Cruise company cruise tours in Australia

[RJHNorthyorks]

I'm interested to hear from anyone who has done a cruise company land tour in Australia either before or after a cruise. I note that a number of companies including HAL, Princess, RCI and Celebrity all offer these.

We are planning to book a one way cruise from Sydney to New Zealand in 2014 and spend sometime in both countries at either either end of the cruise.

I appreciate that these tours spend only a short amount of time in each place they visit and that they are expensive. we will however have limited time available and the attraction will be seeing places that we might not be able to visit again. I do appreciate the distances involved having spent time in Australia previously.

Thanks.

[cvschmitt]

Yes, I would like to know if anyone has gone on the land portion as well. We are sailing in Feb. 2014 and wanted to do a pre-cruise land tour.

 

I've read on other posts here that it is cheaper to do on your own so I've tried to do some research on the cost of doing it that way. It takes a lot of planning and research on your part to be able to go and do the things that are included on the tour.

 

I don't know yet how the cost compares, but I would like to hear from someone who has done the land tour with the cruise line to get their perspective.

[Valley Girl of VA]

I just returned from Sydney - Auckland tour and we did our own pre and post cruise. We did not go all over Australia but rather focused on Sydney and Auckland. I met people on our HAL cruise who did the pre cruise and they loved it. They said the group got along so well, they are thinking of doing it all together again in a few years. Friends of mine had a travel agent do their pre and post cruise and they are still in Australia. Pre cruise they did Kangaroo Island, Great Ocean Beach Road. After cruise they spent 2 days in Auckland and then back to Australia for the GBR, rain forest, etc. I believe they had more time pre and post than the HAL trips are.

 

Jane

janeschwalm@gmail.com

[GradUT]

I'm interested to hear from anyone who has done a cruise company land tour in Australia either before or after a cruise. I note that a number of companies including HAL, Princess, RCI and Celebrity all offer these.

We are planning to book a one way cruise from Sydney to New Zealand in 2014 and spend sometime in both countries at either either end of the cruise.

I appreciate that these tours spend only a short amount of time in each place they visit and that they are expensive. we will however have limited time available and the attraction will be seeing places that we might not be able to visit again. I do appreciate the distances involved having spent time in Australia previously.

Thanks.

 

A previous poster on this forum gave us the itinerary for the land cruise offered by his cruise ship and asked for comments. It was a crazy itinerary that looked like the participants were spending more time traveling from place to place than doing any real sightseeing. Based on your comments that the tours "spend only a short amount of time in each place they visit", I would hazard to guess that these tours are similar to the one that the poster asked us to comment on.

 

As someone who has traveled several times to Australia and NZ (and lived in Australia for a number of years as well), I would recommend that you plan your own pre- or post-cruise tour and limit the number of places you visit. It's better to spend more time in fewer places in Australia. If you have a week for this tour, choose no more than 2 destinations. For 10 days - 2 weeks, choose no more than 3 destinations.

[RJHNorthyorks]

Thanks. I've done a bit more research since posting my question and also located a few australia specialist TA's in the Uk so I think we will put our own plan together. We'll probably give ourselves a couple of weeks in Australia pre cruise and focus on 3 areas - Sydney, cairns and a short visit Ayers Rock.

As soon as cruises go on sail can get on with some proper planning !

[MMDown Under]

It is always a good idea to take into account the weather, when deciding when and where to visit Australia. It is always nice weather somewhere. :)

 

The best time of year to travel in general is our autumn (March to May) and spring (September to November). During our winter (June to August) is the best time to visit Northern Australia (Queensland, Northern Territory and northern WA).

[uktog]

We have just returned and having looked at the land tour portion offered by Celebrity, we opted to do our own. The trip cost us roughly the same as the X trip but the difference was we used flights all the way rather than have two long 5 hour coach trips, we had three nights rather than one at the rock and we stayed at a 6* hotel all inclusive with the most personal tours included, dining under the stars etc etc.

 

So you can either DIY and save money, DIY and design an itinerary that is better for you and/or DIY and buy better land based options

 

Internal flights were easy to set up and very efficient indeed