West Coast Wildlife Centre — Attraction in South Island

The good: We saw two northern brown kiwi up close in a natural habitat where we could see them poking around for food and sniffing about. It was incredible to see them! It's also amazing how much good the center has done for rowi, having raised over half the existing population.

The not-so-good: As of our visit in Dec 2023, the rowi One Nest Egg project is no longer active and the centre has not raised an egg in at least a year. The website and signs are highly misleading--there's a very big difference between "no guarantee of seeing eggs or chicks" and "virtually guaranteed that you will NOT see eggs or chicks," since they have not had any for at least a year and have no expectation of hatching any more. The tuatara are fascinating creatures, but you're able to see them pretty much as well whether doing the backstage tour as not. Ultimately for an extra $30ish/pp for the backstage tour, I recommend sticking with the regular ticket. That said, I do hope the government changes its mind and decides to reopen the program, as it was obviously very beneficial!

The okay: I did seek out this centre specifically because they advertise themselves as housing rowi. We were happy to see any type of kiwi and really enjoyed watching them, but at least at present there are no rowi. And to head off a negative reply -- it was cool that the café served local products, the gift shop had a lot of variety, and the other exhibits were informative.

Overall, this is an excellent way to see kiwi and I applaud the amazing work the centre has done. Advertising for the backstage tour is (borderline intentionally) misleading and should be updated to be up front about what to expect. We loved seeing the kiwi and tuatara and recommend visiting if...

Had rude bad service with the counter staff at gift shop and the cafe. Gift shop staff was so unfriendly and having bought about $100 worth of gifts, i as customer to ask for a separate bag just to put a gift cap she gave a silent stare and I needed to justify that the cap is a gift. I wonder if a paperbag is too much to give for a $35 cap? She was so rude n staring n sulky silent.

Cafe counter staff are so grouchy and looked angry. My 2 daughters went to buy $6 sweet potato fries stated as $6 on menu and a $4 for a bar as per stated on price in display. They were charged $10.50 instead of $10. They were afraid to ask is it for takeaway as worried she may bark at them . They dare not ask for receipt Too. The other cafe staff who served just rudely served the fries at our table and walked off. We requested for dine in instead of takeaway as need wait abit for fries.

Our experience as tourists have been fantastic until these 3 staff gave us bad taste. Spoilt our balance of day.

The counter ticket staff good thing was nicer.

I brought my family there as Trip advisor gave it good reviews. The reviews indeed are good for the center. NOT FOR THE GIFT SHOP AND CAFE STAFF.

Please let yr staff know they should not have preferential treatment or bring their bad attitude to work, especially if they r working in tourism industry.

We as customers, tourists, fellow beings do not deserve their unkind biased treatment, for whatever reasons they are...

DO NOT GO HERE!!! It is a COMPLETE RIP-OFF!!! First you will have an owner or manager try to hard-push sell you on a back-stage pass for $58 which was extremely off-putting. They even tried to pitch the cafe and gift shop as part of the deal.

So the experience is:

You walk through a small gate and go through a door into a night room with little lighting where there are two kiwis you can't even touch. The room was so poorly lit I barely see the kiwis' features. The older folk next to me couldn't even see the kiwis when they were even a metre in front of them. You may get to hear two other baby kiwis but good luck being able to see them with the low-lit lighting. They don't even let you take pictures, probably so people can't prove how bad of an experience it is. You then walk into this area that is supposed to look like a glacier with a few tvs, a couch or two and descriptions on walls about Franz Josef. End of tour!

Total time of experience: 15 minutes

There are many other places I'd rather spend $38 in Franz Josef. Trust me... this is a waste of time. I don't know what else you would do with a 24 hour pass when it takes a maximum of 20 minutes to look around. And I'm not too sure who is propping up these reviews, maybe friends and family of theirs and rich tourists who don't mind throwing money...