Cruisers upset as ship skips tourist spots

The Dolphin cruise in the Bay of Islands. Photo / Supplied

Stormy weather lashing New Zealand today has prompted a cruise company to turn around a ship carrying more than 2600 passengers and will dump bucket-loads of rain on concert-goers in Auckland tonight.

The wet weather in the City of Sails has also been a factor in the 20 or so minor prangs on the region's roads since last night, prompting a warning from police to drive to the conditions.

Passengers on the 109,000-tonne Golden Princess, including about 400 who boarded in Auckland on Monday and the rest from Australia, were disappointed to hear late yesterday the ship was turning back to Cook Strait rather than heading to Melbourne via Fiordland.

The turnaround was because of strong winds and rough seas.

Meanwhile in Auckland thousands of concert-goers will flock to Mt Smart Stadium tonight to hear rock legends Fleetwood Mac, and it might be an idea to bring a mac as heavy rain is forecast.

"Poor Aucklanders," MetService meteorologist Rob Kerr said.

Heavy rain is moving up the North Island today and will arrive in Auckland this evening, replacing the showers falling throughout the day.

It will also be windy, but quite warm, as the same weather system that heated up Sydney yesterday reaches our shores, Mr Kerr said.

Police have also urged motorists to keep safe following distances and to take care on Auckland's wet roading network.

There is good news at the bottom of the island as a dry evening is expected in Wellington for Elton John's concert at Westpac Stadium.

A few showers are expected in the northern part of the region, but they'll stay away from the central city.

A fresh northerly wind is expected.

"It will be a gentle breeze by Wellington standards," Mr Kerr said.

On the turned around cruise ship, Aucklander Anna Farrell booked for the 13-day trip to Melbourne and back with her husband. She said the captain warned of bad weather on its way for today.

"He said there were reports of bad weather coming over the country, and by tomorrow [Saturday], Port Chalmers [Dunedin] is going to be pretty bad," Mrs Farrell said.

"And the [Fiordland] Sounds will be closed - it will be pretty bad around the bottom [of the South Island] so they don't want to take a chance with the passengers or the crew."

She said many passengers - particularly the Australians - had already been disappointed that they had missed Gisborne on the way down the east coast from Auckland, again because of bad weather.

"It got very windy in Tauranga and they said seas were going to get very rough, so we would bypass Gisborne and head on to Wellington."

Mrs Farrell acknowledged that the captain had to make a call based on the weather outlook, but said passengers were unimpressed that Princess Cruises was indicating their only compensation would be a 30 per cent discount on a future cruise.

"A lot of them are going, this might be a one and only - we'd rather have some of our money back because we have booked to see New Zealand and we haven't actually seen New Zealand."

A Princess Cruises spokeswoman said an intense depression in the southern Tasman Sea was expected to serve up strong head winds and seas of up to 7.5 m. That had forced calls to Port Chalmers and Fiordland for scenic cruising to be cancelled.