Wellington

Yes — Te Papa Tongarewa, the Museum of New Zealand, is genuinely free for general admission and is the single best indoor option on a Wellington cruise day. It sits on Cable Street on the waterfront, about 10 minutes' walk from the Queens Wharf berth or a short taxi/shuttle ride from Aotea Quay. Allow two to three hours minimum. The headline galleries are the Māori taonga collection (carved meeting houses, cloaks, and the marae itself, with free guided tours daily), the natural history hall housing the colossal squid (the largest specimen ever recovered), the Awesome Forces seismic exhibition with its earthquake simulator, and Gallipoli: The Scale of Our War — a permanent exhibition designed in collaboration with Wētā Workshop featuring eight giant-scale soldier figures sculpted from real veterans' stories, widely regarded as one of the most powerful museum exhibits anywhere in the southern hemisphere. Some short-term special exhibitions charge NZ$10–20. Open 10:00–18:00 daily; arrive before 11:00 on cruise days to beat ship-tour group arrivals.

Book direct on the Wētā Workshop website unless you specifically need the missed-ship guarantee. The workshop is in Miramar, a film-industry suburb about 8 km east of the CBD — 20 minutes by taxi (NZ$30 each way), a slightly longer Uber, or the cruise-line shore excursion at roughly double the independent price. The standard Wētā Workshop Experience runs 90 minutes and walks small groups (capped around 14) through the actual props-and-creatures shop responsible for The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, District 9, Avatar, Pacific Rim, Mortal Engines, and most of New Zealand's film creature work — you see real weapons, prosthetics, miniatures, and creatures from named films, guided by working artisans. Tickets are NZ$60 adult; tours run hourly 09:00–16:00 and slots fill 2–3 weeks out on cruise days. Photography is allowed in most areas. Combine with the Wētā Cave shop (free, on-site) and the nearby Roxy Cinema (built by Wētā founders) for a half-day Miramar plan; allow 4 hours door-to-door from the ship.

Yes — the cable car is a Wellington icon and the most efficient way to get from the CBD up to the Botanic Garden and Kelburn lookout. It is a funicular railway, not a true cable car, opened in 1902 and still using the original 1902 alignment with modern Swiss-built carriages from 1979. The lower terminus is on Cable Car Lane, off Lambton Quay in the heart of the CBD (a five-minute walk from Queens Wharf or from the shuttle drop at the Railway Station). The ride is five minutes and climbs 120 m through three short tunnels to Kelburn, the top station, which sits at the upper edge of the Wellington Botanic Garden. Standard plan: ride up (NZ$6 one-way, NZ$11 return), visit the small free Cable Car Museum and the Carter Observatory at the top, then walk down through the Botanic Garden's rose garden, native bush trails, and the Lady Norwood begonia house, ending at the Parliament/Beehive precinct on Bowen Street — roughly 45 minutes downhill at an easy pace. The whole loop is 1.5–2 hours and is the highest-value short outing in Wellington.

Zealandia is doable but commits you to a half-day. It is the world's first fully fenced urban eco-sanctuary — 225 hectares of regenerating native forest in the Karori valley, ringed by an 8.6 km predator-proof fence that excludes rats, stoats, possums, and cats, allowing the reintroduction of species that have been extinct on the mainland for over a century. You will see kākā (large native parrots) at close range, tīeke (saddleback), hihi (stitchbird), tūī, kererū, and if you are lucky a takahē or tuatara. The sanctuary is about 15 minutes by taxi from the CBD (NZ$25–30) or a NZ$3 bus ride on the route 18 from the Railway Station to Karori shops then a 15-minute walk; there is also a free Zealandia shuttle from the i-SITE on the waterfront, two return runs per day. Entry is NZ$25 adult, you walk the trails self-guided (2–4 km loops, mostly flat to gentle), and the standard visit is 2.5–3 hours plus transit, so total 4–5 hours from the ship. Book online to skip the entry queue. Do not attempt this if the southerly is up — trails are exposed in places and visibility drops fast.

Yes, it can — and it does, two to five times per November–April cruise season. Wellington sits at the southern end of the North Island in the direct funnel of Cook Strait, which compresses prevailing westerlies and the cold southerly fronts that come up from the Southern Ocean into a permanent wind tunnel; the mean annual wind speed is around 27 km/h, the highest of any capital city in the world, and gusts above 100 km/h are recorded on roughly 170 days per year. For cruise calls, the practical thresholds are: ships berth at Aotea Quay in sustained winds up to about 35 knots (65 km/h); above that the harbour pilots may delay or refuse the berthing, and a captain will sometimes skip the call altogether if a strong southerly is forecast for the morning approach through Cook Strait. The Mount Victoria lookout shuttle (City Sights tour) stops in gales above 80 km/h. The cable car runs in almost all weather. Outdoor walks (waterfront, Botanic Garden, Zealandia) become unpleasant rather than dangerous in a Wellington southerly — bring a real windproof layer regardless of season. Check metservice.com on the morning of the call.

Cards are fine almost everywhere; cash is rarely needed. Currency is the New Zealand dollar (NZD), distinct from and currently worth less than the Australian dollar — they are not interchangeable, and Australian dollars are not accepted. New Zealand has been effectively cashless for a decade; contactless tap (paywave) and chip-and-PIN are universal at Te Papa's café, every Cuba Street coffee bar, the Wellington Cable Car ticket office, Wētā Workshop tours, Zealandia, taxis and Uber, the i-SITE shuttle, supermarkets, and bookshops. Goods and Services Tax (GST) is 15% nationally and is always included in the displayed price — what you see is what you pay, no tax added at the till. Some small operators add a 1.5–2.5% surcharge for foreign credit cards; debit and contactless usually carry no surcharge. ATMs (ANZ, BNZ, Westpac, Kiwibank) are on Lambton Quay, Willis Street, and Cuba Street and dispense NZD only. Tipping is not customary in New Zealand and staff do not expect it; rounding up a taxi fare is fine. Carry NZ$20–40 only as backup for a small museum donation or a market stall.