New Zealand Self Drive Tour Reviews

Our experience with First Light Travel was amazing. They gave us great ideas for our trip to New Zealand and were there every step of the way for us. We encountered no problems besides an excursion that had to be canceled by a water rafting company in NZ, but that was because of rain making the river to high to water raft on where we wanted to go. But First Travel was very good at refunding our money and all the other experiences were once in a lifetime adventures that we will not forget. Thank you First Light Travel for making out holiday to New Zealand as memorable as it was and as cost effective as it could be.

Sincerely,

Joshua Casson & Clara Ho - USA

My husband and I had a wonderful trip of both Islands of New Zealand recently. First Light Travel made sure that we had everything in place. We had selected a self-drive holiday and our car was waiting for us in both Islands. Our accommodation was booked for us every night of our trip which made it easy to step from our car to our room. Attractions were selected to suit our interests which made it easy. We only had to produce our vouchers for the attraction and enjoyment was all ours.Thank you First Light Travel for your excellent service which made our trip so memorable for us.

Greetings from Australia.

Catherine and Mark 

Judith at First Light Travel was recommended to me by a colleague, and I’m so glad I took that recommendation! Having never travelled to New Zealand before, it was great to have someone with expert knowledge of the country to help me plan my itinerary…and right from the beginning Judith put in so much effort to start suggesting places to go and things to see. I didn’t really know where to start, so it was great that she put together an initial itinerary for me to then comment on.

All my comments/feedback were all taken on board absolutely perfectly, and even when I added extra requests into the mix, it was all handled so smoothly. After a couple of rounds of tweaking the itinerary, the final one was in place…

The itinerary included so many different places, and Judith had really listened to my thoughts on wanting a mix of accommodation.

It’s too hard to pick a favourite place as I literally loved every minute, but I’ve wanted to see Milford Sound for over 15yrs, so that was a particular highlight for me!

I’m already planning another visit to New Zealand, and would definitely recommend First Light Travel…I’ll definitely get in touch with them when I start planning my next trip!

Thanks!

Jayne Travis - Holland

This trip completely exceeded our expectations!! We are grateful to First Light Travel for helping make this "bucket list" trip a reality for us. Kasey Yee was incredibly instrumental in taking the information we provided about where we wanted to go, what types of activities we wanted to do, and the types of lodging that we preferred, and creating an awesome itinerary for us for the entire month of March!  She found lodging accommodations within our budget that were exactly what we asked for! It's hard to believe all of the work First Light Travel agents do for their clients at no cost!! We have already recommended them to family and friends interested in traveling to New Zealand - especially once we came back and shared our stories and pictures!

Thank you again for helping us with this dream vacation!! 

Michael & Dawn Jennings - USA

Our two week trip to New Zealand was a complete joy, and we credit much of that to Chrissy at First Light Travel. She was prompt, honest, and creative in the planning process and made accommodation and activity recommendations that not only fit our interests but also our needs (we traveled with a 4-year old). The pre-travel materials provided by First Light were helpful and their voucher system made the accommodation and activity check-in process a breeze. Thank you, Chrissy, for all you did to make our trip to New Zealand the adventure of a lifetime!

Kelly, Ryan, Sawyer & Mary Habbley - USA

Kia Ora,

I and a group of 5 friends traveled to NZ last March 2017, and Ms. Shelley from First Light Travel helped tailoring our itinerary to best-suit our interest, helped getting us the best experience for our budget.

Multiple email exchange, change of destination, modification of arrangement, she patiently helped us through all. We had an enjoyable 17 days exploring North and South island, one of the best trip ever. Best of success Ms. Shelley and First Light Travel.

Regards

Damar Pracoyo & Friends

Was a trip of a lifetime, all our expectations were met, had a great time, food was awesome and First Light are great people to work with. Along the way we met many great people from all over the world. Milford sound boat was nice. Elm tours was very accommodating, fun people, very thoughtful, and great tour.

As Sam Neill (who is a Kiwi) said in the NZ movie The Hunt for the Wilderpeople....it's fantastical! A very magic place indeed.

Erv and Marianne Kanieski

We travelled in March 2017 to New Zealand and Australia. We contacted First Light Travel only a few weeks before we were going. We were highly recommended to Jo and she did not disappoint us. We had nightly phone calls because of the time difference organizing our trip. Once she understood our budget and requests, she got to work and put together an amazing trip. Every hotel was excellent. Every tour was on time and perfect, and our vegetarian diet requirements were never missed. Jo recommended that we take a bus to Milford Sound and the flight to return only to guarantee that we would get there. She had experience with flights being cancelled and guests not getting to Milford Sound. At about 8 pm the night before we were supposed to leave, we saw that the weather was supposed to be excellent. We called Jo and she was able to get us onto the morning flight rather than the 5 hour bus ride. This professionalism and quick reaction is what makes First Light an amazing travel company. I couldn't begin to mention all of the amazing activities she put together, but the Milford Sound gives a good example. One hotel I would strongly recommend is the Tin Tub Lodge in Wanaka. Book early because there are only a few rooms and it is worth the stay.

A big thank you to Rhodri for all his r help in organising the trip of a lifetime - his arrangements were top notch. The car hires went seamlessly; the accommodation was superb and the trips and activities were brilliant, informative and exciting. Our highlights being the helicopter onto the Franz Josef Glacier, Doubtful Sound cruise(the weather was kind) and the Dart River Jet Boat Safari although picking favourites is probably doing an injustice to the others.

Ian and Lesley Robertson - UK

We just returned from 3 wonderful weeks in New Zealand with our best friends. This was a trip of a lifetime and Amelia worked with us to make sure we could jam as much as we wanted into our time. We snorkeled and scuba dived, dawn hiked the Tongariro Alpine pass, marveled at the glow worms at Black Water Rafting, enjoyed the eye-watering but beautiful thermal wonders of Waitotapu, canoed down from the Bridge to Nowhere. In the South Island, we loved cycling to the wineries of Blenheim, hiked everywhere we could around the Glaciers, had an amazing Horseback trek through forest and over rivers to a sunset ride on the beach. Ended our time in Queenstown with jet boating and jumping off high cliffs with the Canyon Swing. We had several glitches along the way- some caused by the tour operators, some caused by weather and wildfires, but Amelia worked with us to make sure everything stayed on track.

Thanks for all your hard work!

Jan & Scott Kuba, Sharon & John Tolomei - USA