Australia & New Zealand Tours

I really thought the Zicasso travel partner was fabulous and so thorough and easy to use. I would rate it the best travel app. It had my itinerary down to the minute detail, info on how to contact various people if there were any questions, and was so easy to navigate.  I would rate my trip to Australia my favorite so far. I recently went to Japan through a different travel agent and was able to compare the difference. Our travel team was so much better! 

My husband and I went to Australia to drop off my daughter, who was doing an exchange study in Sydney. We started in Melbourne and had a full-day tour to Phillip Island, with a moonlit animal sanctuary and penguins. I would recommend the penguins. I saw thousands of penguins. What an experience! I did not like the sanctuary part. Tickets were sold out for the koala petting and there were not very many animals to see. I have heard there are other sanctuaries/zoos in other parts of Australia that are much better.  

The Melbourne food tour was fantastic! Our tour guide did a wonderful job of explaining Melbourne's history with the food. We flew to Cairns, to Port Douglas, and had two excursions: a boat ride with snorkeling in the Great Reef Barrier and a Daintree safari.  The full-day cruise with snorkeling was wonderful, with so much food! The Daintree tour was a bit long and could have been condensed into half the time. I probably would not recommend that tour. 

Finally, we went to Sydney to drop off my daughter. We did the bridge walk, which was fantastic. Each person was so well protected and the safety checks were top-notch! 

Our trip went without any problems and our drivers were well-coordinated and on schedule. I would use this company for future trips to Australia. I plan to visit New Zealand and would use them again.

Zicasso’s trip planner did an excellent job. Communication and the quality of the experiences were everything we'd expected and more, especially in New Zealand. The accommodations were first rate; the highlight was the lodge in Queenstown. The guides and drivers were professional and knowledgeable, especially those in Queenstown and Auckland. We loved the dedicated website for reference, as well as the detailed booklet and maps for both countries. 

For future itineraries, I would add another day in Queenstown and a full day in Christchurch. If days were limited, I would recommend one less day in Auckland and/or skipping the drive/train from Franz Josef. 

The only complication was the day we spent 10 hours going to and coming from Milford Sound.  I recommend doing Milford Sound by plane/helicopter from Queenstown, which would also permit seeing the glaciers/southern alps from the air. The only things we missed were the zoo in Auckland and the Blue Mountain day tour in Sydney. Next trip!

Zicasso’s travel company did a phenomenal job with stays, tours, and activities. In particular, we loved our room at our hotel in Tasmania, our villa on Waiheke Island in NZ, and our room at our hotel in Melbourne. Our itinerary was well thought out and exposed us to exactly what we'd hope to see in Australia and New Zealand.

We were pretty late in arranging this trip and Zicasso and our travel company did an exceptional job! We feel like we saw the best of Australia in our two-week trip. The private guides for our tours (Sydney, Blue Mountains, Daintree, Cape Tribulation, Zootastic) were wonderful, informative, engaging, and responsive to our requests and our nine-year-old's endless questions! We felt cared for and even a little spoiled. This certainly exceeded our expectations and was one of the best vacations ever!

Our family of five had an amazing two-week trip to Australia. We visited Sydney, Cairns, Uluru, and Melbourne, experiencing a great diversity of sights and activities. Zicasso's travel partner was great, working with us to create a custom itinerary. Our travel specialist was a great travel planner and the support was available throughout the trip whenever we needed it. Thank you for a wonderful experience!

Zicasso’s travel specialist was great to work with. She anticipated our needs and was quick to respond with information and to answer questions. She set up a great trip for us and we thoroughly enjoyed our visit to Australia. We had a couple of issues with the tours that were set up for us and they were quickly resolved, with great results.

On our visit to Kangaroo Island, the small-group tour subcontractor mishandled our connection on the island; their recovery was to send a personal guide to spend the day with us and also provide us with dinner! It ended up being one of our best tours. Many of our small groups were just my wife and myself, sometimes with one or two others.

We also had a very rainy and windy day the day we were supposed to go out to the Great Barrier Reef. It was a weekend and the travel specialist was on vacation. That said, the on-call person was amazing in rearranging one of our other small-group tours for that day and we were still able to go to the reef two days later.

All in all, I would highly recommend the travel specialist and her company. They were great up front and great during the trip.