New Zealand Self Drive Tour Reviews

Despite a 16 hour time difference, Sofie always responded at the first available opportunity, making communication easy and smooth. She was also very detailed and thorough in her answers, which was very helpful given that we could only exchange emails once or twice a day

First Light Travel provided everything we needed and more for our Lord of the Rings themed New Zealand vacation. Budget, time, locations, and itinerary could not have been more carefully accounted for and laid out as we planned our trip. Our vacation experience in New Zealand was incredible and we can't wait to use First Light Travel to go back to New Zealand in the future!

Dan and Kelsey Schmuhl - USA

Kasey,

The plans you made for us were impeccable. The flow was perfect as were the accommodations. Many thanks. It was great. There were no flow or process issues.

I recommend all those accommodations to others who seek the same.

Tom & Diane Andrews - Orlando USA

From the first email I sent to Shelley, she was prompt and very patient in answering my questions and setting up our itinerary for us and we exchanged a LOT of emails! Our whole trip was smooth from the transfers to all the accommodations that we had and the car rentals. I highly recommend Shelley and First Light Travel for any trip to New Zealand. We had a fantastic holiday in this beautiful country and went home with some great memories.

Thank you Shelley and First Light Travel!

Kareena Mirpuri - Phillipines

We discovered First Light on the Internet while searching for help in planning our trip to New Zealand. Even though we were making travel plans during the height of the season and with little time. Sophie gave us everything we wanted, within our budget. We loved everything.

Norm and Shirley Brooke - USA

First Light provides really good customized service for a good price. Besides sending us a hardcopy itinerary, they checked in with us 2 weeks before we left, and quickly updated us when a tour operator had to make a change. Didn't make noise at all even though I requested several last minute, troublesome changes. Excellent service! Well done.

Andre and Feng Lim – Singapore

I found First Light Travel when I searched "New Zealand Itineraries" and I'm so glad I did! We traveled in April/May of 2017, and found First Light Travel in late January/early February 2017. We worked closely with Chrissy Sun, who made the whole process - from booking our flights, to our excursions, to our accommodations - a stress-free process. This was our first international trip and she gladly answered all of our questions about traveling abroad and provided very helpful information about New Zealand in general. We let Chrissy know when we could leave, when we needed to be back, and when we needed to be in Rotorua to run a marathon and she handled the rest. Our itinerary was easy to follow. The voucher system was easy to use and made getting checked in for our excursions so easy. Once we arrived in New Zealand we were so excited to see our well thought out itinerary in action. The outfitters selected by Chrissy were great to work with and helped provide an unforgettable experience. We were in New Zealand for 20 days and Chrissy made sure that we did as many of the things on our wish-list as possible. We had fun at every turn and find it hard to pick a favorite!

Hi Jo, Yes, the trip was wonderful. We had a great time. Specifically the cruise in Dunedin unearthed a friend of an old friend. Loved the Larnach Castle. As mentioned previously, Steve Hanrahan, our driver to Queenstown was fabulous. In Addition to driving, we stopped at Gibbstown Winery and Arrowtown. We upgraded to a junior suite at the Rydges which we liked a lot. The cycling experience proved challenging 3 x 25 year olds and us. But fun any way. Matt the driver was very cool delightful and reliable. Wellington, though a rainy, was wonderful. We visited Te Papa, with an incredible Gallipoli exhibit a fabulous Cyndy Sherman exhibit at the City Gallery and a tour of Parliament. We had dinner at Dockside on the Harbour. The Sofitel was fabulous. We loved it and our room. The Saturday tour was great and our guide, Daniel, delightful. Likewise our Sunday venture to Wakaike ( sp?) very pleasant. Carmen our guide very good. She took us to an artist's home and we are contemplating buying a piece.

All in all a fabulous trip!

Best

Carol & Howard Wayne - San Francisco

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