travelbunnyadventures
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South Island ▷ Fiordland ▷ Te Anau ▷
Te Anau Glowworm Caves
4.0/5
Everything was well organized.
Very informative and attentive guides. It was a pity that when we were there, there was a recent flood and there weren't as much glowworms. Otherwise it was a great experience, though I wished they would not compel us to take a photo even when we indicated we did not want to.
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South Island ▷ Mount Cook - MacKenzie ▷ Lake Tekapo ▷
Air Safaris
5.0/5
Awesome!
Very expensive but well worth the price. The noise from the engine does make it rather difficult to hear the commentary at times. Everyone on the staff were friendly.
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South Island ▷ Wanaka Region ▷ Wanaka Township ▷
Stuart Landsborough's Puzzling World Wanaka
3.5/5
Great way to spend a couple of hours.
We had fun getting lost in the maze and were entertained by the illusion rooms.
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South Island ▷ Fiordland ▷ Manapouri ▷
Doubtfulsoundcruise.com
1.5/5
We took the cruise with this operator over its competitor because of the steep discount it offered in May 2010.
Well, the saying "you get monkey when you pay peanuts" can't be more true here.
The woman who picked us up was rude and brusque. We opted to pay via credit card on the day of the cruise and being the only one who were doing so, she told us that we were holding up the entire group; even as the "crew" was still getting the boat to the pier. It made the whole experience very off-putting from the onset.
Next the cruise. As we continued on the cruise, we began to understand why it could be offered at such a steep discount. The entire cruise was operated by essentially one man. Yup, it was an one-man operation. He was the captain of the boat, the bus driver, and the tour guide.
What this meant was that after the boat docked, we had to wait while he went round securing the boat, then off to get the bus. Meanwhile, we were standing around feeding the sandflies. And this basically continued throughout the day.
The bus was old, rickety and filled with the carcasses of sandflies. But hey it served its function and really for the price that we paid (relative to the other operator which we could see was well run and served by a fairly large crew albeit serving a larger passenger load) I guess we should not had expected much.
Save for the brusque reception, the long waiting time in between, and the old bus and boat; the cruise itself was good. The one-man operator saved the day, between managing the logistics and managing the tourists, he managed to run the cruise smoothly.
Go only if you can snare a good discount.
Since July 2012 this business is now under new ownership & management! We take pride in providing a friendly, fun & personal customer service experience to all our clients. No monkey's on the payroll...just plenty of staff who are nuts about the area we live, work & play in...come see us - I promise you you'll all have a good time. Regards, Kara.
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South Island ▷ Kaikoura Region ▷ Kaikoura ▷
Whale Watch Kaikoura
3.5/5
Our experience was fairly disappointing.
We only managed to see one whale towards the end of the trip. Probably we had set too high an expectation but after waiting that long to see one whale flip its tail, it was rather anti-climax.
Otherwise, the tour was well run, very informative and you can tell that the crew really made every effort to make it a memorable experience.
Kia Ora, thank you for taking the time to share about your time with us we value your feedback. We are sorry that your time with us did not meet your expectations, as I am sure you can appreciate when working with nature we cannot really predict what is going to happen from one day to the next, we do however have an average of 1-2 sightings per tour, this is due to the nature of the whales that we view most commonly on our tours which is the sperm whale. Thanks for the kind words about your crew on the day I am sure they will be happy to know they are doing a great job.