Travelmarvel Tours & Cruises

New Zealand Rail Adventure Reviews

4 New Zealand Rail Adventure reviews from past travellers that booked with Global Journeys.
4.25
AVG. RATING 4.25 / 5
4 Reviews
5 Star
50%
4 Star
25%
3 Star
25%
2 Star
1 Star

< Back To New Zealand Rail Adventure

New Zealand Highlights   2 , QLD, Australia, Feb 2020
Tour group was excellent and well managed by Travelmarvel. What could have been frustrating was organised well with the way bus seat rotation was implemented - everyone was happy. We travelled over 4000km and had a good taste of the country and culture with excellent information, much of it humorous, from the tour leader. We would have enjoyed more ...read more photo opportunities but the roads just did not allow a large bus to park safely at times. For the length of the tour time spent in places was appropriate. Tour provided a great overview of NZ.
Fabulous tour of New Zealand   2 , United Kingdom, Nov 2019
Our Tour Director and both drivers ensured that we had an excellent rail tour of New Zealand. The APT tour was varied and enjoyable, with well-paced days and something for everyone. The hotels were good, most of the included breakfasts and dinners were of a good standard and the hotels well located for when we had personal time. Couldn't expect any ...read more more from a tour (and we've done maybe 15) so we would be happy to travel with APT again in the future. Jemma at Global Journeys was excellent in providing us with timely information and answering questions, etc.
New Zealand Rail Experience - mostly coach unfortunately! 0 , VIC, Australia, Nov 2018
We thoroughly enjoyed this trip. New Zealand is an amazing country and the scenery, especially within the mountainous and volcanic regions, is just mind-blowing. We were very fortunate with the weather, snow and ice in the South Island mountains and whilst we were on the North Island the rain seemed to be mostly a couple of days behind us, leaving us ...read more with mostly sunny skies and low 20s.

The description of the trip was misleading and we expected far more train and a lot less coach. On the positive side the coach driver (Trent) was exceptional and also kept us entertained with his commentary and jokes. We were however disappointed that on two occasions we were given a short train ride experience and then spent hours on the bus following the train line rather than riding the train. That said the TranzAlpine and other train experiences were in general exceptional.

On the negative side we felt somehow excluded from the rest of the group which significantly detracted from our holiday. On more than one occasion we did not receive the tour communication that all the others in the group did, and we even spoke to the Tour Director (Sharon) and suggested she should make certain that all the group paperwork was received by all the tour participants.

Sharon should really have been more communicative with her commentary also, frequently advising the coach of objects and places well before they were visible and also talking far too much about herself and her own circumstances rather than the more generic explanation. She also abandoned the standard coach seat rotation after the first 2 days leading to the same people seated in the front part of the coach and others in the rear part. Not important except that photo opportunities are much better through the front than the side windows. We also felt that on two occasions Sharon changed the tour itinerary largely to suit her own purposes, resulting in an afternoon free in Dunedin, and much reduced time at Mt. Cook exchanged for over 3 hours walking around Christchurch waiting for our hotel to be ready. These changes were made without consultation and, we suspect, so that Sharon could meet with her contractors and other friends.

Described as 4 star accommodation most of the hotels were of a reasonable to good standard with the notable exception of two. The Rydges Rotorua was abysmal. Our room was really dirty and with furniture that simply did not work. Filthy carpets and broken fittings were also a feature. Old, we can live with, but there is no excuse for dirty! The food was not good either and far from the standard expected. We experienced similar, although not so obvious at Te Anau where the hotel room had cobwebs in the corners and the bed sheets were not clean (hairs in bed- yuk!). Again the breakfast was very poor and the dinner the previous evening was also a big disappointment. We were asked to stagger our mealtimes to allow the chef to better cater so we chose to go a little later, however the food was the same as at the start of service, just now congealed and cold.

I have already conveyed these comments to APT/Travelmarvel and I believe they will take them on board, however it is clear that if you advertise a rail tour it should not be 80% by coach! To leave the entire group to fend for itself in Christchurch on the last afternoon for 2-3 hours is not acceptable. Fortunately it was not raining but there were less able individuals in the group who were less than impressed. Finally to ask for a donation to the coach driver's expenses was not in my view acceptable. We had already decided to have a whip-round for a tip for both of them anyway without a subtly disguised hint!

We will likely tour again with APT/Travelmarvel as they did a good job generally, next time we will be more world wise and careful however.
Trains till you drop   1 , QLD, Australia, Feb 2018
We had a great time. Everything went very smoothly. Luckily we were just ahead of a cyclone, and therefore we had some great weather. Some days the weather looked a bit dull, but by the time we arrived at the train station it always seemed to fine up. Unexpectedly we had a dusting of snow around Queenstown and also Mt Cook. We took some wonderful photos. ...read more

Our Guide Sharon and Driver Wayne (always had a tall tale to tell) were very good. The coach was always clean, our group was always on time leaving our accommodation, even though we had some older ladies in their 80's. Such a lot to see and do in such a short time. We also had some free time to explore on our own which was good.
Results 1-4 of 4

Cities