My husband and I spent Christmas in Dunedin. Having lived in Sydney for 40 years from Taranaki we made a conscious effort to see what this city was about.
We had never been further south than Timaru and a 5 day holiday was something we planned and looked forward to.
It was really hard to find that Dunedin celebrated Christmas at all. The Christmas Tree in the Octagon was dismantled on the morning of the 27th December. There were 2 cruise ships in which I am sure the passengers would have loved to have seen something of the Christmas spirit.
Few shops open when this would have been a perfect opportunity for local retailers to make some money. The cafes that were open were doing a roaring trade.
Traditionally, taking the Christmas decorations down would be on 6th January, which is the Epiphany that marks the visit of the Three Wise Men who followed an angel to Bethlehem where Jesus was born. The Feast of the Epiphany concludes the 12 days of Christmas (25th Dec to 6th January) and is the traditional end of the Christmas season.
What happened Dunedin? So disappointed - the cruise ship passengers stared in disbelief that a crane was brought in to take the tree down. We were not on any ship, we flew into Dunedin and travelled far and wide seeing as much as we could in our short time.
To Bluff the 2nd day of arrival spending as much time in the area in order to see as much as we could. The hotel was another disappointment as the staff advised us they were not allowed to dress in any Christmas 'stuff' because they were 5 'stars'. Well let me just say we have had Christmas in a number of 5 and 6 star hotels and this was the first that we encountered without any Christmas cheer.
They were taking themselves too seriously. People remember not the comfortable bed or the food, they remember the customer experience, or lack thereof, they remember the ones that made their stay enjoyable - that went the extra distance. Thank You Dunedin - we loved the old architecture of the stone buildings around the city however your Christmas spirit left before it had a chance to embrace new people to your city. We covered approximately 1000 kms over our 5 day stay so we were no slouches at wanting to see as much of the south as we could.
The disappointing thing is I don't think it will be worth a return visit.
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