Family Beach Vacations

We have just returned from a 6 week trip to Australia and New Zealand.  Our travel agents and their team at this travel company are personable, professional, knowledgeable and did an amazing job putting together our trip! Our collaboration involved several phone calls to discuss options and preferences as our trip was being organized as well as a pre-trip call to answer any questions.  Our email exchange was continuous and responses were very prompt.  We even received a call once during our travels to check in.  Our detailed itinerary was precise and accurate.  Every connection, tour, driver, hotel, etc. was on time and of excellent quality. While in New Zealand in Milford Sound our flight back to Queenstown was cancelled due to poor weather and we received a quick refund.                

In Australia we visited Sydney, Melbourne and the Great Ocean Road ( a favorite of ours!), Uluru, Port Douglas and the Great Barrier Reef, and Hobart, Tasmania.  We only stayed a few days in Tasmania but would love to return to enjoy more of the wilderness outside of Hobart.  

In New Zealand we visited Auckland and then drove to the Coromandel Peninsula, Rotorua, and Napier.  Then we flew to Christchurch on the South Island and drove to Mt. Cook, Queenstown, and Dunedin.  If you are big fans of the outdoors, spend more time on the South Island.                                                                                                                 

Our agent selected beautiful and centrally located lodging that usually offered laundry facilities-helpful for a long trip!  The travel company also provided a suggested restaurant list that proved to be excellent!  We would highly recommend this company for your Down Under adventures!  When we travel again to that part of the world, we will definitely call this company.

You could not have planned the trip better. It was fantastic! Our safari driver from Rangers was great - again could not of been better. He pushed every day for us to see everything possible. Hes fun and incredibly knowledgeable and has a great command of the English language.You were right to schedule one day in Nairobi - so glad we did not change it to two days. We saw the last of the Big 5 - the black rhino in Kenya. We loved all of our accommodations and the people are so friendly, polite and helpful.We saw the Great Migration in Tanzania. We would not of changed one thing. People from other tour agencies were dissapointed that when they arrived in Kenya when we did as all of the Wildebeest had already migrated to Tanzania.What you scheduled for us was perfect. I do think that Tanzania is not well known but Kenya is to the average American like us. If it wasn't for you we would of never known about Tanzania. Tanzania has it all - except the black rhino at the Govenor's Camp- no need to even go to Kenya but I did want to go the the Elephant and Giraffe orphanages. We loved Capetown, the shark cage trip and the tour operator was wonderful. The 1/2 day Capetown trip was great. We went on the historic Capetown walking tour at 11:00 after we checked out. We added the Olduvai museum at the crater to our trip.  We had a wonderful time and saw so much in 17 days including traveling from the East Coast;  Arusha, Tarangire National park,  Ngorongoro crater, Central Serengeti - Turner Springs, Norther Serengeti - Kokatonde, Masai - Mara, Nairobi, Victoria Falls and Capetown. A trip of a lifetime.

We felt very comfortable planning our trip with Rick. We told him our interests, concerns and and the pace we wanted to travel at.  He presented us with an itinerary which we spent hours reviewing along with a map, photos and and a website. Our primary hub towns were Queenstown, Wellington and Christchurch. We used two regional flights and two trains with gorgeous views of the coast and mountains. We took a few cruises and a private flight over the glaciers. Our River Dartboat excursion was cancelled when the drivers came down with Covid and the swim with the Dolphins mistakenly cancelled us off this trip. Cyclone Gabriela damaged Napier and the Coromandel Penninsula and the access roads, so we had to create an alternate plan on the ground in NZ. We added two days at Waiheke Island and attempted a hike up mount Doom and visits to the Weta Projects in Auckland and Wellington.Rick was amazingly helpful with changes that had to be made before and during the trip. He was the best!