Dart River Adventures — Attraction in South Island

We booked this activity well in advance as part of our trip to New Zealand. Since we were only in Queenstown for four or five days, we had carefully planned all our activities back-to-back. Dart River Adventures contacted us multiple times before the trip and changed our booking on each occasion. While we accepted the changes, it meant we had to constantly rearrange other plans just to accommodate their shifting schedule.

As a gesture of goodwill, they offered a $50 in-store voucher—excluding food and drinks—which honestly didn’t feel like much considering the ongoing inconvenience.

Then, on the actual day of the tour, things got worse. That morning, I received two conflicting emails—one stating the check-in was at 11:00 am and another saying 11:45 am. With the booking having already changed multiple times, I called them at around 10:30 am to confirm what time we actually needed to be there. My son and I had already gotten ready and were just about to leave our hotel (Novotel) to walk over to the Shotover Street office.

That’s when I was told, casually over the phone, that the tour would likely be cancelled due to rough weather. We were never contacted beforehand—and had I not called, we would have shown up for a tour that wasn’t even going ahead. It was our last day in Queenstown, and after all the back and forth, the tour was cancelled just 30 minutes before check-in.

We were offered to reschedule, but we were leaving the following day and couldn’t make it work. To be honest, we had little faith in it actually going ahead anyway—this was the fourth change to our booking. So, we accepted the refund that was offered. Unfortunately, we also missed out on the $50 inconvenience voucher that had been given during one of the earlier changes.

It was just disappointing, really. My son was especially upset—it was one of the few activities we’d planned to do together and had been looking forward to.

The explanation about the weather also didn’t seem to add up—other jet boat operators in Queenstown Bay were running all day, the ski lifts at Coronet Peak were still open, and even the Shotover Jet boats were still in the water.

All in all, based on our experience, I wouldn’t book with Dart River Adventures again. If you’re considering a jet boat experience in Queenstown, I’d recommend looking at one of the other...

I was looking forward to the Wilderness experience today, but we were understandably cancelled due to bad weather. I was also running five minutes behind the 1:45pm check-in time that I was given, so if it hadn't been cancelled we may have missed the boat anyway!

I did want to share that we didn't know about the cancellation until after the check-in time. I couldn't make alternative arrangements at such short notice (but again, this would have been the case anyway if we had missed the boat), and it meant we'd made an unnecessary two hour round trip from Queenstown (a wonderful drive, though).

I was told another Dart River trip departing earlier that day had been weather-affected, so I was curious about why we hadn't known there may be a cancellation for our trip. I was told a blanket email had been sent that morning advising the possibility of cancellation and that Dart River Adventures hadn't been able to reach me on my mobile -- but the only call I received was the call they made just before I walked in. I also checked my email later that afternoon at the hotel, and couldn't find any communication from the company in my Inbox or spam folder. I called and left a message with the company to follow up on this, but haven't heard back.

Things happen and emails do go missing. But I do feel that the company did not make the best effort they could have to notify us of a possible weather cancellation. They were nevertheless very friendly and nice to deal with, at all times. (This was actually our second attempt to get on the boat, after we were delayed by traffic the day prior and missed out, and staff were really helpful then as well.)

I'm just sharing for anyone curious about how the company handles this kind of scenario. We were fully refunded. If I were to book again I would be less trusting of the process, allow another 30 minutes than recommended for travel time, and call multiple times right up to departure to check status (and obviously be on time -- harder than it looks with a one parent family when travelling), to avoid being stuck with an empty afternoon and two sad kiddos. It looks like an amazing experience, and we're sorry...

We booked the Wilderness Jet Experience with Dart River Adventures when we visited New Zealand on our honeymoon from Brisbane, Australia in June. Such an amazing experience and highly recommended for anyone! We had a hire car and chose to take the scenic and easy drive to the office from Queenstown. Their team and office is friendly and organised with facilities on site and they made sure we were warm enough for our trip out. We had a full waterproof jacket (knee length on me and I’m 157cm) and a floatation device on top. There wasn’t a pocket in the jacket provided so if you want to take photos/videos on your phone, our tip would be to have your phone tucked into the sleeve of the jacket or worn on a wrist band or lanyard. Be sure to bring a cap/beanie in the colder months and wear sunglasses. We were also given Dart River Adventures branded neck/bandana warmers, and they were very handy to have on to keep ears/necks warm and to stop caps from flying off. After a quick ride in the shuttle bus to the Glenorchy Pier, we hopped onto our jet boat which had ample seating. After dropping off the other guests to their fun-yaks, my husband and I were lucky enough to enjoy a private jetboat experience with our guide/jet-boat-driver-extraordinaire, Dean, who we found out was also from Brisbane! Dean was a myriad of information about the river and local surrounds/culture and was an all-round amazing guide for our trip. We even got to disembark for a walk along the riverbank and photo ops before hopping back on board for more spins on the river. A must-do experience for anyone...