Hospitality businesses say they have been thrown a bone with the rule changes that they fear will make little difference.
They will soon be able to have 200 people on premises but still with the seated and separated rules.
While outdoors, people are free to roam.
And Joylab Hospitality Group managing director John Hellebreakers was left scratching his head.
"We have a number of venues that have large outdoor areas so does that mean when we do an outdoor event, there is no limit at all."
He said the new indoor rules were also confusing.
"We could do 200, but then have you got the staff and the team to actually service 200 people seated, the frustrations that our team, the staff, had to deal with every day from customers that don't understand why they have to sit and wait on their table for another glass of wine. That's going to increase and become quite unworkable."
Soon, a vaccine pass will no longer be needed. That means unvaccinated people will be welcome back to the likes of restaurants, cafes, bars, hairdressers and nail salons.
Some people in Auckland thought it was the right time.
"I always thought at some point it would come to an end. So if they think it's time, it's probably time. It's kind of hard to dodge it at this point," said one person.
"As long as they're being safe, keeping their distance, doing everything that they can to be safe, then I don't see why not," said another.
But some are not too keen to let the vaccine passes go.
"At least in Australia, we still have a lot of restrictions on people coming and you have to have your double vaccine like even just to go to get the movies, so it really shocks me that they're lifting that first, 'cause it seems almost irresponsible to immunocompromised people," said one woman.
In downtown Auckland, Roxy's and Everybody's owner Sam Ansley said the new rules were not what he wanted to hear.
He also co-owns Bedford and Soda in Ponsonby, and said: "We're always the sacrificial cow when it comes to stuff like this. So while on one hand it feels like they're doing hospitality a favour ... seated service is highly restrictive and so for a business like mine, which is fundamentally a food and beverage business where people come and drink after work or through the night, it still means we're going be trading at about 30-40 percent of normal."
He said the orange setting should have come before the scrapping of vaccine passes.
"Making nice for those that don't want vaccine passes and don't want their corresponding mandates anymore came to the floor and again, hospitality is the whipping boy around keeping some sort of restrictions in place.
"I haven't got an ideological basis for saying I want vaccine passes to stay, but for the next month or so, I saw it as being useful for us to be able to keep them in place and then potentially go to orange sooner."
But with hospitality being deeply affected by Covid-19 cases, he was not as concerned about welcoming unvaccinated customers again.
"To be fair, a month ago pretty much every one of my staff got Omicron, so from a safety perspective, from a staff perspective, I think especially in central Auckland, I feel like the wave has already washed through."
The country stays in the new-look red setting for now - with that up for review on 4 April.
