Private Tour: Bay of Islands Day Trip from Auckland

Bobby was excellent, due to the weather cruise ran longer but worth every minute of it!! Highly recommend!

The weather wasn’t awesome but the long ride in the Mercedes van was tiring and uncomfortable. Bouncing around in the car for 6-7 hours was not fun. The cruise which we paid extra for was spectacular but this trip was way too expensive for the day. The driver was nice but told us nothing about the country we were driving through. Not worth it. Fly up if you want to see Bay of Isles

For a tour for 2, which was expensive, I expected a decent car, because there were a lot of miles to cover. Instead we had a 12 seater minibus and I expect Viator to refund some of the cost as this is not good enough. Had I wanted a minibus I would have booked on a tour that included more (e.g. any tickets or refreshments prepaid) for less money. We did touch on this with our driver who said he was surprised but told to take the minibus. He did have water for us. Our driver Greg was great and did his best (the weather was bad) to take us to interesting sites and was keen to know what interested us so he could tailor the tour to suit us, which was appreciated. It was disappointing that because of the weather there were no trips out around the islands that we had wanted, but that isn’t anyone’s fault. He was thoughtful and would do food/drink/loo/souvenir shopping stops and to make the most of the time we were happy to keep these short. In conclusion, check what vehicle you are getting for your money, check the weather forecast in advance, and work out at least a couple of things that are important for you to see in good/bad weather to make the most of your day. Your driver will have helpful suggestions of things you don’t know about, but it helps you to have ideas in advance.

Our private tour of the Bay of Islands from Auckland was all we hoped for and more! Our praise is 100% credited to our outstanding guide, Mike! We had the great fortune to not only have him pick us up at the airport, but also be assigned to be our guide/driver the next day for the tour. Mike was a great driver and a super human being with a great personality and loads of information that we found very interesting. He did everything possible to insure our comfort and enjoyment. Indeed he had to go "above and beyond" because one of us left our "purse" behind at a refreshment stop and did not realize that we had done so for several hours until we reached where we were to board our boat for a cruise of the islands. Mike offered to drive all the way back and get it while we were on the cruise, but luckily his sharp thinking and quick solutions allowed him to call the exact stop we had made and discovered that the owner of the cafe had found our lost item and would hold it for us until we could return. We didn't miss anything on the tour and Mike made us so happy and relieved to retrieve the purse with all our money, credit cards, etc in tact. We enjoyed the day with Mike and commend him highly. He is an asset to his company for sure. Mike gets a 10+++ out of 10 rating and 5+ stars!

<p>weather was very poor on that day which limited the things we could do</p>

<p>A new tour which took us to some beautiful scenery. Our guide, Trevor, was really friendly and knowledgable, although he hadn't been properly advised of the content of tour requirements. Nonetheless he proved to be a very good guide.</p>