Sublime South Island 9-Day Itinerary for Seniors

We had an amazing experience with this travel team. I worked directly with our trip planner who was a pleasure to work with and she put together a wonderful itinerary for us. I gave her an overview of what we wanted to do, basically visit both the North and South Islands of New Zealand and get a good overall feel of the country.  We only had 15 days available for this trip due to our work schedules back home which made it a bit of a challenge for our planner. Within a couple of days, she came back with a first pass itinerary which looked really good.  I had a slight change to one of the dates/locations and she was able to accommodate it quickly for us.  We nailed down the dates of our vacation and she was able to confirm all the accommodations and activities within a couple of days. It was a painless process and we were very happy with the results. All the accommodations, activities and transportation this travel team arranged for us were superior. We stayed in a great boutique hotel in Queenstown, a spectacular lodge across from Mount Cook, a great apartment in Akaroa close to everything, an ultra-modern luxury hotel in Wellington, a romantic lodge in Napier surrounded by vineyards, a cute little cottage on a sheep farm near Waitomo Glowworm caves and a top end hotel in Auckland on the harbor. We couldn't have been more pleased with our accommodations.All the activities they arranged for us were great and gave us a great experience in New Zealand.We paid for everything up front, so it was really nice not dealing with any of that while on our trip.  I highly recommend this travel team, you can't go wrong with them.

We truly enjoyed the trip that Dick has lined up for us. The accommodations are superb mostly in great locations with good views and in the center of business districts. Dick kept us busy the whole trip. All the drivers and guides are on time. In 23 days we were able to explore/visit the South Island of New Zealand, and 4 states/provinces of Australia.Dick was very helpful when our flight from Auckland to Queenstown was cancelled due to the bad weather. He found a flight for us that got us to Queenstown that same day and enabled us to take the Milford Sound Tour scheduled the next day. Overall, it was a great trip and I would use/recommend Dick's travel company anytime. 

Overall, we were happy with the itinerary and the hotel choices (details about each location below). All the transitions were smooth and hassle free. Fiji Sofitel was a great choice for us. The accommodations were clean, comfortable, and with views. The staff were all super friendly and approachable. There was even free laundry facilities. The lounge area and pool were superb. We loved the complimentary breakfast (lots of fresh fruit and pastries). Dinners at the buffet were OK, good food and service, but nothing special. We also appreciated how close Sofitel was to the port so we could go there for dinner as well. We did take a snorkeling day trip with a travel company partner in Fiji used by this travel company, which was fun. Fortunately the weather was good that day. The main downside of Sofitel (and all of the nearby hotels) is that the beach and water are not really good (thank goodness Sofitel had a nice pool area). If we were to go back to Fiji, we would probably want to explore more of the remote islands. Auckland Scenic Hotels was again a great choice for us. The central location was great, and the room was clean and comfortable. We thought that having both the bus tour and the cruise was maybe too much guided touring of the city. Jeff enjoyed the bus tour because it gave us a chance to get oriented and check out some of the different areas which we may not have had a chance to get to otherwise. We probably could have done without the Harbor Cruise, though. Both the Waitomo caves and Hobbiton tours were better than we expected. However it was a very long day on the bus with many transfers. Too bad the sites are so far away in New Zealand! Rotorua Ibis Rotorua was again a good choice for us. Clean and comfortable, with a nice location. One of the things we really enjoyed was the walk along the lake. We were pleasantly surprised to come across geothermal features right along the hike. We enjoyed the morning at Te Puia. We probably could have spent more of the morning there (and maybe skipped the Agrodome and/or Rainbow Springs). Rainbow Springs looks like a great place to take families, but we could have probably done without. The Mitai experience overall was enjoyable but did not feel authentic, and honestly the food was not good. I'm not sure if any of the other Hangi dinner experiences are any different, but I expected more (especially given the cost!) Christchurch Of all the places we stayed, we thought the Cotswold was the worst experience. Although it looks cute from the outside, the rooms are kind of frumpy and the walls are thin. The staff in the lobby were not particularly friendly or helpful, and the location was not ideal (a bit of a walk to Merivale and far from downtown Christchurch). The TranzAlpine trip was wonderful! Probably not something we would have known to book for ourselves - so it was a treat. The weather cooperated! Franz Josef Punga Grove was a great place with very friendly staff and clean/comfortable rooms. We enjoyed doing hikes around the area. Although we weren't able to go with the guided tour, we went on several of the self-guided hikes, which were nice. Queenstown The Copthorne has a nice lobby, nice rooms, and gorgeous views. Strangely, the hallways were very dingy looking. The tour with the travel company partner in New Zealand used by these travel specialists to Milford sound was great (and seemed like to best tour company). Our driver was Maori, and told us about the legends in both Mauri and English! Although this was also a long bus day, the tour company's bus was more comfortable than other buses we had been on. The Milford Sound experience was also very nice. In general - as I mentioned earlier, all the transfers and pick-ups went very smoothly. We're were a little surprised that our airline seats were not pre-assigned, and we didn't have the ability to pick out the seats for some of the airlines. Is this typical for the airlines (e.g. Air Pacific)?

  Eileen W and Sam W,We arrived in Auckland and since we arrived so early in the morning we couldn’t check in. No worries… we walked around the city. The hotel was okay, nothing special. Very stark in the rooms. It was convenient to many places. On 4 March, Caleigh, picked us up and took us all on a tour around Auckland. She is also the owner of the tour company. She was an amazing guide and extremely informative. We saw mountain look outs, volcano near the beach, Maori museum and a wonderful lunch. We were out from 8:30 till 5pm. We all loved her and would highly recommend her and her company. The next day we went to Waiheke Island and toured some vineyards. Our guide was not fabulous and a little quirky. The wines were okay, nothing to write home about, and we saw different things. Devonport was a cute little town and we had great chocolates.We flew to Queenstown and the hotel was great. Wonderful rooms and so convenient to everything. Hills were a bonus too (not), ha-ha. The steamship was very nice and we had an amazing dinner at Walter Peak. The sheep sheering was a good demonstration and the Australian sheep dogs are amazing animals. We thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience. Our trip to Milford Sound with our guide was wonderful. He was very knowledgeable and was a very entertaining guide. Milford sound was beautiful and we all had a wonderful time. We took the van back to the hotel with no issues. Our scenic wine tour was great… wines were beautiful and tasty. Our guide was very informative and we had a fabulous lunch at one of the wineries (and I don’t eat meat). Sam loved it and so did I. All our pickups for our tours were perfect and on time with no issues. We truly loved New Zealand and especially Queenstown. As our tours and pick ups in NZ were perfect and it seemed it was not to be the same throughout Australia. I’ll explain...We arrived in Sydney on Friday, 10 March. The hotel gave us a small room and they corrected it the next day. The hotel  was nice. It was convenient to the harbour and other sites, but the area outside the hotel was very dirty. It was situated at the edge of China town and although the restaurants there were great, the street just outside the hotel was full of trash and other unsightly trash. The first morning there (Saturday, 11 March) we were to be picked up at 7:30 for a tour to the Blue Mountains. We were 10 minutes early and waiting on time and finally at 7:45 am when no one had showed, I called our travel agency's after hours number. I spoke to Maria. She looked into the problem and it seemed that whoever wrote out our itinerary (I’m guessing one from the team) miswrote the entire itinerary. It seemed that no tour was scheduled that day and we were not notified in the brochure or by phone or email. The tour was rescheduled for Monday, which was supposed to be our free day. If the agency had given us the correct written itinerary, then we would have scheduled our free day differently than being surprised at the last minute. (We could have toured the opera house and seen some museums). Maria was very apologetic but there was nothing that she could do. We were not happy about this at all. We scheduled a 3 hour walking tour (on our own) of Sydney for that day. By the end of the day we had walked 7 miles around Sydney.On Sunday, 12 March, we were scheduled to be picked up at our hotel at 10am for a full day tour of Sydney and then sailing in the harbour. The driver/guide was over 30 minutes late because he didn’t know where our hotel was located. He claimed he did not know there are 3 hotels from the same hotel chain in Sydney and didn’t know there was one near our area. Because he was late, he rushed through the sites and did not stop at the Rocks where we were supposed to get out and walk around. Luckily we had been at the Rocks the day before, but the other people missed out.On Monday morning, bright and early our guide picked us up for the Blue Mountain tour in the pouring rain, which continued all day. He was an excellent guide and showed us many great places and sites, despite the rain.We were off to Cairns. The driver who was supposed to pick us up at the airport was late. He had been walking around the airport in Cairns without a sign, looking for all of us, and could not find us. (Duh, have a sign with the person’s name on it.) The hotel was wonderful and we had wonderful accommodations and the views were beautiful. The Ocean Freedmon and Coral Reef tour was amazing. We all had a fabulous time snorkeling and the captain and crew on the boat were great and extremely helpful. We had a fabulous day.On 16 March we waited outside our hotel to be picked up for our tour to Kuranda. This time when the guide did not show up on time we called the agency at 8:35am and when no one answered at all, I called the tour group. The woman I spoke to said that they had been trying to reach them but to no avail. They had changed our pickup location and we needed to be there in 10 minutes. We made our way to the pick up at the hotel, where other people were waiting as well. They got back to me a while later through email and said “I personally amended pick up toCairns and confirmed with the tour. I will check on that with supplier”. “In regards to our drivers, I re-confirmed your pick up time and location as per itinerary earlier today. So it stays as is - 6:30am from the hotel in Cairns tomorrow.” We got to Kuranda and had a lovely day walking around and taking the Skyrail and Train. It was extremely hot that day.On 17 March, again we waited outside our hotel promptly at 6:20am waiting for our pickup. Again the guide/driver did not show up on time. A man called me and said that there was an accident on the road an he was delayed. He said he would be at the “hotel” shortly. I said to him that we are waiting at the hotel for him outside. At 7:05am he still wasn’t there and I called and said we were still waiting at the hotel. He told me again, the driver/guide would be there shortly. At 7:15am he arrived and said that he had been told to go to the other hotel and was looking for us there. We waited another 10 minutes for another couple to show up and then we finally left for our tour of the Daintree. Our guide was named Grant also, and he apologized profusely and by the end of the day he was an excellent guide. He added in other sites for us to see and told us that he would show us everything and not cut anything out. We didn’t arrive back to the hotel till 7:15pm.We were off to Launceston. The wine tour we took on 25 March was very good. We stopped at other locations besides the two wineries we went too. (The guide asked us if we preferred to do an additional winery, and we chose to allow her to show us sites of Launceston which we definitely enjoyed). She was an excellent guide and very knowledgeable.We all left Tasmania on Sunday, 26 March and stayed with family until 31 March. When taking a trip of this length we expected a few hick-ups. We would have hoped that the tour operators would have reached out to us instead of us having to contact the tour groups when issues arose. We had confirmed our trip with you before leaving for NZ and Oz, and the difficulties in Australia made those days stressful.As a whole, we had a fabulous trip and would definitely recommend your tour company for NZ and Oz. David of our travel agency was informative, helpful, amazing, and extremely attentive to our wants and needs in planning our trip.  We would definitely use his company again.