Sydney for the Adventurous Couple: One-Week Australia Itinerary

Excellent, excellent service from our agent at this Australia travel company. Planning was smooth from the day we started working together. He answered all our questions honestly and we had total confidence in his obvious knowledge of the country we were to visit. Hotels were superb and in the best locations, tours and excursions were first class, on time, enjoyable with competent and pleasant providers.When one hotel was not up to our expectations, he acted promptly and upgraded us to a better hotel at our next destination at no extra charge. Caring and prompt attention before and throughout our vacation. Would not consider any other agency in the future.

Here is our rough itinerary:

We landed in Brisbane with no jet-lag at all. Stayed at the centrally located hotel.Visited Brisbane all day, Bus and boat tour of the city next day. Shuttle and ferry to Kingfisher Bay on Fraser Island for three days. Limo to Noosa Beach. Flight from Brisbane to Cairns in the North. Great Barrier Reef snorkelling adventure with helicopter ride back to Cairns. Visit to Kuranda via rail, Rainforesation army duck tour and Skyrail. Visit to Hartley's Crocodile zoo. Flight down to Sydney. Hotel was divine and well located. Harbour boat tour and Opera house Tour. Two shows at the Opera! Reptile zoo and wine tour in Hunter Valley. Ended with three days in Manly Beach where we took a surfing class.

We were 3 couples from New York looking to plan a trip of alifetime visiting French Polynesia, New Zealand, and Australia. Welooked at cruises, land tours offered by tour companies and couldn't find anitinerary that captured all of the bucket list items each of us had. Icompleted a Zicasso travel questionnaire and they connected us with a travel plannerfrom this travel company.  Our travel planner was phenomenal from the start - responsive, attentive,understood our travel objectives and immediately began putting together anitinerary for us. With us in New York and our travel planner based in New Zealand you mightthink the time difference would complicate the planning process - not at all.We worked collaboratively over the phone, text, and email planning our trip (aU.S. number was provided so there was no international communication charges).Our planner drafted an itinerary (including destinations and air flights); offeredtour options, suggestions and recommendations; and wherever possible providedsmall personal tours. With our travel plan nearly complete we decided to dropone of our destinations (Melbourne) and add a new destination (AyersRock/Uluru). In order to make this work the Australia part of our itinerary hadto be reworked. No problem at all - our travel planner quickly had all of the hotel, flight,tour and transport arrangements made and the pricing finalized. Our finalvacation plan had us traveling almost 4 weeks visiting Moorea, Auckland,Rotorua, Queenstown (NZ), Cairns/Port Douglas, Ayers Rock, and Sydney - allwith amazing tours to enrich and highlight our destinations. 

About 2-3 weeks before our trip we received our detailed electronicitinerary complete with flight, hotel, tour, and transport (to/fromhotel & airport) information. Also provided was travel tips for each of thecountries being visited and local contact information should we have any issuesat all during our journey.

Our trip started in Moorea where we stayed at a Resort and Spa. The pool was closed due to renovation - something we and our travel planner did not know when the reservation was made and found out about 3 weeks prior to arrival - but the hotel provided us a room credit and upgraded our accommodations to an OTW bungalow. The hotel beach was beautiful, accommodations amazing, staff warm & friendly and our stay in Moorea incredible - would highly recommend this island and hotel. While in Moorea we did two tours - Private Sailing Cruise on the Taboo - Half Day, and Private 4WD Safari Tour - Half Day. I would recommend both tours but the Sailing Cruise on the Taboo was exceptional and highly recommended.  

From Moorea our next destination was New Zealand - we spent an evening in Papeete, Tahiti to catch an early morning flight to Auckland. The hotel in Papeete we stayed at - we would not recommend this hotel at all. It was dated, very low level exterior nighttime lighting, and a host of other problems and issues. I strongly suggest staying at a better hotel on the outskirts of town.  

Our New Zealand itinerary was magnificent. In Auckland we stayed at a Hotel (highly recommend) and took the Auckland Luxury Day Tour. We enjoyed the tour and our guides (our primary guide and driver and our Maori guide) - Our primary guide was excellent (knowledgeable, informative and fun) and our Maori guide flavored the tour with Maori history, culture and traditions. Our next tour was a coach tour taking us from Auckland to Rotorua stopping along the way at Hobbiton and Waitomo. Hobbiton was beautiful and although the six of us did not read the books or see the movies we all loved the tour, the beautiful landscape, and the stories provided by our guide. The Waitomo caves and glowworms is something you should see but we found the tour groups large and clustered to close together making it difficult to hear the guides. Our day ended in Rotorua where we stayed at a lakeside hotel - a nice hotel located on Lake Rotorua. In Rotorua  we did a Geothermal Hotspots and Boat Cruise. This was a small personal tour and our tour guide was excellent providing the history, insight and science to this geothermal park. That evening we attended a tour of a Tamaki Maori Village, dinner, and a cultural show - a fun time had by all. Our last stop in New Zealand was Queenstown where we stayed at a beautiful and charming hotel - located on a hill top overlooking the lake and walking distance to town - we loved our stay here and highly recommend this hotel. From Queenstown we did the Milford Sound Nature Cruise - this is a long day with a lot of hours riding the coach bus but the cruise and beautiful landscapes are well worth it. Our last tour out of Queenstown was the Dart River Jet Safari. Our tour bus driver to the start station and river was fun, knowledgeable, and very passionate about the beautiful natural resources and landscapes of this wonderful country. The jet boat part of the tour was exhilarating with scenic stops coupled with jet spins and zooming down the scenic river. From Queenstown we left New Zealand for Cairns/Port Douglas Australia.

Australia was incredible. Our first stop was Port Douglas. Here we stayed at a Resort and Spa – a boutique type hotel that was just a few minute walk to the town and restaurants. We loved our poolside rooms and enjoyed the pool after a day of touring – definitely recommend this hotel. Our first tour here was where we explored Daintree National Park. As we cruised the river, hiked in the rain forest, walked the beaches, and toured the park, our tour guide was terrific providing information and  insight into the cultural history, the ecosystem, wildlife, and plant life. From the rain forest one day to the Great Barrier Reef the next - here we experienced the reef - Outer Reef and Snorkel Tour. Our tour group of 10 boarded the beautiful catamaran and was greeted by the captain and two mates. It was the crew that made this day fun and special. There were some that were apprehensive about swimming/snorkeling the reef - they took the time and patience to make sure everyone was comfortable and had the opportunity to enjoy this magnificent experience. The next morning was a very early start to catch our 6:25am flight to Ayers Rock. At Ayers Rock where we stayed had a beautiful room with a view of Uluru. Given the early start, we had a chance to relax and enjoy the pools our first day here. Two of our friends did the helicopter tour of Uluru in the early evening and thoroughly enjoyed the spectacular views from the air. The next morning we did the Desert Tour Including Breakfast with our guide. We enjoyed a pre-dawn breakfast and witnessed the beautiful sunrise over the desert and Uluru, and then toured Uluru where our guide told us about the history, culture, people, and geology of this incredible landmark. That night we enjoyed the A Night at the Field of Light with the Dinner tour. Here we were able to see the breathtaking views of Uluru across the desert at dusk and the sunsetting on Kata Tjuta, enjoyed an outdoor buffet dinner, and walked the pathways through the Field of Light - a wonderful way to cap the end of our last night at Uluru. Our last destination - the beautiful city of Sydney. Here we stayed at a Sydney Harbour  hotel - a beautiful boutique hotel with friendly attentive staff, delicious food, and is walking distance to many restaurants and city attractions. Our first tour, was a full day tour that took us to the Featherdale Wildlife Park (where we were able to feed kangaroos and pet koalas) and tour Blue Mountains National Park. Unfortunately the weather did not cooperate and due to the cloud cover we were only able to get a glimpse of this beautiful park. We did get to see kangaroos in the wild and our tour guide made the outing fun and informative. Our last tour of this incredible journey was the Full Day Sydney Including Harbour Sailing tour. The tour included all the key city points of interest, and a pretty drive through the suburbs to Bondi Beach, all insightfully narrated by our guide. Our tour continued with a sailboat cruise around Sydney harbor. We had some on and off rain during the cruise but the captain made the trip enjoyable with his knowledge, tidbits of information, and stories about the surrounding harbor sites and homes.  From the tropical Port Douglas; the deserts of Uluru; to the harbor, sites and mountains of Sydney - this was an amazing Australian adventure.  

There were many moving parts to this trip of a lifetime, and everything executed like precision clock work. I have to complement our travel planner and her attention to detail for the seamless execution that allowed us to fully enjoy this amazing journey. What also made this special were the tours - most of our tours were small personal tours of  6-10 in very comfortable luxury vehicles with guides that were engaging, knowledgeable, friendly and made the experience both informative and fun. 

Last year we used Zicasso for a trip to Argentina and chose to use you again for our three week vacation to New Zealand and Australia. Our travel agent did a wonderful job helping us plan our trip. The itinerary details for each location were very helpful. We also appreciated her checking in on us during our trip to ensure all was going well.

We had outstanding service during our entire stay. At each city we were greeted by someone who would take us to our hotel. All the hotels we stayed at were wonderful; the food was fantastic. Everyone we were in contact with was friendly and professional.

The views in New Zealand were stunning. We traveled to both the north and south islands of New Zealand.

On the north island, we toured small islands, caves, and a beautiful thermal park. We learned about the Māori culture in Rotorua.

On the south island, we saw magnificent glaciers and visited Milford Sound. The views were magnificent. 

We enjoyed all of New Zealand and should we return, we wish to spend more time in Christchurch and Queenstown.

Australia was also beautiful. There is so much to see here and we hope to return to explore more of Australia. We got to visit Sydney and Port Douglas. We enjoyed hikes in the Blue Mountains, wine tasting in Hunter Valley, and the Great Barrier Reef. 

Thank you for helping us plan a most memorable and beautiful trip to these amazing countries. We were so impressed by how clean everything was and how incredibly friendly people treated us during our visit.  

Aracely and Drew Rankin

We love this agent! She was wonderful to work with. We used this travel company to book our honeymoon to Australia. We were in Australia for about 10 days and went to the cities of Sydney, Cairns, and Brisbane. She informed the airlines and hotels that it was our honeymoon, so we received free champagne on the plane and a bottle of champagne in two of our hotels rooms upon arrival.  When we arrived in Sydney, she had us picked up in a shiny black Mercedes, where even the back seats reclined. Our agent absolutely knew what she was talking about. In Sydney, she booked a tour to the Blue Mountains for us. The views on this tour were simply breath taking. The stop at the wildlife park was a once in a lifetime opportunity to hangout up close and personal with kangaroos. The hotel in Cairns had a stunning view from our balcony. We were able to overlook the water as well the rain forest mountains. The hotel in Brisbane was fantastic as well seeing as it was right across from the Botanical Gardens. Our agent filled out our visas for us so that we did not have any problem entering the country. She arranged for us to be picked up by transportation to and from all airports and to be picked up for our tours close to our hotels. Whenever we wanted to make changes to our travel itinerary she updated our documents so that we could see how it changed the dates and duration of our trip. We had a few options that were not in the original itinerary that she was able to accommodate, although her choices wound up being much better than ours! The tours that she booked for us were fantastic with fun and knowledgeable tour guides. She is a fantastic travel agent and we would recommend that anyone visiting Australia book through her and her company.