Ideas for travel out of Sydney in December 2013

I am trying to cut back on my travel quite a bit. My next big trip will be taking my daughter on a cruise out of Sydney in Dec 2013. It is from 1 - 10 December. Normally we depart Perth for our holidays, but I am wondering what sorts of cheapish and rewarding holidays might be available out of Sydney. There is scope to potentially keep travelling until late January.

My ex mother in law has suggested we go to NZ. While NZ does have some very pretty scenery and it could be very interesting going there and then immediately to Hawaii and showing my daughter the similarities in the indigenous cultures, the last time I went to NZ was about 13 or 14 years ago and they really seemed to hate Aussies. We got crap service and were treated in a hostile manner anywhere outside of the main cities of Auckland and Wellington.

For example, we went to one restaurant and I ordered a glass of wine and the manager came back and started grilling me on where did I come up with that wine, as if I were trying to cause trouble by ordering it. I showed her the tabletop thing that had it featured and said if it wasn't available, I'd order something else. I had never heard of any of the wines, so why would I care which one? She got very huffy and left. About 20 minutes later she came back with a glass of wine, lifted it over her head and set it on the table very hard. And them stomped off. Far out.

We went to a differnt happening pub/bistro thing and got a nice table on the balcony. We each ordered a different item and told the waitress that we planned to share the items. My then husband ordered a chicken wrap and I ordered something else. We received an extra plate and I bit into my half of the wrap first. It was lamb and we baoth hate lamb. My husband checked his to make sure I was correct. He called the waitress over and asked her to bring a chicken one as that was what we had ordered. We continued to eat whatever I had ordered and about 20 minutes later the manager came over to evict us. He told us to get out. They don't need trouble makers there and we were trying to pull a scam. The manager insisted that my husband had eaten half of the wrap and was trying to get another whole one for free. The waitress had just taken my husband's half back to the kitchen. We pointed out that my half was still there on the table and we wouldn't ever eat lamb intentionally. We had each had one bite. Even though the manager knew he was wrong about the food, he said we had to leave as we were trying to pull some scam on him. He just couldn't back down.

Every tour we went on, the NZ people who were running the tour would make nasty comments to my husband about being an Aussie. It was generally cloaked as a joke, but it was really exhausting deflecting the poor attitudes.

So, although NZ is pretty and cheap, I am not that keen on it. Does anyone else have any ideas on where we could go out of Sydney that time of year that would be good value? I am considering the US, but am not sure at this stage. Having grown up in the US, I see little attraction there.