All South Island Tours & Excursions in 2026

I was worried about the entrance to the cave because it was low and I wasn’t sure if my family and I would feel claustrophobic once in it, but it was only a short distance and it opened up. Once in, we enjoyed the walk to the boat. We saw an eel! We had enough time to sit in the dark and see the glow worms. Only wish we had time at the end to do the nature walk. Probably a short walk, but it would have been nice to do it.

It is a long drive both ways - be prepared to spend 10 hours in the van. Lots of stops along the way though, excellent boxed lunch, snacks & water on the bus, first aid kit (even had motion sickness pills!) & the driver was very knowledgeable. The boat tour was simply spectacular. The driver & crew were great. There were several larger vessels but ours was a smaller size which was great.

It is worth the travel out to Milford. If you are not booking a cruise in Milford you have no real business driving that long because there isn’t much to do there apart from the cruise. It was a very spacious port with three levels there is a down floor level a middle level and a top deck and on all levels you could sit outside and go outside and take photographs and videos. It was very informative and captain was also commentating as he sailed along and told us stuff that we wouldn’t have seen or found out unless he had told us about it. He was also quite humourous and made relaxed about smelling the hot fresh pies from the cafe/bar on board that he was craving for his lunch LOL XD. The cruise was 1 to 1.5 hours long but he wanted to kill a bit of time so ours took 2 to 2 1/2 hours which was epic. Would definitely do it again. PURE MILFORD ALL THE WAY! ❤️❤️