Travel Review: Luxury Vacation in Australia & New Zealand, Sydney, Queenstown, Milford Sound, Blue Mountains, Hobbiton, Featherdale

We might skip Rotorua...Would not stay at the same hotel unless we could have the front room for 2 nights.  We might have stayed one more day in Queenstown to go to Glenorchy.  Maybe have substituted Napier and Hawkes Bay, or another place in Lake of Bays for Russell.

And I wish we had had more time.

There were two thing out of the many, many things he did for us that were not consistent with his understanding of our needs and wishes.  Only two but still worth mentioning.  Booking us, albeit at the last minute, into the hotel in Russell on the Bay of Islands in a room at the back of the hotel was a great disappointment.  The front rooms are the only ones worth staying in.  The back rooms are small, ours was the largest but still small with NO VIEW WHATSOEVER.   Knowing the other hotels we had chosen, and what we like, he should not have thought we would have been well accommodated in this place and it would have been better had we been guided to an alternative location and hotel. In fairness, he did say the following before the decision to go to Russell and we did not accept his advice.  We would have accepted his advice had we understood the second rate accommodation at the hotel.

• ~~Given your comments and the style of travel that you like, I would suggest Wellington and Napier as better options than Nelson and Rotorua. This is because both offer more central touring options and accommodation that is close to shop/restaurants etc. Napier has a nice climate as well so I think you will enjoy this region.  The Bay of Islands is again a little difficult to get you to a central spot and it requires more travel. I think we are better with this plan to be honest.

He had suggested a hotel in Queenstown which we checked out and does have lovely rooms but they are dark and the walk into town is too hard for us given my condition.  Luckily, he accepted our wish to switch to another hotel.