Sounds like good plans, sorry to hear of your Victory purchase
1. February much easier than Christmas obviously, but you may struggle in the more popular regions and have to choose a smaller town outside of the one you wanted. Mostly however, the tourists have gone home and we're all back at work sometime mid to late January ish.
2. Tie downs sound fine. The exact method of tying down will vary between the ships, some have specific chocks for the front wheel, others string chains for busy motorcycle loads mid ships. The deck points are domes with an X, so a hook type tie down can be better (can't connect karabiners to those) but when the staff have been lazy and not bothered to lay out chains (they've got points that lock into the X), I've done it instead and then you tie to that.
3. You already know about Top 10, also
http://bbh.co.nz/ for backpacker and budget. Otherwise various services exist like AA accommodation and Airbnb is increasingly available. Most chains are hotels, so the more expensive stuff. Queenstown is a tourist trap, also consider places in the region like Wanaka (although it's also getting busy)
4. I'd rate one of the best multi day routes is Nelson > Buller Gorge > Westport (side trip to Karamea if you want) then down the west coast > Queenstown (side trip to Glenorchy) > Te Anau > Milford Sound. Just remember that rain on the west coast is more like monsoons most of the time and Milford Sound, it rains 2 out of 3 days, although, riding it in the rain is certainly an experience as all the waterfalls are in action. Invercargill good, motorcycle museam, Burt Munro stuff and Catlins to the east (another great ride).
5. You'll struggle with mobile reception out of towns, some whole areas will have no service, GPS navigation is the better choice.
6. Different towns may have an evening ride or suchlike, Wednesday night ride, Thursday night ride etc... varies from place to place.
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