Adventure of a Lifetime

Our Australia & New Zealand Tour delivered at every turn. This is a fast paced tour that will show you the best the two countries have to offer. Our tour guide, Simon, was top notch. I would highly, highly recommend this tour. Great value.

Nice trip!

I enjoyed the trip to Australia and New Zealand. Snorkling the Great Barrier Reef, riding a camel in the Outback and paragliding in New Zealand were my favorite things !!!!

Australia & New Zealand whirlwind!

Enjoyed seeing AU and NZ though more time in Rotorua and Auckland would have been nice. Whereas we saw the Southern Alps while flying in, I would have loved being able to visit them up close. Milford Sound was spectacular, just a long bus ride to and from Queenstown. Enjoyed Alice Springs and seeing the outback.. Bus ride to Ayers Rock was educational as was seeing the rock up close. Snorkling on the Great Barrier Reef was worth every minute of the experience- spectacular. Thought flying to Sydney then to Melbourne and back to Sydney was wasting time but one cannot fly from Ayers Rock to Melbourne. If you can fly to NZ from Melbourne, then do Sydney first and Melbourne second and save one flight. Rain forced cancellation of a trip to the rainforest from Cairns and also forced the tour to cancel the Fiji portion of the trip because the hotel was flooded (understandable). Tour director (Luke Bonney) was knowledgable AND enjoyable. Could suggest changes in scheduling to provide more usable time for touring based upon starting earlier (did not leave for Arrowtown, NZ until noon; could have left at 10 am). All in all, we enjoyed the trip and could return to NZ to see more.

australia new zealand

this trip didnt rate active. it had enough downtime to do laundry every other day. it hit a lot of points of interest, but could have been better streamlined with less downtime and more added attractions. alice springs didn't give you an experience. too much downtime. over-priced and nightmare-ish "aboriginal dreamtime" tour should be eliminated. add the gorges instead or at least offer them. you can easily do the city tour the first day and gorges the second day as there is absolutely nothing to do there during downtime. not safely alone anyway.maybe add the downtime to ayers rock instead. at least there is more to do there. opposed to viewing homeless aboriginals in alice springs. (they were the only aboriginals i actually spoke with; as sad as that was) . include the sydney bridge climb tour with this package. it's ridiculous that i had to add out-of-pocket money to actually get any active excitement after paying for this trip. add kayaking to queenstown time. there is plenty of downtime there to add it in. cancel ashburton and add the day to rotorua as we barely had time to visit the hot springs. i didn't even get to the gardens. i had to get up extremely early,and almost missed the bus, to actually do a partial hike around the lake. you really need to teach luke how to offer alternatives when a rain out occurs. we saw very little of him the first week and i was absolutely livid that i saved so very long and payed so very much to have to figure out things to do on my own with such an absolute amount of downtime. this definitely reflected in his tip as i feel they are earned and not required. the bus drivers seemed to be more knowledgable than luke about australian history at times. i liked luke, but he did his job,,,no going above or beyond until the last few days of the trip. he needs to learn that we hardworking individuals that wait years to take such a trip , don't forget the disappearing act. you're free to contact me for more in depth ideas as to how to better present this trip to future travellers.

Australia/New Zealand/Figi

Our guide was funny, informative, knowledgable, innovative and did I mention Funny! I don't think there was one attraction that we didn't see or experience, including a "tropical depression" over Figi that flooded the road and town. Our tour guide was able to get us out as quickly as possible.

Much more than dreamed about

The Australia/New Zealand tour designed and offered by Go Ahead Tours had a very broad list of things to do, learn and explore. It ended up being much better that we have ever dreamed because of the organization, coach driver's experience and knowledge (they were more than drivers and taught us so much about living at their location) and mostly the quality of our tour director Simon Malliate. He was super professional throughout the entire trip. Part of the trip had long hours in a coach which, surprisingly, were not boring because we would either stop at key places to explore the local things (forest, tea break and shopping, animal farm, ice-cream and local fruit,...) or Simon played for us a couple of times DVD of famous movies about the local culture. Suggestions to eat or spend our free time were always interesting and allowed us to pick among several choices depending on budget and energy. Even with unpredictable things such as rain, we enjoyed every moment. Rain in Queenstown allowed us to see the rainbows and snow on the top of the mountains. Both city and country side local tours were very well prepared and always followed time expectancies. New Zealand is a must to see! Do not underestimate this amazing country. I wish we did not have an extra day in Queenstown and could have spent more time in Auckland. The only option I would reconsider buying was the Winery visit in Melbourne. It wasn't as informative as I wished and in Queenstown we had a better experience, part of the trip. The unexpected and very positive take home gift I got from this trip was the knowledge I earned from interacting with locals and get to see their culture so closely. The way this trip was organized and the places we went allowed us to learn a lot about History, culture and traditions, besides the predictive Nature and wildlife. It was all in one :) I will certainly consider Go Ahead Tours for my next trip. Thank you!

Australia & New Zealand Tour

Great trip...when people ask what was the best we say there are so many that we can't choose!

Excellent Trip at the right price!

This was our first trip with Go Ahead Tours and it won't be our last. It was a 24 day trip and from start to finish it was well done. The tour director was interesting, fun, very well organized and went over and above each and everyone on the tour.

trip exceeds expectations

great trip ,tour guide great ,aussies great . nature, culture(aborigine,maori) adventure(snorkling, parasailing,hot air baloon, camel ride), hotels great overall it was one of our most exciting trips.do it.

Recommend

Have already recommended this tour to several friends.