4-Day Great Southern Island Circle Tour from Christchurch
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- Location:Christchurch, New Zealand
- Duration:4 days / 3 nights
- TOUR Code:2950CLT22A
7 reviews of 4-Day Great Southern Island Circle Tour from Christchurch
Read what other Viator.com travelers think about the 4-Day Great Southern Island Circle Tour from Christchurch. What they loved, what they liked and what they think could be improved, it's all here to help you make the most of your next trip.
The tour went according to plan. It would have been helpful to have had a more detailed itinerary before the tour began. Apart from that excellent.
Very very early starts to get to the destinations listed on the tour, understandable given the large distances travelled. Of particular note would be the time spent reaching Franz Josef Glacier, arrival at 5p.m. still feel disappointed that it was not possible to reach the glacier due to the time constraints, perhaps a 5 day tour could be organised to give an extra day at Queenstown. The voucher for shuttle to connect to bus at Heartlands Hotel was incorrect and we were confronted by a very irate driver in fact he was just about to drive off and leave us - another criticism was shuttle bus from hotel at Franz Josef picked us up as per instructions to drive us to the bus stop where we waited for the bus to collect the people from the hotel that we had just left . Our accommodation was comfortable the voucher system with the exception of the above worked well and our collection from the Tranzalpine train station was efficiently done with a very information driver (Aaron) who gave us information on things to do at Christchurch, which we followed and had a pleasant day. All in all it was a lovely few days in a beautiful country. Even though it was a 4am departure from New Zealand it did not dampen our enthusiasm, and pleasure at what we had seen.
This was a great trip - all the sites were very beautiful. I thought, though, that there was too much shuffling around of people, and too many different companies and connections that Viator scheduled me with - it made things confusing.
Great tour. I was shocked, however, that the Franz Josef glacier day did not actually take you to see the glacier, and we had to pay for an extra bus. Every other bus company seemed to stop at the glacier.
Lots of travelling to see Milford sound and probably better if they have more rain than we had, but still very lovely and peaceful. Can do helicopter flight over glacier and land which was amazing. Probably best to do that with the trip back from Milford Sound as it's 5 hours each way.
Too much bus travel, point to point travel could have been better organized to reduce time riding in buses. Need to provide ability to request accommodation upgrades. Need to be better informed, didn't know we had to make arrangements for lunch on the Milford Sound cruise. After arriving in Franz Josef were not aware that we needed to schedule a visit to the glacier, so missed this opportunity during our stay there. The TranzAlpine train was more than an hour late, travel was quite slow, and didn't see much more of the countryside than we would have seen from a bus. All of this aside, New Zealand's South Island is quite beautiful.
My main disappointment with the trip was that although it was promoted as a four day tour, it was actually four separate day trips, which meant that we had a different driver and passengers each day. We didn't arrive at Franz Josef glacier until 4.30pm and left the next morning at 9.00am. This did not allow us to do a tour of the glacier. I was also disappointed with the time wasted collecting and dropping off people at the different motels. On previous bus trips we have been on, we have all stayed at the same place thereby avoiding these delays.
