January 23, 2017 Grand Australia & New Zealand

TennisLover

Failed to find any posting on this tour. Found out there was a cancellation therefore I get to take this tour.

Is there anyone who may be coming in early to watch Australian Open? Purchased tickets for Jan 22 & 23 and that affords me to walk the grounds to see if I get lucky enough to see some famous tennis players in play/practice/warm-up.

I will be going single so would like to meet some people to mingle with.

Eileen

jdurkin

Hi Eileen,

As a Melbournian born and bred, I know you will have a fabulous time at the tennis. Just check out the tennis blogs! Don't worry if you have no replies here. You will find heaps of people to be friends with around the courts at the Australian Open. It's a really great option to buy the tickets you have. I know you'll have a great time.

Cheers,

Jan

TennisLover

Thanks, Jan. Your post/comment cheered me up. No worries on going alone on my part. I know I will be enjoying it to the max. Do you happen to know how big/small this tour group is? This is my second Tauck. My first was to Antarctica several months ago and met so many nice people and some are still friends.

If you happened to know the best blog on tennis, let me know. Don't mind taking the most advantage of this opportunity to see best players on practice courts or whatever I get to see.

Eileen

British

Perhaps I can answer here Tennislover. I took the Australia tour separately from the New Zealand tour and what happened on these occasions was that the number can change actually on the tour because on the Australia leg, some people like us finished the tour and others went onto the New Zealand part. On our New Zealand tour, some of the group joined us from the Australia leg. Your tour shows it is full. It is not a small group tour ( 24) I can no longer find anywhere on the tour page that mentions the number of people on this tour. It can still change at the last minute as people cancel too late for others to take their place. If the number of people is important to you, I suggest calling Tauck to ask about a week before tour departure for a more accurate number.
I have an interesting observation. There have been discussions on the main forum about the advantages of a small group tour. While we have never taken a designated Small group tour, we have ended up being in smaller groups because of our tour choices a couple of times recently and a couple of times we found that there were two family groups, who did not want to mix or need to mix with others. On one tour we found ourselves in one of only two couples, the remainder were two family/ friend type groups. On our last tour, there were just 3 couples, the remainder were family mixes too. So we actually find a bigger group a better fit, where we can mingle with a variety of people. In the past, although we occasionally enjoy a romantic dinner by ourselves, some of our best times have been when we join with one of the singles in the group. Have a great tour!

Barb26

We just returned from this trip 3 weeks ago -- it was fabulous, so I know you will enjoy it! Our group size was 32, and our tour director told me the max is 40. As for traveling solo, we had two solo travelers in our group, and since we did so much in groups (even during the free time), it didn't really matter that they were by themselves. Most everyone on this trip became friends by the end of the trip.

travelingirl

Barb, I am traveling solo on the March 16th tour and really appreciated hearing that it was not a problem to be a solo traveller. I am going 2 days early, but have not had any response from anyone else on that trip. Glad it was an enjoyable tour for you.