Rotorua to Auckland Afternoon Transfer with Waitomo Glow Worms
Description
Choose FlexiToursNZ for a premium tour. We put less seats in our vehicles than factory standard and only 3 seats in the back row. Pay a little more to be comfortable. This tour involves a lot of driving and is more enjoyable if you are comfortable and not crushed up against other people on the vehicle. We keep the groups small with no more than 12 people on our vehicle, meaning our drivers can and will give you, personal service. Check out our reviews to see what customers say about us, our vehicles and our team of experienced and enthusiastic drivers.
Tour Options
Highlights
What's included
Pickup Locations & Times
We pickup at all central Rotorua locations free of charge and for a small shuttle fee if you are not at central accomodation Guaranteed departure - We do not cancel on the rare occasions we have low numbers. We will travel for one person
Traveller Ratings
Important Information
- Service animals allowed
- Specialized infant seats are available
- Suitable for all physical fitness levels
- Children must be accompanied by an adult
- Infant seats are available - all infants will be supplied own seat and child restraint
- Please note that because of the amount of travel time this tour is not suitable for children under 2 years, as part of the group - It can be booked as a private group tour - please ask TripAdvisor/Viator to contact us for the custom price
Reviews(22)
The only interesting part of this entire 7 hours trip was seeing glowing worms in the cave for about 15 minutes. Along the way, the driver only played driver’s role. It was a boring and time/money wasting event.
This review is so out of tune with all the other reviews, which praise our guides and the tour that I struggle to understand why you found it boring. I would love to know your date of travel so I can find out who was not doing their job to look after you. If you want you can email us with more details
Great driver, glowworm caves are a fun, unique experience. Beautiful rolling hills most of the trip.
We were the only passengers so we pretty much had a private transfer with a stop at the caves! Our driver was excellent and helpful, the caves were awesome too. Had we had more time I’d prefer to do different caves but it was still worth it!
beautiful, fun and magical. there are stairs and it is a short time. I recommend it and have done it twice.
Great way to get to Auckland from Rotorua. Loved the glow worm caves. Many winding roads so take your motion sickness meds if you tend to get car sick.
Thanks for your review! We're so glad you found our transfer service a great way to travel between Rotorua and Auckland. The glow worm caves really are something special. Appreciate the motion sickness tip - very helpful for other travelers on those winding roads! Hope you enjoyed the rest of your time in New Zealand!
The pick up and transfer from Rotorua was great. Chris was our driver and is knowledgeable and interesting. Kept us all on time and made a long trip very easy and fun. Waitomo Glow Worms were a little underwhelming, but still very cool and enjoyed the cave and history.
The guide was a wonderful young man who was very knowledgeable and helpful. Looking at the glow worms in the cave was like being out on an especially clear night and seeing the stars.
FlexiTours was our transportation between Auckland and Rotorua, and we stopped in Waitomo to do the black labyrinth rafting on the way. This activity was great, but not part of Flexi - Black Water Rafting Co was awesome. Flexi was essentially just the transportation between the cities and cave. Cars were super nice. However, if you’re a younger group, couple, or family looking to be efficient and make the most of the day, this is not for you. If you are fine waiting and being with a bunch of other tourists on entirely different schedules than you, then this is a good option. We waited for over 4 hours in the car as other groups finished up their other activities. Rather than grouping together people on the same schedule, we got stuck with people with entirely different itineraries. The rafting and glow worms were awesome (check out Black Water Rafting Co!), so we’re glad we did that, but this was a complete waste of time and way too expensive for what it was. When I brought this up to the customer service team, they made some excuse about how arranging transport around our itinerary (doing the rafting) was unaffordable for them. That is fine and fair, but they should have told us this ahead of time so we could have arranged a separate private transfer between locations, which would have been similarly priced. We only had 2 weeks in NZ so it was a bummer to lose an entire day because of this company.
Hi - I understand your frustration. These tours were historically run using transport coming in and out for other tours and the timing does mean that you may have to wait at either end of the day for the next transport. Some days the timing works reasonably well and on others it does not. To run the tours as private tours for just 2 people on the current pricing would mean losing over $800 which is not feasible for any tour or business. The tour is not popular enough to build groups, so we made a decision to move these tours into our new Division - Boutique Flexi which is being launched in April 2025. Boutique Flexi is for the tours which normally do not get more than 4 people on any given day. To make these tours viable, there will be a minimum charge of $1899, for one person and all additional people charged at NZ$290pp. This means we can run private vehicles, even for low numbers. There is no public transport into the area on the right timing I am not sure how you waited 4 hours for your transport back to Rotorua as your caving was scheduled to finish at 2:30pm and we collected you at 3:30pm, took you the Waitomo Caves to meet the group you were to travel with to Rotorua and, we departed with whole group at 4:25pm.
This was a transfer to Auckland, a planned stop midway at the cave with glowworms. Worked out very well. Both timewise and interesting, as a break on a 3hr drive.
Thanks for your review! Happy to hear our Rotorua to Auckland transfer worked so well for you. Adding the glowworm caves to the journey turns a simple drive into something special. It's the perfect way to make your travel time between cities more memorable. Glad we could be part of your New Zealand experience!
Driver was excellent - “Bunty” if I recall correctly. Very kind and knowledgeable with some fun stops along the way. The glow worm cave experience was just OK. It is not as exciting or interesting as I would have thought. It is a great way to transfer from Rotorua to Auckland, however, I would not venture to the caves on their own just for that.
