Travel Review: Solo Tour of Australia, Sydney, Cairns, Great Barrier Reef Snorkeling, Dinner Cruise, Culture, Food & Wine

I would spend more time in Sydney and see the parts that I didn't have time to see on this trip.  

Would have liked to have known that I could have climbed the Harbour Bridge.  I could have scheduled that into my day, but no one advised until I was there.  

Travel Company's Comments

Thank you for taking the time to post your review on your recent trip to Australia. I am delighted you enjoyed your time in Australia and appreciate your feedback . I have reviewed some of the comments you have made in regards to your recent trip, discussed them with our agent and wanted to follow up with you on a few points.

We consider itinerary planning a collaborative process and I can see that our agent provided you with four trip itinerary proposals and several emails/phone discussions with different touring options. We try to include as much information as possible in our telephone discussions & itinerary descriptions but it is difficult for us to anticipate every possibility.

Our agent is fully aware you do not have to be a certified diver to take an introductory dive on the Great Barrier Reef and I am sorry if you feel you missed an opportunity to try this. For non-certified divers it is often the case that we pre-book the tour that includes snorkeling and any of the additional extras like intro diving, guided snorkeling tours, helicopter flights etc. can be booked on onboard the vessel on the 1.5 hour trip out to the reef site as it gives you more flexibility for you to see how you are feeling about these activities on the day and know how the weather is. It is standard that there is a crew briefing onboard and all your options are laid out to you of what can be added on your day at the reef - I trust you were given the opportunity to add the intro dive as is the usual practice for all clients traveling out to the reef.

For a six night trip to Australia like yours we would not recommend staying an extra day in Sydney and one day less in Cairns - to fly 3 hours each way to Cairns to spend 2 nights would result in only having one full day to enjoy a tour and we consider this a long way to travel and your time too short in this region where there are lots of reef & rainforest touring options. I do believe our agent recommending 3 nights in each area was the best option for your trip.

I understand our agent offered many rainforest & Kuranda tour options for your last day in the Cairns region but you ultimately chose not to pre-book one. I trust you enjoyed your day of leisure locally or took a tour to explore more of the region locally.

I appreciate your comments on the Sydney Harbour BridgeClimb, this is a wonderful experience which we need to allow 4 hours in total for. When discussing with our agent if she felt she could have included this in your trip she felt that given the other tours she already had scheduled in and trying to work within your budget it would have been challenging. We will keep this in mind to ensure clients are fully aware climbing the bridge is a touring option.

Kind regards,

Owner & Founder