Highlights

• All inclusive
• Luxury coach travel
• 3 – 4 star accommodations
• Hotel porterage (we’ll handle your luggage for you!)
• Welcome Reception

Inclusions

• Accommodation – Auckland – Holiday Inn Express (1 Night), Rotorua – Ibis Rotorua Hotel (2), Wellington – Travelodge Wellington (1), Picton – Picton Beachcomber Inn (1), Christchurch – Ibis Hotel Christchurch (1), Omarama – Heritage Gateway Hotel (1), Dunedin – Scenic Hotel Dunedin City (1), Te Anau – Distinction Luxmore Hotel (1), Queenstown – Copthorne Hotel and Resort Queenstown (2), Franz Josef – Scenic Hotel Josef Glacier (Graham Wing) (1), Christchurch – Ibis Hotel Christchurch
• Meals – 13 Full breakfasts, 1 Lunch, 2 Highlight dinners, 4 Dinners, 1 Farewell dinner
• US Domestic Flights – (Not included, but can be added to your quote)
• International Flights – Los Angeles to Auckland, Christchurch to Los Angeles (Not included, but can be added to your quote)
• Day Tours – Waitomo Glow Worm Caves tour; Rotorua: Te Puia Te Po and Hangi Feast; Huka Falls and Lake Taupo; Wellington: Te Papa Museum; Interislander Cruise; Kaikoura Wildlife Encounters; Christchurch: City Tour; Canterbury Plains Tour; Omarama Town Tour; Te Anau: Milford Sound Cruise; Queenstown: Cruise on TSS Earnslaw across Lake Wakatipu, Walter Peak High Country Farm; Arrowtown Historic Village; Hokitika Greenstone Factory; TranzAlpine Rail Journey
• Transfers – Airport to Hotel and Hotel to Airport
• All Taxes and Fuel Levies (Except where noted)

Tour Itinerary

Day 1: Welcome to Auckland

Auckland never fails to turn on the charm, as you’ll discover while exploring the city before meeting your fellow adventure-seekers. Arrive at your leisure and peruse waterfront precincts filled with yachts; take a cruise out to the wineries of Waiheke Island; or hit up the CBD to discover local designers. Kiwi creativity is surging.

Hotel Holiday Inn Express

Day 2: Auckland – Rotorua

Another day in Auckland… things could be worse. After a morning Auckland tour, set your GPS for the Waikato River to Waitomo Caves. Here, your cruise route is cast in a magical light by thousands of glowworms. It’s a landscape almost as otherworldly as Rotorua, where mud pops and jettisons from bubbling geysers, and steam rushes skywards from cracks in the Earth. Tonight, delve deep into Maori culture and traditions at Te Puia. Your dinner, a hangi cooked underground, is served while you overlook the spectacular geothermal valley. The highlight is a Māori cultural performance in the beautifully carved meeting house, Te Aronui a Rua.

Hotel Ibis Rotorua Hotel (2 nights)

Breakfast & Highlight dinner included

Day 3: Rotorua

You are up to your own devices today. But your Travel Director has plenty of North Island tour travel tips, depending on your mood. Want a bit of down time? Bliss out in the steamy thermal springs at Rotorua’s Polynesian Spa. Animal lover? Go behind the scenes on a working kiwi nursery and hatchery. Hobbit fans will want to take advantage of the opportunity to tour the sights featured in The Lord of the Rings movies at Hobbiton. These beautiful landscapes are not only a bucket list tour for Hobbit fans, but a gorgeous countryside getaway. The choice is yours.

Breakfast included

Day 4: Rotorua – Wellington

A staggering 220,000 liters of water thunder over Huka Falls’ 11-meter-high escarpment every second. It creates quite the calamity. From here, the road ahead unfolds in a broad panorama of Lake Taupo, its waters so vivid and blue they resemble an Ice Mint. Traverse the Kapiti Coast to New Zealand’s cool little capital, Wellington, where there are so many restaurants and bars to choose from, you’ll need a guidebook. Wait, you have your in-the-know Travel Director to talk to!

Hotel Travelodge Wellington

Breakfast included

Day 5: Wellington – Picton

Forget everything else you have to do today and focus on one thing: getting a cup of Wellington’s amazing coffee. The city is known for its uber-cool cafés, designed to fuel you through a session at Te Papa, the Museum of New Zealand. Wellington tour done and dusted: onwards to the Interislander for a cruise across Cook Strait, from the North Island to the South, through a maze of arms and inlets into the sleepy seaside village of Picton.

Hotel Picton Beachcomber Inn

Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner included

Day 6: Picton – Christchurch

Black is the new black, as you’ll fast discover when walking along the dramatic ink-hued Kaikoura beach. Bonus points if you spot a sea lion or sperm whale frolicking offshore. Talk to your Travel Director for tips on the essential restaurants to dine in tonight – Christchurch has reinvented itself in more ways than one.

Hotel Ibis Hotel Christchurch

Breakfast included

Day 7: Christchurch – Omarama

From its devastating 2010/11 earthquakes, Christchurch has become one of the most forward-thinking cities in the world when it comes to design. Case in point the mind-bending Transitional Cathedral, made largely of cardboard, and Turanga, the gold-clad central library. This Christchurch tour is as eye-opening as it is educational. From here, your outlook is the Canterbury Plains: the turquoise waters of Lake Tekapo, snow-capped mountains and atmospheric towns. Choose to take it in from the air for added perspective, on an optional chopper flight around the Southern Alps and on to Franz Josef Glacier/Ka Roimata o Hine Hukatere.

Hotel Heritage Gateway Hotel

Breakfast & Dinner included

Day 8: Omarama – Dunedin

Oamaru may have supplied other NZ cities with limestone, but it kept some for itself – and the result is glorious leafy streets with grand 1800s buildings that stand proud before you journey further south toward Dunedin. It’s easy to while away the afternoon in ‘little Edinburgh’s’ atmospheric art-lined alleys. Or venture further afield to discover the wildlife that thrives in this pretty pocket of the country – fur seals and penguins among them.

Hotel Scenic Hotel Dunedin City

Breakfast included

Day 9: Dunedin – Te Anau

There’s no judgement that comes from a sleep-in. But if you have the energy, channel it into exploring Larnach Castle – the only one of its kind in the country. Dunedin’s Scottish ancestry is everywhere you look, from the manicured grounds of Otago University to the city’s main George Street. Rolling green hills dotted with doe-eyed sheep are replaced by soaring mountains as you weave your way into Fiordland National Park and the South Island’s biggest lake and the town of Te Anau. Soak up the serenity – it doesn’t get any better than this.

Hotel Distinction Luxmore Hotel

Breakfast & Dinner included

Day 10: Te Anau – Queenstown

There are some travel days that blaze into your memory. Today is one. Your route through Fiordland National Park is an intoxicating union of beech forests, alluvial flats, meadows and mirror-like lakes. Gin-clear rivers carve the countryside, with all roads leading to Milford Sound/Piopiotahi. Cruising this World Heritage listed expanse will give you goosebumps, a string of waterfalls creating a misty curtain across sheer escarpments. Look out for dolphins – they’re a common sight here.

Hotel Copthorne Hotel and Resort Queenstown (2 nights)

Breakfast included

Day 11: Queenstown

Queenstown is known as New Zealand’s adventure capital for good reason. But don’t take our word for it. Feel the wind in your hair on the high-octane Shotover Jet, skidding, twirling and zipping along white-water river. Nature lover? Discover some of New Zealand’s feathered friends at a wildlife center. Wherever you wander, make sure you’re back in time to glide across Lake Wakatipu aboard the historic TSS Earnslaw to Walter Peak High Country Farm for a gourmet barbecue dinner.

Breakfast & Highlight dinner included

Day 12: Queenstown – Franz Josef

This morning you will leave the alpine wonderland of Queenstown behind, and begin the passage through Central Otago and out to Westland. On the way out of the Queenstown region, you will stop and visit the faithfully restored gold mining settlement of Arrowtown. As you amble down the beautiful tree-lined avenues, past the 19th century wooden buildings, you will feel like you have stepped into a movie set. From here you will travel over to Cromwell, situated next to the sparkling pristine waters of Lake Dunstan, where you will stop in at a local orchard for a taste of some of the town’s delicious stone fruit. It is a day of gorgeous lakes, as after Dunstan, you will travel further into Central Otago and view the vivid blue waters of Lake Hawea, followed by Lake Wanaka, where the shoreline is charmingly lined by poplars and willows. Following an ancient greenstone trail, you will travel over Haast Pass, marking a change from the alpine scenery of the Southern Lakes to the rainforest marvel of the wild West Coast. View the sheer drop of Thunder Creek Falls and the grand sight of Mt Hooker, flanked on three sides by extensive glaciers. Our final destination for today is the extraordinary rivers of ice that make up Franz Josef Glacier. You may want to get up close and personal with the glaciers on a helicopter flight. Your flight will hover over the snow face and may land high up in the valley so that you can walk across the ice fall – subject to weather conditions (optional – at own expense). Tonight, enjoy dinner at your hotel.

Hotel Scenic Hotel Franz Josef Glacier (Graham Wing)

Breakfast & Dinner included

Day 13: Franz Josef – Christchurch

This morning you might want to take a stroll through the small but lively Franz Josef village. Then you head off to the drift-wood strewn beaches of Hokitika. As well as being one of the few West Coast communities to embrace its coastal landscape, Hokitika struck it rich in the resource’s stakes. Here you will visit a pounamu factory (native greenstone or jade), for the chance to see master carvers at work creating intricate pieces of jewelry and art. From Hokitika, you will travel inland to the small settlement of Arthur’s Pass. Here you will board the TranzAlpine train to Christchurch city. This spectacular train journey dates back to 1914 and is rated as one of the world’s most scenic train trips. The train forges through tunnels and over viaducts with panoramic views of snow-capped peaks, icy rivers, beech forests, gorges and river valleys. This evening, join your Travel Director and Driver, and your new-found friends for a Farewell Dinner.

Hotel Ibis Hotel Christchurch

Breakfast & Farewell dinner included

Day 14: Farewell Christchurch

Your holiday concludes this morning after breakfast. You’ll be transferred to Christchurch Airport for your onward flight.

Breakfast included