Auckland Explorer Bus

very convenient way to get aournd, get some info and meet a few peole. we were fotunate to get a great diver name Kevin a few times and he was full of local inside info and very helpful at planning the rest of our holiday. made our limited time very efficient and effective.

We have mixed feelings. The reason we took the tour was for what it provided: an overview of the city. We had been here before but not spent time close to downtown. We didn’t get out most places but saw things. However, and this is important, when you get on a working bus like this on a regularly scheduled route, you expect it to continue circulating. What you don’t expect is for it to be taken out of service at a stop without a replacement bus to take over. If the bus stop is in a cold wind which turns to rain that is worse. (At that point the driver reopened the bus to get us out of the rain.). The people we met in the company were quite nice. We paid for the service and the company interrupted it in an uncomfortable manner. I would discourage a person from using this company: obviously you have to be uncertain about the service.

The ‘hop on/​hop off’ style of bus tours has only recently become one of my to-​do items on city visits, as it is a great way to kick off getting to know a city on your first full day there. And as with other cities, this was near the start of our visit and we were eager to use the service.
I need to make very clear in this review that my rating is not reflective of the company or the staff. From the über-​friendly woman selling tickets at the SkyCity stop, to the three very nice and friendly bus drivers we encountered, there is zero complaints about service. They went so far as to track customers so if you happen to get off at one stop but not be there at the next swing-​by, they might wait a little extra, or if you showed up an a stop other than where you got off, they might inquire if you did walk to it. Really gave an overall positive impression. The buses were clean, and sounded like they were in good working maintenance. Another big plus was that they were on-​time at the stops, each which had a the schedule clearly posted.
So why only 3 stars? Because of the quantity of the tour. Although just as expensive as any other city’s similar tour company, they only had around 14 stops total. They started around 09:30, and the last round of pickups began around 15:30. This was divided between two lines, the Red that runs by each of it’s stops about every 30 minutes, and the blue, that runs by each of those stops once an hour. Your ticket gets you one day, and you can pay extra to extend. Some of the Red line stops were so close that you could walk between them faster than the bus could take you (it is a tour after all and they do go the long way about to give you some city info/​history). Other Blue line stops were so far away that you might literally might have just enough time to get to do two things on the tour for the entire day. Lots of that isn’t their fault. Auckland isn’t that big and the number of destinations reflects that. Many of the business sites also close pretty early, so running a tour around inaccessible attractions is also pointless.
We ended our day feeling happy with the company itself, but feeling that we should have obtained the list of sites first, determined which ones we really wanted to go to, and in the case of all the sites, just used public transportation and/​or a taxi to get to the ones we truly wanted to see.

If your all into the whole sightseeing gas, then I think you will appreciate this service. It’s really good if you don’t have much time whilst your staying in Auckland but you still want to get around and see everything while your here.
It is a hop on, hop off sightseeing tour visiting 14 of Auckland’s best attractions, with a full commentary (in English) but you can talk to the driver and he may be able to sort something out for you regarding this.
The stops include, the Sky tower, Kelly Tarltons, Bastion Point Lookout, Auckland Museum and MOTAT and many more.
It’s $ 65 for the actual tour (or transport rather) and then you have to pay for the attractions you want to do on top of this. If your with the tour you actually get a discount on everything though which is freaking sweet!
They can do a pick up from your motel or you can just hop on at any of the stops around the city. The tour is super popular with cruise ship visitors too as there is a stop directly outside the Ferry Terminal.
When I did it, when I first arrived, I found it to be such a fun day with really cool drivers who knew what they are talking about and really made everyone on the tour feel comfortable whilst traveling around the city together.