Private New Zealand Tour: Couples Adventure

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. 

Our family of four traveled to New Zealand for eleven days. We used this travel company to help us book our trip. I had an idea of where we wanted to go and what we wanted to do, so based on that the travel company came up with an itinerary. We went through a lot of iterations to maximize our time and choose activities that were aligned to my family's interest. We finally went with this company as the travel planner seemed very flexible on changing and adding things for us. He was on the phone or email and helped put the plan together. During the process, we were not happy with our accommodation he had chosen for us and when we put in our deposit I specifically asked him to keep a look out. But, he started pressurizing us in going with his chosen motel in Queenstown, as it was a busy period and that was the last room remaining. We told him we found an Airbnb, but he asked us to throw that idea out as they are not reliable in NZ. We then finally went with him, though again reminding him to continue to find a better accommodation. We never heard from him on that matter. Our first night in Auckland, we had made our own accommodation plan, the rest were all through our travel planner. Our second night we got dropped at an Inn in Rotorua after our visit to Hobbiton. We were absolutely shocked at the room we were booked into. It was small, not a place we would have ever chosen, basic amenities only, tiny for a family of four grown ups/adults, stuffy and insects/spiders on our bed. We immediately called our travel planner and we started off a series of conversations to start changing our rooms, especially for Queenstown where we were planning to stay for the last five days of our trip. We told him we wanted our trip to end well and we found hotel rooms available on a travel website. He told us to hold on, meet him at Christchurch (we were flying in the next day) and we could discuss more. He also promised to start looking. We had been booked into a motel in Christchurch, and the lady who showed us to our room also mentioned that the room was too small for our family. But that was what our trip planner had us booked into. He came to take us out to dinner (a dinner he asked us out to, but he made us pay for our share!) and we clearly told him what we were used to and either he changes or we were happy to make the bookings. He asked us to wait and give him time till the end of the next day and he would have answers for us. We told him at least to start looking at an upgrade (bigger apartments in the same chain). We were booked into the same chain motel, in Queenstown too.  Anyway, next day he emailed us saying sorry too late to cancel. That was it, no mention of upgrade and nothing else. We went through our stay, completely unhappy, and felt duped. We felt more upset as he did not bother to check in with us after that email. IF he had at least called, texted or emailed to say sorry or ask how we were doing I totally would have understood. But since he did not I feel confident he totally duped us. Another reason we feel that way is because, he booked us expensive tours and tickets, he booked us a fancy dinner reservation for New Year’s Eve, so that means he kind of had an idea on what we expected. But he never asked us about choices for stay or gave a break up for hotel stay (we did ask for it) and one more thing is glaring at us, now that we are looking back. He started us off at better accommodations, we can say that as we see our first few itineraries, and also we saw those places during our visit. But towards the end, to make money out of us, he tricked us by changing the itinerary and booked us cheap accommodations. Our trip ended with us having a bad taste and constantly wondering if we should not have trusted him and done this on our own. So we sadly have a very negative feeling about our experience with this travel company. They charged us ultra premium for the entire trip, but the actual accommodations were totally not consistent with it. We have ended up overpaying and not getting that level of experience.

Our trip down under went without a hitch and was totally awesome! The hotel locations and tours spot on and just what we were hoping for. To and from the airport transportation all as was told on time and ready to go. The city tours, Melbourne, Port Douglas, Sydney, Queenstown, Rotorua, the winery tour, the Great Barrier Reef, feeding the kangaroos and wallabies, the Oprera House, the Penguins March, the Geo thermal area, Milford Sound, Dart River boat ride super cool, and top it off with a visit to Hobbiton just magical! Thanks so much for all the help in making our trip down under one to remember for years to come!