Luggage Roller 22” vs 25 inch Size?
We’ll be doing the 2026 Grand (small group) Aus & NZL Tour in a few weeks - any advice, issues using a 22 inch roller bag vs a larger 25 inch size (edit for clarification — 22” or 25” bag would be classified as checked luggage for this advice) ? We’ll both have smaller day type backpacks. I was more concerned with the any handling issues - since the 25 is a bit more cumbersome up steps, etc. The 25 inch bag falls within Tauck size guidelines too… Asking for advice from those on the more recent Grand trips since I know these tours change & update a bit over the years.
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You won't be handling your luggage much on this trip, except to and from your origin and those airports. Tauck handles it to and from hotels, charter flights, etc. What steps are you imagining?
No idea - lol. Since it’s our 1st time for this specific tour looking for helpful advice from those who took it in the last few years?
Are you referring to your checked luggage size? If so, it's not a worry. Tauck handles it. The size and weight of a carryon can be an issue for someone. The internal flights are charters and require climbing the steps into the plane carrying it.
Why would a smaller bag than Tauck's guidelines be a problem? Of course you won't be able to pack as much.
We were on an October tour with a 25” and a backpack. No issues whatsoever.
There are luggage restrictions for the charter flights: **Small rolling carry-ons must be checked with the main luggage and stored in the aircraft's cargo hold. Luggage exceeding these limits may be prohibited from charter flights and transported overland at your expense. Due to long distances and remote locations, delayed arrival of overland luggage by one or more days is possible.**
You won't be climbing stairs with those bags anyway.
We are on the NZ tour now which uses charter planes. All of us just carry backpacks onto the planes. I have no idea what other people’s luggage looks like because we never see it. It’s generally taken from inside the rooms on hotel moving day and either found in your rooms at the next hotel or shortly after you arrive in your rooms.
What is an issue and a bug bear of mine is people who bring more than one checked bag despite Tauck asking people to just have one checked bag per person on all their tours. On this tour, there are 36 people and yet the TD is dealing with 55 bags for each hotel move. Consequently, we have to have our bags ready mostly one hour and forty five minute before we are due to leave on the bus. Even though we put everything in the suitcase that we can the night before, have everything ready to wear and just a wash bag and a couple of other things to put in the case, it still means getting up at some ungodly hour most days to allow time to have bags ready, We are super quick at showering etc but in the big hotels it’s a long walk to breakfast, so that all needs to be factored in. I’ve only been on maybe one small group toir so I didn’t notice anything better on that tour.
There are opportunities to wash your clothing on the Grand Australia and NZ tour without paying expensive hotel prices. However, don’t rely on being able to wash your clothing at the hotels They have self service washers. We don’t generally need to do much laundry but decided to do so when we got to a hotel that had washers and dryers. I went there with my bag, to find that another person on our tour was using all three machines after just seven days on the tour. We had been told there was a hotel which had a washer/dryer in the room, and I thought it was that hotel. It turned out to be the next one. Yes, a combined washer dryer, lovely. Haven’t seen one like that for over30 years. Small capacity but it does the job and washing powder is provided.
People in Australia and NZ are really casual at dinner, which helps eliminate most dress up clothes so that helps with suitcase size.
Another reason to take small group tours - less luggage to deal with!
Traveler1567 - In addition to Goddess’ excellent guidance, Tauck’s website for this tour has a wealth of pertinent information. Just scroll through the sections and select the areas you wish to expand upon. Enjoy!
For our tour, it was $2000 extra each for the small group tour, I’m too cheap to pay that price and as many meals are on your own these days and the big group is divided up into smaller groups for site seeing, I’ll deal with it.
We do travel with another company where the max number of people is 16. The bags are collected ten minutes before we leave on the bus.
Can those devoted to Tauck small groups tell me what it’s like time wise for bag pick up on those tours?
depends on the country and the hotel staff; I've never felt out of sorts by the luggage pick up timing and I only do small group tours.
It also depends on the itinerary any given day. We always had our bags packed the night before and ready for the in-room pickup. We returned after breakfast for a final brushing of teeth with travel-sized paste and brushes which took up little room in my crossbody or one of my husband’s deep pockets.
Yes, that’s basically what we do, just have to brush our teeth after breakfast, can’t start the day not doing that. Put paste on our brushes and a strip of floss all ready to go when we get back to the room.
Unless you've taken both versions of a tour, you can't really know what the luggage pickup time differences are. As Goddess said it depends on the hotel staff. I found Italian hotels possibly the most disorganized checking in and out. Also the distance from the rooms and where the coach can park. And of course post-covid it took a while for staffing to get back up to normal.