Swain DestinationsReviews of swaindestinations.com

Great choices of hotels in NZ and Australia. Interesting activities, but nothing out of the ordinary.

Transportation & Tours 5/5 - Pickups were always on-time, with knowledgeable guides, and easy to tailor the day. Selection of Tours 5/5 - Great selection of North Island & South Island and city / nature & unique experiences What could be better? Scheduled a day of wine tastings and 4 were pre-scheduled. 4/5 Rating. It would have been better to spread them across 3 days. The day before had transportations without a wine tasting. For us, 4 in one day was too much. The following day also have no wine tasting and only transportation. Would have been better to have 1 tasting with transportation, next day with 2, and following day with transportation to new area with 4th tasting from a different region. Great White Shark Experience in Bluff -- Cancelled due to weather. Huge bummer. Obviously no one can control this, but I would have preferred maybe 3 days in Bluff to increase our odds for an Experience. Overall - Would definitely recommend New Zealand as well as Swain!!

Gary at Swain worked diligently with us to provide the itinerary we requested, and George and Jan followed up with fabulous communications during our trip. Some of the hotels selected were absolutely amazing, while a few seemed less than anticipated (quality, location, views, sound levels, amenities, customer service). Tours were mostly as expected. Transfers were spot on, with George coordinating when we had flight delays. We never felt alone!

Would highly recommend the Ilala Lodge in Victoria Falls, and the Kapama South Lodge in Krueger area. Both were very nice! As was mentioned to us, unless you do a Botswana day trip or something similar, three days in Victoria Falls is plenty of time. In Victoria Falls our Boma Dinner was just an average experience. The Elephant encounter was very enjoyable. The evening Ra-Ikane river cruise done through the Ilala Lodge was very good! The Peech Hotel in Johannesburg is very nice, but not close to anything else. The Soweto tour and Apartheid Museum are both very worthwhile experiences and informative in the struggles that South Africa faced and problems they have yet to overcome. We would say that all the arrangements made through Swain went off with out any problems. All of the tour guides were professional, and especially the private tours in Cape Town which were just fantastic!! In that regard, we would recommend that whenever possible make the tours private if your able to do so. The group tour to Cape Point and Simons Town should be private because so much time was spent picking up and dropping off at various hotels, especially when pickup times are not exact and people are not ready on schedule! In summary, we think Swain did an great job with planning, scheduling and with arrangements. Everyone was very courteous and helpful. Thanks again

I love getting rave reviews from my clients and Swain is my "go to" destination partner for Australia & New Zealand. They work with me every step of the way to ensure my travelers have a great experience. thanks for making we look good!

Very good experience! Great reliable information and attendance to details.

My second very good experience with Swains. I booked a big trip at the last minute, and the folks at Swains were very patient and helpful, and worked hard to accommodate my schedule.

Everything went well on the trip. Loved Salamanca Inn and Strahan Village especially. Only criticism I have is that Swain pushes towards high-end options; in some cases they provide only high-end options. I was able to suggest and renegotiate these, and in one case, find an alternative option that Swain was unable to provide. For non-travel savvy or less tech-savvy people, this would be a real problem.