Australia & New Zealand Review: Waitomo Caves, Blue Mountains Tour, Hobbiton Movie Set, Port Douglas Cruise , Rainforest & Beach

We had a wonderful trip.  Everything that this travel team planned for us happened on the date and time it was supposed to happen.  We had few complaints.
The only reason I did not give 5 stars was because:
1.  While we were in Queenstown, NZ we went on an excursion to Milford Sound.  Our itinerary for that excursion stated "Full Day Milford Sound Coach - Cruise - Fly".  I thought we were flying back from Milford Sound but learned on the excursion that we were not on their fly list.  Wasn't too upset about the miscommunication; however, what I thought our trip planner with the travel team should have done for us was given a friendly suggestion that we should give serious consideration to paying the extra money to fly back.  This excursion was great but it was a long trip home on the bus.  If I were in the travel service business I would advise all my customers that it is worth the money to fly back from Milford. Not only do you get back to Queenstown in no time at all but you get a totally different perspective of Milford Sound and the surrounding area.
2.  While we were in Rotorua, NZ we had several excursions booked.  The first excursion we went on was to the Waitomo Caves. I'm glad we went to the caves and saw the glowworms; however, in my opinion, this excursion - by itself (which is all we had booked that day) - isn't worth the time or expense.  I would have appreciated some insight from the travel team suggesting that we should have combine this excursion the Hobbiton excursion we had booked for the next day - which was in the same general area) which would have made this day much better.  Or, alternatively, the travel team could have suggested we change our excursions so that we went to the Waitomo Caves our last day in Rotorua and then just travel on to Auckland (when the bus left Waitomo it did not go back to Rotorua but went on to Auckland.  We had to catch a different bus back to Rotorua). Our plans for the following day was to travel to Auckland after our excursions that day.  The following day, we had to change busses twice (with all of our luggage) and wait at one stop for about 1 1/2 hours on the bus that ultimately took us to Auckland.  I just thought that with their local insight, this travel team could have suggested some changes for us that would have made our excursions in Rotorua and travel to Auckland better, less awkward and more seamless.
3.  Two of the excursions we booked out of Cairns, Australia were excursions to the great barrier reef and both were very similar to each other.  One of the excursions, was out of Port Douglas and the other was on out of Cairns.  I might be being too picky here but, after taking both these excursions, I would recommend the one out of Port Douglas over Cairns.  Port Douglas company provides many amenities that the Cairns company charges extra for.  Again, these insights from this travel team would have been helpful in deciding whether we should have done both these excursions. 
Putting the comments above aside, we moved around quite a bit and did lots of excursions. All of our flights, coaches to/from the airport and excursions happened when as they were supposed to - we had no problems at all.  Overall we were pretty happy with what the travel company did for us.
John W.