on March 25th, I checked into the Langham Hospitality Group’s Cordis Hotel and immediately fell asleep.

Cordis Hotel

In addition to being an excellent hotel, the Cordis is noteworthy in the points and miles world as one of the most affordable international options within American Express’s Fine Hotels and Resorts (FHR) collection, for which Platinum cardholders receive an annual $200 credit.

On top of the credit, Platinum cardholders receive the following benefits at any FHR property.

• Free breakfast.
• One category room upgrade.
• 4pm late checkout.
• $100 property credit.

Cordis had an excellent breakfast buffet, even including a chocolate fountain. Meanwhile, I was able to use the property credit at “Our Land”, the hotel’s restaurant and bar specializing in New Zealand recipes. It had some of the best mixed drinks I’ve ever had.

My process for booking this hotel was a little unusual. As I mentioned before, Amex Platinum cardholders receive an annual $200 credit for FHR bookings, but this wasn’t enough to cover multiple nights. With most FHR properties going for $300+ per night, Cordis is a rare exception with nights as low as $140.

Knowing this, and knowing I wanted to travel to Auckland sometime in the next two years, I actually booked a modifiable reservation for Cordis at the end of 2024 to capture that year’s FHR credit. When the cruise came together, I then changed the dates of the reservation and extended it with 2025’s FHR credit, effectively using two $200 credits on one stay.

There are disadvantages to doing this. By combining stays, I shorted myself a second $100 property credit. However, I prefer one free-ish multi-night stay to multiple discounted single-night stays.

The only challenge I hit with this process was that I was not able to change the room type on the reservation, just the dates. In 2024, I booked a slightly pricier room type at $200/night to exactly use the credit. This locked me into the higher price point and availability.

Mount Eden (Maungawhau)

On my first day in Auckland, I hiked up to the top of Mount Eden. For those of you that have ever been to Honolulu, this is a little like a baby Diamond Head, in that it is a caldera overlooking the city. However, this is very green and more like a public park. There were lots and lots of dogs, almost all enjoying their walks off leash.

Crowne Plaza

After the Amex FHR credits ran out, I hotel-hopped to a five-night stay in the IHG Crowne Plaza. This is a great, affordable, points hotel located in the heart of the central business district. I really appreciated the guest-accessible laundry, a rarity in international travel. The front desk even let me charge the room for a few coins to run the machines, and I actually earned points on the transaction (shhh… don’t tell).

Last December, IHG ran a deal where if you purchased 120k points for $640, they would throw in their top status, Diamond. Diamond includes free breakfast, and this price was only $40 more than their normal points price, so I jumped on it. The breakfast here was pretty good, though nowhere near as fancy as Cordis.

All in, the stay cost around 100k points for five nights after using the 4th night free benefit. Since I purchased the points at half a cent each, that works out to $100/night. While this is more than I usually like to pay for any hotel, it was a nice property and a good deal by objective standards, and sometimes you just need to bite the bullet to make a trip work.

Auckland Tours

On my first morning at the Crowne Plaza, I went on a tour with Auckland Tours. They take small groups of tourists out to see The Shire and the Waitomo caves from Auckland. It’s an all day excursion, leaving before dawn and getting back around sunset.

The trip has a lot of driving. We stopped for a break at sunrise and for lunch at a restaurant next to the big apple below. You travel in 15 passenger Mercedes Sprinter vans with seats in a 2-1 configuration. It’s a bit cramped, but you’re never in the van for more than two hours at once.

The Shire

The Shire, from the Lord of the Rings films, was really a highlight of the trip. Tour guides show you around the set, pointing out where every second of footage was shot, even things that were cut. Surprisingly little was filmed there. They get into the design of Hobbiton, and you can visit inside two recreated hobbit holes. It all looks exactly as it did in the movies. The tour ends with a pint at the Green Dragon Inn.

Waitomo Caves

After visiting the Shire, the tour moves on to the Waitomo Glow Worm caves. Sadly, but not unexpectedly, there’s no photography during this journey in the dark, so I don’t have any pictures of glowworms. However, I can vouch that they are a spectacular show. One should probably know it’s a very short boat ride, mostly just back and forth or sitting under the main patch of worms for 10-20 minutes before exiting the caves. It’s worth seeing.

New Zealand Maritime Museum

Known as the City of Sails, Auckland has a rich maritime history and a museum that reflects it. For just a smidge over the price of admission, you can book a harbor sailing and entry into the museum is included.

Wētā Workshop

Wētā is a special effects and creature design company. They’ve done everything from Hercules and Xena, to all the Lord of the Rings movies, to Avatar, to Marvel, to the new Dune movies. They have two tourism experiences and one was located in Auckland just a block from my hotel.

The experience is a little more aimed at kids, setup as if you are a group of unpaid interns on a tour of the workshops. A guide walks you through an introduction followed by three themed areas, each of which is working on a different type of movie: horror, fantasy and sci-fi. There are lots of interactive exhibits on special effects, storyboards, animatronics and general coolness.

Around the City

The rest of my time in Auckland was spent wandering around the city and university district and enjoying yummy dumplings.

Brisbane

Arriving late two nights before the cruise, I really only had one day in Brisbane, and we had torrential rain pretty much all day.

Flight to Brisbane

For the flight from Auckland (AKL) to Brisbane (BNE), I took a business class Qantas flight for 15k Alaskan miles and $18 in fees. Cash rates for the flight were around $450.

Had I left any other day, the price would have been roughly triple, and this definitely influenced how long I stayed in Auckland (7 nights) and why I let the IHG stay go longer than the optimal “4th night free” limit.

Hyatt Regency

This hotel does have a really nice location, but there’s no lounge, and you need to be a globalist to get free breakfast. Objectively, it’s probably a good value at 12k points, but I’d probably have been better off at the cheaper Holiday Inn Express a little further away.

Still, given the rain, it was nice to be able to walk around the central business district and Queen Street Mall where most of the sidewalks were covered. I visited the free City of Brisbane Museum, which felt a little sparse, and had Thai for dinner at Doodee Boran.

Summary

It was a great start to the trip, despite being a little pricier than normal. Next time, it would be nice to see more of Auckland’s countryside, perhaps explore the harbor islands.

Hotels

• 2 nights at Cordis Auckland
  $400 all reimbursed from Amex.
• 5 nights in Crowne Plaza Auckland
  100k IHG points with 4th night free, purchased for $500.
• 2 nights in Hyatt Regency Brisbane
  24k Hyatt points.

Flights

• Business class from Columbus to Auckland, via Dallas, on American.
  65k American miles plus $40.
• Business class from Auckland to Brisbane on Qantas.
  15k Alaskan miles plus $18.

Continue to part two and three of the trip.

• Part 1: Auckland and Brisbane
• Part 2: Cruising through Japan from Okinawa to Otaru
• Part 3: Crossing the Pacific from Japan to Alaska