Melbourne Tours Ocean Road Trip

gottago

We are very interested in taking a tour to the 12 Apostles on the Ocean Road but only have a limited time that day as our Tauck Tour begins on February 12 at the Langham Hotel at 5:30 p.m. We do arrive in Melbourne the day before on February 11 but mid day and cannot schedule a tour that day.

We have been told that the Ocean Road trip is fabulous but it is a whole day. 11-12 hours which would not get us back in time for the 5:30 p.m. welcome dinner at the hotel. We are looking at hiring a private tour guide as opposed to taking a group tour would not be an option in order to get back in time to Melbourne. Has anyone on previous tours hired a private guide and can provide me with their contact information. I do not feel comfortable getting someone over the internet that has not been recommended.
On one forum I saw a name Simon Greenland as a great local guide but have no way to contact him personally. I tried thru the internet but no success. I also have some tour websites but they are not private guides and again take a larger group of people and cannot tailor the tour to our needs which require our return to the hotel in time for the opening Tauck dinner evening. We might have to leave very early like at 6:00 a.m. to accomplish what we want to do but according to all forum comments this is a trip we cannot pass up.

If there is anyone on the February 12, 2018 Grand Australia and New Zealand Tour please feel free to contact me.

Thank you please contact me on my email djudithsagan24@gmail.com to contact me personally.

Delawaretraveler

We used Simon's company 2 years ago before our Tauck trip. The web address is: Theprivatetourguide.com
There is a link to contact them on the site. Good luck because Simon is terrific!

SusanLG

My husband and I are on the Feb 12 tour, too! We're arriving on Friday, so I'm looking for a private driver for the weekend. I'm contacting Simon for a GOR tour on Saturday, Feb 10. If there's anyone else that's interested, we don't mind adding another couple (provided a driver is available that day.) We're also planning to go to Phillip Island to see the penguin parade and to Sorrento to snorkel and see the weedy sea dragons!

J White

I did this trip in October. The great ocean road is fantastic and very worthwhile. I suggested to at auck that they include it as an optional tour before the start of the Australia/New Zealand trip.

Anyway I used a private tour company named Localing. I did 2 tours with them - one was horrible and not worth the money. The next day they sent a different guide for the great ocean road and I think it was one of the best days that I had on the whole trip!

Janice

Jan511

We are going on the November 27 Grand Australia & NZ tour and are arriving a day early. We booked The Private Tour Guide for a tour of the Great Ocean Road (Simon Greenland is the Private Tour Guide and his email address is simon@theprivatetourguide.com). He was willing to customize the tour (e.g., picking us up at 6:00am, returning by 5:00pm) so that we could be back at the Langham in time for the meet & greet. He’s gotten rave reviews on Trip Advisor. I hope this helps.

British

On all our Tauck travels, we hardly ever meet anyone who arrives what we call 'Early' because we feel that arriving the day before is partly insurance for any travel delays that might occur on the way, especially for this very far away location. So it is quite amusing to see how common it is for people to arrive the day before on this tour and attempt to take the Great Ocean Road tour and visit the Penguins. When we took the Australia tour, we were restricted with time because my husband was not retired at the time but we still arrived two days early in Melbourne. This gave us more time to help with jetlag and to see all the things within Melbourne itself that the Tauck tour does not cover. It allowed us to get some ambience of the city, to watch the locals rushing to work etc and go in the coffee shops too. For us, this is as equally important as rushing round seeing the sites. So for anyone not yet on a booked tour, I would recommend arriving earlier, so that you can do the Ocean Road and penguins without the stress of wondering whether you will make it back for the Welcome meeting and to improve the chances that you will be able to participate fully on the Tauck tour. Then maybe the day the tour is to begin you spend within Melbourne and at a slower pace. So often we find that people are so dog tired by the middle of tours that they have to take a day off or do not take up the offer of those days where you have a choice of a free optional tour. Our best example was our India tour, because of travel issues, it took one couple three and a half days to get to the start hotel because they came from Boston and there were snow delays. Most arrived in the middle of the night before the tour began the next day. Needless to say, most were really tired by the middle of the tour and when it came to the day we could choose to go to an extra place, only three of us went and the remainder missed one of the best days of the entire tour, in fact, that optional tour is no longer offered, too many tired jet lagged people I guess. So once again I recommend at least arriveing two days early.

AshvEd

We always get in 2-4 days ahead of the start of an international Tauck trip. It helps with jet-lag, takes the stress out of potential flight issues, and allows us to visit interesting places that are not on the Tauck tour. One hotel night is The Gift of Time from Tauck. Enjoy being down under. It is a fabulous trip.

J White

Agree - I arrived in Melbourne on the Friday and had plenty of time to see Melbourne and do the great ocean road. My tour started Monday night. There is so much to see in Melbourne - Brighton beach for the beach houses, Luna park, princes pier, the gardens etc. I’d have no trouble spending a week there! Only trouble would be deciding what to do next!