New Zealand Southern Pioneer (8 destinations)

Customer Reviews

• Hilda

  · March 16th, 2025
  The tour was excellent, a very good itinerary, our tour leader, Adam had a very good knowledge & his commentary on road while driving from one place to another was very good, he stopped at interesting spots for us to spend time, view & take pictures.
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• Mary

  · February 27th, 2025
  This tour was run by Haka Tours. There were several things that didn't go according to the itinerary: stay in Ohau was changed to Lake Tekapo, stay in Raglan was changed to Waitomo (which added 1.5hrs drive in the opposite direction). These were without any advance notice from Intrepid/Haka and no explanation given. We lost the morning free time in Raglan as a result & ended up on the road extra long. The published itinerary is too optimistic and in reality, driving time is much longer (half of the trip is spent on the road). This means much less free time than listed -- for example, forget about having morning free time in the towns because we had to get on the road early. Since shops close by 5-6pm, by the time we check in and have free time, the shops were closing. The 20 day tour ended up with different tour guides for the first & second half - one who was hired last minute & hadn't done the tour in this direction before, hadn't read the itinerary descriptions & didn't know about the listed optional activities. The 2nd guide was much more organized but then mis-managed the time and we ended up completely missing one of the scheduled activities which had to be moved to the next day. Not just the tour guides but the tour company made mistakes too. For example, the new people joining the 2nd half of the tour weren't even told when to meet up or were given wrong information. And the ferry crossing only had reservation for the tour bus but not the trailer. You'd expect an experienced company not to be missing these kinds of details. Most of the accommodations were motel quality and decent but a couple were really bad though like very dated, or lumpy carpet, or next to noisy highway. A couple of the breakfasts included were too simple - one was vegan with no hot food, and another looked like a kid's meal (fruit cup, yogurt, museli, toast). Most of the activities are optional which means the cost is much higher if you want to do highlights included in other tours like Milford Sound. As for booking optional activities, the FAQ says to contact them to book in advance but the reply received was to book with the guide after the tour starts. However, certain popoular excursions get booked up so some people missed out because of this. There's also discrepancy between the tour description on the Haka Tours site vs Intrepid (I compared them day-by-day) -- go with the Haka one as more accurate.
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• Janette

  · February 4th, 2025
  Despite the unforeseen last minute change to my booked tour the tour itself proved to be excellent. There was a full and interesting itinery which went to schedule and was enhanced by Georgia, our tour leader who went above and beyond to make the most of every part! Accommodation was very good and the mix of people on the tour added to the experience.
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