Tauranga Shore Excursion: Lord of the Rings Hobbiton Movie Set Tour Including Rotorua Sightseeing

They were there at the ship and easy to find .. they were fun and friendly always mindful of the time so that we were never worried about getting back to the ship on time. very informative and even gave us a goodie bag of food so we can see everything.. loved the tour and guide and would do it again with them

Had a fantastic time. Comfortable coach journey with the added extra of a goody bag left on our seats. Special thanks to Rolf our driver and guide . He looked after everybody and gave us interesting informative commentary throughout the journey.

Would highly recommend this excursion.

Yes, it was in excess of 8 hours, but it included everything we wanted to see in this area of New Zealand. Nick was a great guide who kept us informed, talking just enough, ensuring we were where we needed to be but not herding us excessively.

Our guide picked us up at Tauranga Port where we got off our Cruise; full day out starting with Hobbiton then Rotorua sightseeing. Our guide, Phillip was lovely and showed us a lot extra along the way. Both Hobbiton and Rotorua are a must if visiting NZ. Big bag of snacks supplied by Zealandier. Back to cruise with plenty of time to spare. Truly awesome!

This tour exceeded our expectations and we had a great day. The tour guide (Rolf) was very organised, explained at the start that he wanted us back 1 hour before our ship disembarks and provided us we a large bag of snacks as it was a long day of activities. Rolf spoke a lot about the land we drove past on the way as well. Highly recommend ! This tour was also much more affordable then the ship shore excursions.

Spending this much money for our family was a big decision, however this day was the highlight of our entire holiday.
Robin our tour guide and Jan the owner were simply amazing. Jan responded to every email and question we had promptly and even arranged for our three year old to have a car seat.
They rang our cruise ship whilst we were still at sea to confirm the docking time and met up for our fantastic tour. Not only were the destinations amazing the car was impeccably clean and the ’snack packs’ were a surprise and extremely generous. We highly recommend this company and tour and will use them on our next vacation to New Zealand.

We had read such glowing reviews about Zealandier Tours, so I was really excited about our tour with them. We were off the boat quickly and put on our bus which had a nice little bag of snacks and water. Then they asked for two volunteers to join another bus that was leaving right then. We volunteered and gave up our nice seats together in the front on Rolf’s bus (we see now in reviews that was a mistake as Rolf gets great reviews). You know the saying "No good deed goes unpunished?" We lived it today. Our new bus was full and we ended up sitting three rows apart. This made sharing the snack bag difficult. Our snack bag on the first bus had two of everything which was nice. Our second snack bag had only one of everything to share, including a bottle of water, as did the one for the couple next to me in the back, so we assume this was the norm. Luckily we had brought our own water and we had a big breakfast on the ship. Our guide seemed all over the place. First he said that he normally takes people straight to the Shire at Hobbiton but sometimes, they do what we were doing which was catching the bus in Matamata that would take us to the Shire where we would pick up more people and then go to Hobbiton, get off the bus, do the tour, get on the bus, and then he would pick us up at the Shire. It was all very confusing when he was telling us but luckily our guide at the Shire understood what was going on and was able to explain it and make sure we got off at the right place. I’m not sure why we didn’t do the “usual plan”. Maybe our guide wanted a coffee break in Matamata? I’m sure he talked about stuff we were passing, but we couldn’t hear or understand him at all in the back as his microphone rarely worked. We also never knew when we were supposed to meet back to leave. So we never knew how long we had anywhere. Hobbiton was easy since it was fully guided, but at Te Puia, I didn’t know if I had time to wait in line for the Moari performer group shot, nor did we know how long we had at the geysers before we needed to meet up with our guide. Also, the tour blurb and some of the reviews mentioned a dress up photo op, but that never happened nor did we know why it didn’t happen. Maybe we didn’t have time for that although we were returned to the ship with time to spare. It all just felt disorganized. The places that we went were lovely though, and we actually enjoyed being turned over to our guide at Hobbiton and our Maori guide at Te Puia. So for the main attractions we can’t complain and if you need transport to those attractions and to have everything pre-paid, this might be a decent option as you might have better luck than we did.

We picked this a tour that fit in with our cruise ship. It totally exceeded all expectations. The locations were absolutely amazing. Our driver and guide Rolf was so knowledgeable and professional. He couldn’t have done more to help. I can’t recommend this tour, tour company and guide enough.
Thank you it made our whole trip!

Let me start by saying that the Zealander tour of hobbiton and Tauranga was very professional and a very informative tour.
Rolf the tour guide was excellent and very on top of things.
I could go on and on about this but this tour was excellent.
Plain and simple.
If you don’t do this tour you’ve made a huge fumble.
My honest opinion.