Signature Panorama Reviews

Absolutely amazing tour through the highlights of New Zealand. Tour guide and bus drivers were fabulous and organised everything really well. Tour participants were all lovely - overall a fabulous holiday and would definitely recommend to anyone!

Lovely 2 week tour of North and South Island. Very good accommodations. Our twin rooms could very easily accommodate 4. Very punctual transport to and from airport. A good mix of travellers from different countries.

Thanks to Madeline at Global Journeys for arranging our travel. All went very smoothly. The tour with Grand Pacific was very enjoyable with knowledgeable and informative coach drivers. I was happy they were driving on some of the roads and not myself.

The booking process through Global Journeys was smooth/easy and problem free. The accommodation was very good to excellent for all places. My only gripe: the bathrooms in some places should provide more hooks or towel rails to hang towels etc. (Also at one place the toilet seat would not stay up which made it awkward for me (male). The staff were friendly ...read more and knowledgeable, the coaches were clean and comfortable. There was a good bunch of people in the group (mostly elderly, all friendly) and as time went on we got to know each other well and had interesting conversations.

As for New Zealand, it is an amazing place and it impressed everyone of us. It's natural beauty is abundant both on the South and North Islands. We saw many mountains which still had snow, amazing fiords, many lakes and rivers with crystal clear water, large agricultural enterprises and a number of historic towns and cities. I think the places covered by the tour were all of interest and we covered a lot of things in the time available. I'd love to go back with kayaks or canoes and spend weeks to travel some of those rivers/lakes. We were impressed at how clean the towns/cities and country side were kept (no rubbish, no graffiti) which is a real complement to New Zealanders and tourists alike. I think NZ can be an example to many other countries (including Australia) in this respect.

Even the weather played its part and we had perfect sunny days with max temps in the low 20's on all days except one (when in Wellington it rained much of the day). All in all, our coach tour of NZ left us with many happy memories and I can highly recommend it to any other traveler. Just prey for some good weather (similar to what we had) in order to get the most out of it.

Great itinerary. My only suggestion would be to stay in Tongariro National Park (as I did on a previous trip), rather than two nights in boring old Wellington - typical of any big city world-wide. Had very good weather in the South Island but mainly wet conditions in the North Island. I cannot recommend the optional day trip in the Dart River wilderness ...read more of Mt. Aspiring N.P. (ex Queenstown) too highly - simply superb! The South Island hotels (esp. in Christchurch - Heartland Hotel, Cotswold) were generally better than those in the North Island where rooms & bathrooms tended to be small, but were very good otherwise. Having a second access door on the coaches was very beneficial. Both driver/guides, Peter & Linda, were very knowledgeable and pleasant, but were overworked, not having a tour guide with them.

Those who had been to NZ previously were a little bit "Maoried-out" with our itinerary, especially if adding the Bay of Islands, but we expected that to be the case. Five of us hired a people-mover in Auckland to travel the length of Northland. The highlight here was Harrison's Cape Runner from Kaitaia - a 7 hour trip to both sides of the peninsula in a 4WD bus for only $NZ 50 incl. a picnic lunch. We visited Houhora Heads, Rarawa Beach, Tapotupotu Bay, Cape Regina, 4Wdriving through Te Paki Stream, sand tobogganing, and driving along 90 Mile Beach. Very, very worthwhile! As usual, the organisation at this end by Global Journeys from Georgie Walpole was superb - as we have come to expect! All in all a great trip (my 4th to NZ, the previous being a North Is;and Rugby trip(!!!); calling in on a cruise; and the South Island with the superb 6-day hike through the Greenstone and Routeburn Tracks (when I was much younger (58) and had a pair of knees that still worked!!) Many thanks to all concerned!

I was very impressed with the overall selection of the places we visited and the accommodation. However, I would like to add that, even though I rated our last hotel (Copthorne Hotel, Auckland) highly as we had been impressed with all other places and needed to hand in our report, I feel that I rated this place too soon as we were very unimpressed with ...read more this hotel and feel that it was not deserving of all Grand Pacific's other accommodation. It was definitely out-dated and tired but I would question the cleanliness of our room (eg we stayed 3 nights) and the house keeping didn't give us clean glasses, cups etc, we had to ask for more tea bags and even our bath seemed unclean as the bath mat had not been taken out of the bath which other hotels had done for cleaning. I could not recommend this hotel, but Grand Pacific's other selections were spot on. I would also like to give a high recommendation to our last driver 'Linda' whose service, attitude and friendliness plus exceptional knowledge of the area should be applauded.

I enjoyed my holiday and made new friends, am keeping in contact with one in particular. The accommodation and assistance due to my limited eyesight was fantastic and am unable to fault any part of my holiday including flights and help at both Sydney, Auckland and Christchurch airports. Thank you.

We really enjoyed our tour. Everything ran smoothly and both our Coach Captains were very professional and informative. All venues were very good and the optional extras enjoyable. Thank you Georgie at Global Journeys for your help in booking our trip.

A fantastic holiday - thanks to Global Journeys for everything being so well organised and running perfectly. Our coach drivers were fantastic and provided us with so much information and made the whole trip really fun. I think I can speak on behalf of our entire coach of travellers to say it was fantastic, so thanks again.

We could not fault the trip. Grand Pacific we would recommend to anyone travelling to NZ. Meals, coaches, drivers and accommodation all of a very high standard.

My travel experience with Grand Pacific was outstanding, Steve the coach driver on the South Island went above and beyond his duty to make sure everyone on the coach had a great trip. New Zealand is a great country to visit. I encourage people to travel while they are fit and healthy as adventure is around every corner. I booked with Global Journeys ...read more and thank Kirby for her attention to detail and the way she was always happy to answer my queries.

We would have given the tour an excellent rating however the Ibis Hotel in Wellington was not up to par with the very the high standard of the accommodation throughout the rest of the tour. Maybe a single night stopover at the Ibis instead of two would be better or perhaps choosing another hotel of a higher standard like the rest for a two night stay. ...read more On a couple of days we felt there were too many scheduled activities and thought that some of these could have been made optional choices. Coach drivers especially Alex in the South Island component were excellent.