Honeymoon In Oz & New Zealand - Who Is Best To Book With?

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AONEILL

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Any help with this would be appreciated. We are going on honeymoon 08th Oct until 22nd November, have got in touch with a few Travel Agents but want to keep searching, any recommendations would be great.

Thanks in advance
 
Hi we are going to OZ in a few weeks on our Honeymoon. We booked our main flights with Trailfinders they do not charge commission and they had the best timing for our flights. That flight was Dublin-LHR, LHR- Hong Kong, Hong Kong - Melbourne and Cairns to Dublin via Sinapore and LHR.

We are staying in Hong Kong for 3 days, Melbourne 3 days and Sydney 3 days. Then flying from Sydney to Hervey Bay and busing it up the coast to Cairns. Internal Flights are with Virgin Blue and they are very cheap, we booked our Flight from Melbourne to Sydney and Sydney to Hervey Bay with them.

Let me know if you need any tips on Hotels, or Apartments up the coast or trips etc.
 
I'm off to NZ in August with a stopover in Sydney and ended up booking with Trailfinders. It might be worth trying Austravel aswell as I booked flights through them to Australia a couple of years ago and found them quite good. They were a bit more expensive than Trailfinders this time around though, but not much.

Also you might not want to mention to them that you'll be on honeymoon as they might suggest you spend more on accommodation etc but if it's your honeymoon, maybe you will anyway :)

Have a great time!
 
Hi AONEILL,

We are going on honeymoon to Thailand, Australia and New Zealand in August this year. We checked prices with a lot of travel agents and airlines and Trailfinders offered the best deal. I also found them to be very helpful and informative in any question or query I had for them.

Hope you have a great time.

Liverlips, we are also staying in Hong Kong for 3 nights in September. I would be very interested to hear about the accomodation you are staying in and the way you booked.

Thanks,

Jason.
 
trailfinders for sure - when we went to Australia we booked thrugh them and found them to be great - most of their agents have also done a lot of travelling and are very useful stores of information !
 
Just back from Oz and NZ. Used Trailfinders for flights and couple of hotels. Found them to be fine. For accomodation in Sydney I would highly recommend Old Sydney Holiday Inn down in The Rocks area. It is almost beside Circular Quay, where all ferries go from, and the views from the rooftop, when ther is no cruise ship in port, of Sydney Opera House is fantastic. It is pricey enough but it is a great base from which to explore city. If scenery/sights is what you are into I would more highly recommend Sydney than Melbourne. Melbourne is not as asthesically pleasing as Sydney. If going to NZ in November you are getting into start of holiday season and I would recommend you check accomodation beforehand and you may need to prebook, particularly whereever you gly into. Spend much more time on South Island. It is more spectacular, less populated, more varied than North Island. You can prebook InterIslander Ferry as well but leave flexible dates so that you can change them closer to the time of departure.
 
I know a girl who is a travel counsellor and is from New Zealand she lives in North County Dublin is married to an irish guy so im sure she would know that neck of the woods better than any travel agent. I can give you her details if you are interested.
 
Jmayo, can you please let me know if you travelled by campervan in NZ or did you stay in motels/hostels and use car hire? Going to NZ in mid August and trying to get some info on transport and accommodation before we go...
 
bartbridge...
we didn't do campervan. There were times I wish I had but on balance we got some excellent accomodation, mcuh better than US or Australia.
We stayed in motels and hotels in big cities i.e. Wellington, Auckland.
Actually stayed in rented serviced apartments in Auckland.
There is a very good book you can pick up at some rental car hires or else at tourist Information Sites. It is AA Accomodation Guide, big book with yellow cover. Borders or other bookshops try and sell it to for $10/$12 but you can get it for free at above.
There is North Island edition, South Island edition and both Islands edition.
It gives you details on almost all motels/hotels, caravan parks etc.
Gives good info on what they have as regards facilities, even little helpful maps of streets etc.
Get it it will safe you lot of headache.

We hired with Apex Car Rentals, cars were old, I mean 8/9 years old and they had guts drove out of them but they were little cheaper than big companies. Shop around, you are in off peak season.
I have to say the staff were very nice and helpful.

Check for accomodation in major centres before you arrive, August should not be too bad apart from ski centric areas e.g Queenstown, Mount Hutt etc. Use the book and phone around.
The motels were excellent, you can get nice one/two bed units with full kitchen, washing machine and dryer. Great for the old washing.

Note in winter, weather will be colder and wetter in some areas, so do you want to be in camper van?
Check for mountain road closures before you head off, check if need snow chains on higher routes, should be ok.

Also if doing both islands then you will need to book Interislander ferry.
Now allow flexibility on actual travel dates. You may want to spend less/longer on one island.
Also beware the strait between the two islands can get very windy weather which causes huge sea swells. So bad that the crew are actually lying on deck along with the passengers.
You will enjoy it, scenery is wonderful, mixture of Norway, Canada, US, Spain, Ireland, Scotland and a few other places.
 
Try Australian Holidays on Abbey St. found them to be cheaper than Trailfinders & Austravel for our dates.
 
Do not book via the Air New Zealand free phone call centre, they may give you a price, then not honour the price that was quoted. 90% are nice to deal with but if someone has made an error, then "unfortunately we cannot.." "unfortunately it is not possible...", even though they messed up .....
You would have to book via your credit card & because their quotes are also in sterling, your cc company will charge you an extra 1.75% extra & when your trip gets in to the €000's you will end up paying an extra €100-200. Trailfinders is your safest bet.
 
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