New Zealand tour reviews

I was very fortunate to have Tia Chesser as my agent for this booking. What an amazing asset you have in your company, organized, helpful and a wealth of knowledge and an absolute pleasure to deal with. Nothing was too difficult, and the trip was 100% successful. Thank you for an outstanding job and I had nothing but positive feedback from adults and students on the trip. - Kind Regards Alli Clifford

The tour was very well planned by Ella Stalker. Fast paced but saw everything in a weekend. Rotorua was a terrific experience, the geysers, the cultural program, the hangi. The people were so friendly, made us feel very welcome. Lot of laughs, lots of fun. Everyone we met, drivers, guides, staff….really made it memorable.

Brittany has been very helpful. Whenever we have doubts, we text her & she will respond quickly. Thumbs up! The hotel & motel that we stayed in during our trip were clean & nice! The Milford Sound tour with RealNZ was fantastic! We would also like to compliment Peanut, the driver cum guide from RealNZ. He was so knowledgeable, accommodating & helpful.

We loved everything about our trip. It was well planned out, the accommodation were always very nice and easy to locate, we essentially appreciated the side roads suggested for beautiful scenery on some of the days. It was easy to navigate the maps. It was perfect!!

I have received an excellent service from the moment of booking the tour for my family, through to receiving prompt responses to queries up until the tour. I made amendments and took recommendations on extra activities from well-informed and helpful staff. As a result my family had the best time!!! All credit to Janette and her colleagues for making a fabulous holiday so memorable and enjoyable - we will be talking about this tour for a very a long time! Many thanks to all!

The trip was well-planned by Jon. Thank you Jon! We were spotted almost immediately when we came out of Christchurch airport and driven speedily to our accommodation. The accommodations throughout the trip were well selected, being accessible to amenities like restaurants and supermarkets, as well as spacious. Our favourite accommodation was Te Waonui Forest Retreat. Even though it was a free upgrade as our booked accommodation closed for the winter, the retreat was lovely! Do note that you have to find the bus stops to take the Grayline buses on your own but shouldn't be an issue if you give yourself enough time and rely on Google Maps.

Hi Brittany, A BIG THANK - YOU, for organizing our fantastic holiday, no stress, just sit back and enjoy the stunning beauty our country has to offer. Transfers arranged and waiting, bus pick-up on time and drivers complement the journey with history and informative local information, which we would never have gained from driving our own car. Accommodation warm and comfortable, walking distance from local shopping and attractions. We will definitely be recommending Thrifty Tours to friends and family as the way to travel. Kind Regards, Ken Raggett

Hi Brittany, I will just say that my daughter and I had an incredible time on the South Island of New Zealand!!! The land is truly incredible with a powerful Earth energy! The 2-day Thrifty tour kicked off our trip and it was an awesome way to start. The train was a lot of fun and the staff were polite and professional. We covered so much ground in 2 days and saw so many different things and remote places. It was a lot of travel time but how else are you going to see so many different things and remote places. Our “check-in” at the train and hotel were easy. Gary with Hokitika tours was waiting for us in Greymouth and was a great tour guide and driver. Same with Richard from Glacial Shuttles. He picked us up right on time the next day and we had a great tour to Queenstown. Both drivers were flexible and offered to stop and check out anything we wanted. Sometimes we stopped and sometimes we just kept going. Our trip from Greymouth to Franz Joseph was rainy and cloudy. We passed right by Mt Cook but couldn’t see it, but I trust it was there. When we arrived in Franz Joseph, the clouds were set low, so we didn’t see much of anything. You start to wonder why you can so far if you can’t see anything but I think that helped set up the next morning's surprise. We got up early for coffee in downtown Franz Joseph and the clouds had cleared and the view was inspiring! This 2 day trip might not be for everyone. Some people might not like being around so many mountains, rivers, giant lakes, ocean beaches, rain forests, glaciers and waterfalls. Especially waterfalls, if you really don’t like waterfalls, the south island might not be for you! But me and my daughter really love those things, so the South Island was like a dream come true! Separately, we also got to Fiordland and Milford Sound from the home base of Queenstown. Finally, we topped off our tour of the South Island with a live Kiwi encounter at the center in Queenstown. We flew from Queenstown to Sydney where we spent several days and then traveled to Uluru for several days. We finished the trip with 3 days in Auckland so I could see experience the city my daughter’s been living in this semester. We could have easily spent more time in NZ but it seemed necessary to step foot in Australia being so close. Thrifty Tours helped us to check out a lot of the South Island in a short time. We appreciate your help to set it up and include so many details and instructions. This e-mail is just my personal response to you. If you like, I can write up a similar review. We took a lot of pictures, but I need to sort through them to see if any are worthy of sharing. Thanks again, Josh

Thank you for a great trip. Owen Hunt was a great to work with on setting up our itinerary & tweaking it as things changed. All of our pickups, hotels, and excursions went perfectly. We did recommend Thrifty tours to other people along the way, and would in the future as well. Thanks, Mark & Lisa Montemuro

Vickie, thank you for creating a wonderful itinerary for us! We had a great trip. We loved both islands. In Rotorua, we also did the Redwood Night time Treewalk which we'd highly recommend to your other clients. A fun little extra. We also did a biking wine tour in Queenstown. The only item that was a little nuisance was leaving the Millennium Hotel on Stanley Street which was a steep street and having to transfer with luggage down to Athol Street in Queenstown for our transfer to Franz Josef. It would have also been nice to coordinate to have more than a few hours one evening in Franz Josef as it looked like a quaint town worthy of one day. We definitely want to come back and we'd use your services again if we can!! All the private transfer drivers were great as well!