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If You Think the Cost is High.........
My family has seen much of the world as independent travelers over the past 20 years, and I must say that I thought initially the cost of the "Spotlight on NZ" tour was high. We'd been to Australia about 8 years ago and I didn't remember it being really outrageous, so I had my doubts. In addition, I research hotels, restaurants, flights, etc. thoroughly before we travel and I've always felt I usually got really excellent deals on travel. We arrived in Sydney a few days before our tour started in Auckland and we were immediately stunned by the high cost of everything. It was easily 3-4 times what we remembered from our previous trip. We found the same thing in NZ when we arrived there a day early---even with the exchange rate, the costs are astounding! The 5 of us (adults, all) easily spent $100 for breakfast, $150 for lunch and even more for dinners on our own---all of them at very modest restaurants!
I started understanding just how reasonable the cost of the trip was when I saw the quality of the hotels, restaurants and experiences we had with Tauck. No waiting, no confusion, excellent choices for meals and no worries whatsoever. The most taxing issues we had to deal with were making it to the lobby on time in the morning and making menu choices at mealtime. (SO ROUGH!) In Auckland on New Year's Eve, Greg booked us into the Langham's high-end restaurant, Barolo, where the pre fixe menu was about $215/pp! We NEVER felt that Tauck was cutting any corners or offering sub-par quality of anything. I was most impressed with the VALUE of the experience and would highly recommend it----am now looking at Tauck's Scandinavian tour! One last note: One of my favorite books is "1000 Places to See Before You Die", and the Tauck NZ Tour saw ALL of them but 1 or 2. That is an AMAZING itinerary!
I started understanding just how reasonable the cost of the trip was when I saw the quality of the hotels, restaurants and experiences we had with Tauck. No waiting, no confusion, excellent choices for meals and no worries whatsoever. The most taxing issues we had to deal with were making it to the lobby on time in the morning and making menu choices at mealtime. (SO ROUGH!) In Auckland on New Year's Eve, Greg booked us into the Langham's high-end restaurant, Barolo, where the pre fixe menu was about $215/pp! We NEVER felt that Tauck was cutting any corners or offering sub-par quality of anything. I was most impressed with the VALUE of the experience and would highly recommend it----am now looking at Tauck's Scandinavian tour! One last note: One of my favorite books is "1000 Places to See Before You Die", and the Tauck NZ Tour saw ALL of them but 1 or 2. That is an AMAZING itinerary!
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I am curious about your experiences in paying for some of your meals--ie $100 for breakfast--was that per person, per couple or for the five of you? Thanks. Francesca from Norfolk, VA
You can pay whatever you like for a meal ... breakfast, lunch or dinner. If you choose to eat in the main restaurant of your hotel, you can certainly expect to pay more for that pleasure, experience and convenience than you would at a nearby cafe or bistro. It is one of the considerations of travel anywhere in the world. You must also figure in to the calculations that you are in Australia's biggest city, (same goes for Auckland in NZ). Your hotel may well be located in what many regular travellers will recognise as a "tourist trap", so you need to factor that in to the value equation.
You must calculate the effect of the FX rate. Depending when you travel (because the A$ against the US$ can and does fluctuate regularly) the rate can be as high as A$1.08 to the US$. NZ is not as lucky as us in the FX stakes, where their $ is not as highly valued as ours. It's very easy to think that one dollar in the world buys the same as any other dollar! Not so, as I can readily attest! It's just another characteristic of foreign travel. Our cost of living is higher than many places, but so is the resulting standard. You have to do your research before you leave home, as you are doing, Francesca!
My suggestion ... don't panic! Use your common sense.
Hope to see you Down Under, Francesca, but try and time your visit before late November and after, say, mid-February if you are going to the tropics. You don't want to be rained or cycloned out!
I looked at the upcoming tirps and once again would like to clarify with you--as a native--what would be the best month to visit A & NZ? Thanks, Francesca
I agree with you on your point about being sure of Tauck's level of service! However, lest I be accused of being a complete Tauck lackey (only kidding, but you know what I mean
Which brings me to your question about when to travel down under. Big question. One very big country. One small but very different country.
If you think of the lower 48, transfer them below the equator. They will fit neatly inside Australia. With opposite seasons and weather patterns. The rainy season in northern, tropical Australia runs from the start of November to the end of March, depending if Mother Nature chooses to work to our calendar. This also coincides with the tropical cyclone season. So, depending on where you want to visit ... big country, remember, you can choose when to come accordingly.... maybe with some compromises along the way! As for New Zealand, they're not affected by cyclones, but the North Island is basically temperate and the South Island is ... um ... more European with a bit of Rocky Mountain weather thrown in there, just for good measure. It is a really hard call to lump both countries in together. It is also almost impossible to "do" both countries in the time Tauck allot. Sad, but true. A good way to combat that is the pre and post stay option.
I know I'm not being a big help here! But if I had to choose ... I'd suggest ... at a stretch ... (hit me now!
Could I suggest that you start out by planning to arrive early in the start city and stay on in the last port of call. From there you could perhaps do some day trips from those cities as well as allowing you to get to know some cities better, and the people. Both Melbourne or Sydney (I'm biased for Melbourne!) offer opportunities for art galleries and museums, theatre, architecture, food and wine experiences, local colour and spectacular scenery ... it's all within a day tour's distance of the city. I can say the exact same thing for Auckland on the North Island of New Zealand.
So, take a sharp stick to me and make me squeal! March! But you will just have to come again, in July for the Centre and April for the Kimberley and September for the Barrier Reef and ......................If it's any consolation I've been travelling in North America consistently for the past 6 years and still haven't covered all the regions on my list. But I'm getting there!
Hope my ramblings have actually helped, even a tiny bit!
Cheers,
Jan
You have been most generous with your time and advice.
This will probably be our only trip to Australia and New Zealand--there is so much more of the world to see and we have only just begun!!
I received an email from a former tripmate who took this trip with Tauck and highly recommends it. She said even McDonalds was expensive! She said she went in April and had fantastic weather. SOOOOOOOOOOOO both March and April have many days in them. Would it be reasonable for me to then think that late March, early April is best as opposed to early March or late April???
Thanks again
Francesca
Say it isn't so! Only one visit to Australia & New Zealand combined! That would be like saying that a one day visit to LA will tell you all you want to know about the entire United States of America and Canada. We will just have to change your mind when you get here!
As for expensive McDonalds.... honestly I wouldn't know. I have enough trouble keeping my weight down as it is. I never eat junk food. You are probably right about junk food being expensive, though. It's sad that people choose to eat expensive junk when healthy food is generally cheaper.
You know, I nearly wrote "around Easter" yesterday, knowing that would cover March and April, but thought I had better not confuse the issue! April is nice, too, but keep in mind that that is the seasonal changeover and can make for some unstable weather patterns. So pack something you can layer. Good old travellers layers! Expect some cooler weather in the southern states. It will still be warm in the tropics and hopefully no cyclones! And you will have a wonderful time.
Cheers,
Jan
The rest of the trip, weather wise, was very comfortable.
My advice is to go when the dates are most convenient and don't worry. If Tauck plans a tour at that time of year, it is probably because it's OK to visit at that time!
Um, sorry, but no, that's not always the case. The forecast for Alice Springs, whom some would say is the centre of the outback, if not the whole of Australia geographically speaking, is: today, Sunday 17th June and tomorrow, Monday, a minimum of 1C with a maximum of 19C That is not hot. It is quite warm if you are an Inuit visiting from the wilds of the Canadian north. It's all relative to individual experience. It is, however, a normal winter temperature for the central region of Australia. Consequently, the peak touring months for the outback are June, July and August.
Tauck's principal market is the United States, so they will naturally have dates for Australian and New Zealand tours they know they can sell into the U.S. market. Nothing mysterious or cynical about that! They are also selling a product that tries to cover a whole continent, plus New Zealand in something under 3 weeks of travel. That's a hard sell because they have to try and showcase what the customers want .... all the icons of the travel industry ... in the shortest possible time and at all the times those customers want to travel. And at a price the U.S. market is prepared to pay. That would be easier to do if seasons weren't involved. It would be easier to do if the seasons were the same as those the customers were used to. It would be easier to do if there wasn't a recession in the U.S. It would be easier to do if the perceived prime travel period matched the actual prime period. All of them. They are different because Australia is so large and New Zealand so different. We can be experiencing cyclones, bush fires and floods, record high and low temperatures all at the same time ... in different parts of the country. And then there are New Zealand's geothermal and earthquakes issues to deal with. (Don't worry ... doesn't stop people going to Yellowstone and the contingencies are far worse there!)
It's a pretty hard task to plan a tour around all those contingencies! February is a lovely time to travel in some parts of the country, while in others it is the rainy and cyclone season. You can't blame a local for kindly telling a prospective foreign traveller that, depending on where they are going and what they want to see, they might have to make some deals with the weather gods. I'm sure you'd do the same for foreigners visiting your part of the world, wouldn't you?
I think Tauck have produced an excellent product for the US market. I think they are wizards at it! By all means travel at a time that suits you. How strange to think you'd travel at a time that didn't suit you. You're the one paying for it! Of course it's okay to travel to Australia and New Zealand at any time of the year. We are such Lucky Countries that way. I am very glad your own deal with the weather gods worked out in mid January and early February. Next time you will just have to spend more time down under ... see some of the parts that you didn't get to in the short time you had here. Gosh, I've been travelling to the US for 6 straight years for about 6 weeks at a time and I still haven't seen all the best parts!
Cheers,
Jan