Auckland & Beyond Tours — Local services in Upper Harbour

The day before yesterday, we didn't receive any tour guide information, so I sent an email first. Finally, the tour agent Peter informed us that our tour was canceled due to insufficient numbers of participants and offered a refund or the option to pay an additional $100 to join another tour. We were very disappointed, but since it was the tour we were most looking forward to in Auckland, we decided to pay the extra money. The next day, our alarm clock malfunctioned, and we woke up in a panic at 6:15 am, the time when the bus was supposed to depart. We realized it was our mistake and apologized to the tour guide. However, when I called Peter afterwards to explain our situation, he was extremely rude and unhelpful, showing no intention of assisting us in any way. It was our fault, but we also paid a significant amount of money. His service infuriated us. It was frustrating to be in a situation where we paid for a tour in a foreign country and didn't receive proper assistance, especially because our English skills are not very strong. Feeling anxious, we tried calling several times to resolve the issue, but we were blocked, so we had to use a different phone to make the call. They provided the tour address but didn't send any email, so we had to take an Uber taxi by ourselves. The high rating is because of the friendly and comforting guides who treated us well and made us feel at ease. We hope they are not affected by the negative experience. Peter should remember that most of the tour participants are foreigners who come from different countries and it would be better not to confuse and treat them unkindly. Although we don't know their names, we are extremely grateful to the guide who greeted us first at the Hobbit ticket office and to Raymond, the guide who accompanied us on the Maori tribe tour. Thanks to them, we were able to have a wonderful first tour in Auckland and...

Really misleading advertisement and disappointing day trip. It really shows they just taking advantage of tourists. You’ll start with a 4h bus ride on the motorway with 1 small stop after 3h, fallowed by a Ferry ride to a small island. (Ferry leaves at 2pm and coasts 120$ if booked by yourself) bus arrives at 1:45pm. On the small island you’ll have a little break of about 1h, where you can buy some food and drinks. After the well deserved break and bad cuisine, you start your return journey. Getting off the ferry and straight onto your bus. The scheduled ferry arrival in Paihia is 6:30. By default the earliest you’ll be in Auckland is 10:30, that’s without any stops or delays. (Again only one little stop after 3h of bumpy riding) Don’t know if this ETA of 9pm was ever achieved. You’ll maybe have a 10min break and maybe some “complimentary snacks” before you get back on the shaky bus where after only 4h you’ll be back in Auckland. All in all it feels like a cheap taxi service, not like a “cruise” as advertised. The total travel time on the “luxury bus” will add up to 8h+… (comparable to an international flight) They drive you there and give you (what, essentially is a bus ticket for the ferry) and sent you off to the last stop, wait for your return and drive you straight back to Auckland. I would recommend anyone to book an overnight stay if you like to see the bay of islands and just taking a regular bus service. For a price and hassle involved in this trip, it’s definitely worth considering. Auckland & beyond tours are free to use my review for realistic...

The tour Raymond and Marcel were fine. The first 20 minutes of the trip (after picking everyone up) Raymond talked about some history of New Zealand and was pretty funny. We weren’t a very interactive crowd, pickup time being at 6:00 am, so we didn’t probably help, but pretty much the rest of the trip, he and Marcel (who was in training, but I didn’t really see that she had any added value for the tour) spoke animatedly in a foreign language which is fine but just sort of no value there. The van was comfortable and air conditioned so that was nice. The actual heroes of the tour were the actual tour guides at Hobbiton and the glow worm caves. They each get kudos. Nice that everything was relatively organized and we didn’t have to wait at all to take our tours.

Ok the interminable drive home, Marcel was distracting Raymond from driving once and we nearly had a rear-end collision with the car immediately in front of us (I had put my seatbelt on just moments before. Lucky me) and not 5 minutes later we almost ran off the road - not sure if Raymond had fallen asleep or what. Glad we did the tour as it was interesting once we were at the locations. Both were incredible. Maybe this tour is usually better as they’ve had some turnover or something but it just wasn’t that...