Free time
My husband and I have been on 5 Tauck tours. We love the idea of everything taken care of for us. Except for an occasional dinner or early arrival where we usually do a local walking or bus tour of city to get acquainted everything is planned.
We are interested in Australia and New Zealand for 2021. My concern is the amount of free time on this trip and everyone talking about additional tours they booked on their own ahead of time. Thoughts on this by past travelers n this tour would be appreciated.
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The tours that I booked on my own ahead of time were for days that I arrived before and stayed after the Tauck tour ended. The tour for 2020 is slightly different than the one that I took in 2018, but it's still a very busy tour, and you're going to appreciate some down time. If you need to be on the go, you can find plenty to do. It's a fabulous tour!
Trimom - we returned from this trip approximately three weeks ago. The only tour that we pre-booked on our own was the extra early Ocean Road Tour which concluded 2 hours before the Welcome Reception. We also took a free walking tour the day we arrived in Melbourne, but it did not require a booking.
As for "free time" tours, my pre-trip research included trying to figure out whether there would be free time, and whether there were any additional activities we were interested in. I am not much of a shopper, and it appeared that many in the group did use free time for shopping (and relaxing), walking the harbor bridge in Sydney, just taking a walk, enjoying a cocktail, etc. In Wellington, we did go to Weta, the movie workshop, but we booked it that day at the tourist information center. In Te Anau, 8 of us from the Tauck group went to the Glow Worm caves. Again, booked that day at the booking office across the street from our hotel. Our four director, who was outstanding, included a discussion of these and other options in written materials and in an oral summation while on the bus. It is a busy tour, with a lot of travel, and it is nice to have some free time to do (or not do) what you want. We were interested in extra activities. Others were not.
It is a fantastic tour.
I did this tour in 2016 and I haven't reviewed the current trip to see what's different. That said, there wasn't much on-tour free time. I recall spending an afternoon on a bicycle tour in Sydney, crossing the Harbour Bridge and covering some parts of the city in more detail and other parts we didn't do on tour. In retrospect, I'm glad I did a bike tour, as it was a little unnerving biking on the left and traveling clockwise around roundabouts.
Thanks
Lotus girl
Very helpful information