Te Pa Tu - The Gathering Place — Attraction in North Island

TLDR; $130 for a deep fried burger and a dude in a T-shirt? AVOID!

This was supposed to be the highlight of our trip to Rotorua - after all, according to the website this was one of the "Top 10 Experiences in the world". The reviews I read seemed to confirm this, however after my visit to Tamaki Maori Village I am beginning wonder whether those reviewers had reviewed the wrong place by mistake.

I feel that it is important to know that I was all in on this. I WANTED this to be good. I was prepared for the experience to feel a bit hokey or even canned - we were paying for a show after all, and I was all in. We attended the afternoon session since we have 2 young kids and they would never make it through an evening show. I was excited for my 5 year old son to be exposed to some of the traditions of the Maori culture and I was ready to help him feel that the experience was as authentic as possible. Unfortunately that suspension of disbelief was impossible, even for a 5 year old.

The experience we got is NOT what is sold on their website. Our "host" was in sneakers, shorts and a T-shirt, our "activity" was wrapping hamburgers in pizza dough, and then majority of our time in the "village" - about 45 minutes - was spent sitting at a table awkwardly waiting for our hamburger to be deep fried while we made awkward small talk with our host and our kids complained of boredom.

When we finally did get a tour of the village it included a brief overview from our host followed by "feel free to look around". Our "traditional game" was throwing sticks back and forth. The highlight of the experience for the kids was feeding eels ground beef off of wooden barbecue skewers. The whole experience was capped off by our host dragging his poor children down to the village and making them sing for us while he played guitar. Sure, they smiled and went through the motions, but it was obvious that dad dragged them off the couch to make them perform for the tourists.

There was no traditional dress at all, there was no "cultural exposure". This whole experience was an obvious cash grab by a company exploiting people's desire to learn about Maori culture. Describing it as disappointing would be generous, "painful" would be a more appropriate adjective.

At the end of the day we paid $130/person for deep fried food that we had to make ourselves while hanging out with one Maori dude in shorts and a t-shirt.

This company should be ashamed of their marketing. Absolutely not as advertised. I write this in hopes that no one else wastes their time and money on this sham of...

This review reflects my disappointment in the food, not the cultural activities and performance, which were fun and informative.

I came here back in 2015 when it was Tamaki Maori Village, and it was the best meal and overall experience I had in NZ - hangi style buffet with all kinds of meat, veg, sauces, gravies, green lipped mussels, etc, and then the best pavlova for dessert. The games, songs, and other immersive experiences were incredible.

So naturally, I brought my family here when they joined me for another visit . Based on the new Te Pa Tu website, I thought the food would be incredible, but it was highly disappointing. While I appreciate the idea of blending cultures, I'm ultimately not here at a Maori experience to have food from all of the chefs' different nationalities. I came here for a Maori/NZ experience, so I want to eat that kind of food...not Scottish, Fijian or Indian & limoncello....Besides that , the food was cold and dry. There were no serving utensils given to us with many of the food platters, and the shared plate style with a huge table was awkward and led to gluten cross contamination of much of the food. The dinner portion of the night was also extremely long and boring. When I was here in 2015, there was singing throughout/after dinner, so I kept expecting something to happen, but nope, it was just hours of sitting there waiting for more food to come out slowly. Also, I found that the small appetizers did not add very much to the experience during the...

Myself and my friends can only assume that the other people rating this as 4 or 5 stars were taken to a completely different reality where the concept of value for money and professionalism means nothing. The performances weren’t rehearsed until moments before the actual show in front of all the guests at hushed volumes. If this was a true representation of Maori culture and the daily norms and practices of the Maori people then their ability to sustain themselves for as long as they have with such great esteem globally is one of life’s true miracles and mysteries.

We have been fleeced for $130 and can only Assume the owners are laughing on a yacht in the middle of the Pacific and probably aren’t Maori.

The best part of the night has been the long, hot journey home in the “brand new” bus punctuated by 6 laps of a roundabout while forcing participation in a travel song which in the context of overcooked lamb, mussels and chicken has inspired a turn of my stomach only rivalled by the feeling of entrapment during the closing ceremony.

Luckily the only thing getting me through is the knowledge that when we get back to our disgraceful motel we can plunge our heads under water in the mineral pool with the distinct possibility of suffering amoebic meningitis hopefully causing enough brain damage to completely wipe the memory of...