We added two extra days to Queenstown before leaving on a Saturday. The main purpose was to fly-cruise-fly to Milford Sound on the day everyone else departed. That did not happen due to the rain that morning and all Milford flights were cancelled for the day. I did see several buses heading out to Milford that morning, and was told taking the bus there and flying back is the most popular way to do that trip. But I'm an aircraft nerd, so flying was more important to me. A good reason to come back some day!
We did book a white water rafting trip down the Shotover river. It was great fun, even though I'm not much of a water person. After changing into wet suits, getting helmet and life vest, you take an 11 passenger bus up sketchy dirt roads, with multiple hundred feet drop offs to one side or another. At one point you're looking straight down onto the river to the left of you as you traverse ~200 ft of the road seemingly sticking out of a near vertical to the right of you (these are old mining roads from the gold rush times). It gets your adrenaline going!
The white water rafting experience itself is quite active and a lot of fun. You learn multiple commands to obey (paddle forward or backward, reposition from the sitting on the edge of the raft to the bottom of the raft, etc), and each of the six people in the raft have a job to do. And you paddle a good amount too. Drops are placed into
classes ranging from 1 (no biggie) to 6 (impossible to navigate). With the water level and flow rate that day, we experienced classes up to 4, and those definitely got you attention! Apparently it does happen that people get knocked out of the raft, but that did not happen with our group. I thought we did quite well, even though it was a mixed group of Americans, Germans, and Aussies.
As for our flight back, it's pretty much what
@Eastridge described. Be on the lookout for
SSSS on your Auckland to US boarding pass, however. When you get "quad S'd", you are subject to additional checking and scrutiny by the US border patrol (or rather in-country representatives of CBP). This is normal on international flights back to the US, and that happened to me, which added another 20 minutes after all three other checks were done. My wife and daughter went to the gate and I stood in line for 15 minutes, then 5 minutes additional screening (they basically swab things and check for explosives). Luckily our layover was 5 hours, so we were not in a time crunch. But it did explain why our boarding time was 1:15 hours before the actual departure time. It's likely to get people through the three security checks in time, in case you get quad S'd.
As for Queenstown restaurants...definitely eat a burger at
Fergburger's, it's worth the wait in line! Even better is their gelato and coffee place right next door, which rarely/never has a line. My wife said it was the best coffee on the trip, and the gelato was excellent. I also had croissants from their bakery there, which were also very good. If you're into Asian/Asian Fusion food,
White & Wong's was very good as well. Kira said
Margo's (Mexican food) was her favorite, but you need to make reservation ahead of time as their hours are reduced and it's a small place.
Overall a great trip!