Lord of the Rings Excursion Company

[platterb]

Does anyone know of a private excursion company that does the Lord o the Rings tour from Akaroa? I've found them out of Wellington but not for the South Island.

 

Thanks

 

Barb

[gek]

Hassle Free Tours is the main Christchurch-based company that does the Edoras tour. They also run most of the Shore Excursions for the cruise companies so I am not sure they would have the resources to do an Akaroa pickup for an independent tour as well if your cruise is already running one but you could always ask.

 

I'm not aware of any other major companies that are willing to make the trek out to Akaroa to pick up cruise passengers for the Edoras trip but some smaller ones may exist.

 

Akaroa is a tendered port and the Edoras trip is a long drive so I would actually advise you to do a ship's Shore Excursion if possible. It saves you the worry of having the ship depart without you. On our recent Celebrity Solstice cruise this was the only ship's tour we did for precisely this reason. Expensive, but good for peace of mind.

[platterb]

thank you so much for the information. We were trying to avoid booking thru the cruise line since they normally charge twice private tours. But since this tour is #1 choice for my son, we'll go ahead and bite the bullet.

[jota]

Has anyone done any LOTR tours that can be done from Dunedin , Wellington or Auckland and were they any good? No idea what sets are where etc

[gek]

In Wellington go with Wellington Rover tours. Great value and they'll show you plenty of LoTR film sites and you can also make a visit to the Weta Cave to buy some memorabilia. For cruise ship passengers they run an excellent half-day tour which picks you up from the wharf.

 

Dunedin is a bit harder. I don't think any of LoTR was filmed nearby although some Hobbit filming was done near Middlemarch. Most of the South Island filming was done nearer to Queenstown.

 

The one MUST-SEE filming site on the North Island is of course the Hobbiton film set. The hobbitontours.com site has plenty of links to companies who provide transfers from Auckland, but if your ship docks in Tauranga you can book tours directly from them and they will provide transports, tours and even lunch. We did their Texel package which includes transport, tours, lunch at the Shire's Rest Café and an afternoon trip to Te Puia in Rotorua as well. It was an incredibly enjoyable day.

[jota]

Thanks , will check them out.

[Kereng]

Jota, I'm on the same cruise as you and am doing the ship's tour to Hobbiton from Auckland. It's a long tour (long drive to get there) and I felt it was safer doing the ship's tour for this since it's the last port.

[jota]

Yes, I was gonna log in and see if it was There was as we leave Auckland at 3.30.

I have planned a ferry ride to devonport with a hour long Segway tour, which I could change but there is actually a bit going on around Auckland for waitingi day, couple of concerts , so might stick to that plan and stay close to the city?

This cruise anyway, can see myself doing NZ again, too much to see and do:)