Posted on: October 19th, 2015 by MelissaM
In December 2015, Air New Zealand will host direct flights from Houston to Auckland, New Zealand. This means traveling to New Zealand just became even easier with five Air New Zealand hubs in North America!
Training with Tourism New Zealand
In preparation for the inaugural flight from Houston, the staff at About New Zealand partnered with Tourism New Zealand for a massive training event Thursday. 24 vendors from all across New Zealand showed up Thursday morning and, after a Texas sized breakfast, the teams got to work.
The morning jumped right into fast paced training sessions for our staff. The vendors in town ranged from luxury accommodations to award winning Maori Cultural experiences and even self-drive experiences in the comfort of a camper van, like tourism New Zealand’s Kombi Diaries.
There are some pretty interesting things waiting you in New Zealand including Helicopter Tours to Franz Josef, luxury day cruises on Doubtful Sound, accommodations fit for royalty (literally) and lots of Hobbit inspired experiences. We even got a look at a real prop worn by a Dwalin in The Hobbit!
Photo courtesy of Weta Workshop in Wellington, New Zealand
By midday the About New Zealand staff was full to the brim with New Zealand knowledge and Tourism NZ was out the door to Houston for their final stop. Housing this many vendors in one day was a milestone for About New Zealand. It was exciting and exhausting but most importantly it was another way we can improve your travel experience!
What does this mean for you? Our partnership with Tourism New Zealand and the amazing turn out of New Zealand vendors ensures your next New Zealand vacation is one you’ll never forget! After extensive training, our Destination Specialists are even more excited to start planning your New Zealand vacation!
Call us Toll Free 888-359-2877 (Mon-Fri 8:30am – 5:00pm Central US) or Start planning my trip
About New Zealand Reviews
Rating of Average of 4.88 on a total of 33 Ratings
Outstanding trip and customer service
Wound up with an opportunity to take some vacation time on short notice. After reaching out with a little less than a month to go til departure, we were able to arrange the most active and(...)
(...) exciting vacation we’ve ever done. Our agent, Ana, took care of everything and was a pleasure to work with. NZ is an amazing destination. Definitely recommend the Glowworm/Rotorua tour out of Auckland and the Doubtful Sound tour that runs out of Queenstown. Ana also took care of our arrangements for the second half of our trip in Australia. Definitely recommend visiting both if you have the time.
Overall Great Trip
We loved New Zealand and hope to return! 10 days was not long enough for the amount of public transportation we used. Queenstown was fun and we’re glad we added one day there to our itinerary. (...)
(...) Our flight from Queenstown to Christ Church was cancelled, so we had to fly from Queenstown to Auckland to Christ Church to pick up our rental car. Since we didn’t arrive in Christ Church until mid afternoon, we had to leave for Kaikoura without seeing Christ Church. We enjoyed Kaikoura that evening and the next morning. We had to be at the ferry by noon, so we had to move along to Picton. The ferry ran 1.5 hours late so when we arrived in Wellington, Thrifty was closed. So, we had to get to our hotel and back to the ferry the next morning to pick up the car. We felt like there was too many moving parts and wasted time on all of the public transportation delays. From Wellington, we drove on our own to Napier then Rotorua. All of the hotels arranged for us were nice. We also enjoyed the prearranged tours. We traveled in September and the weather was mostly sunny with highs in the 60s and lows in the 40s. About New Zealand was good to work with, and very responsive by phone and by email. The cost of the trip was very reasonable. The next time we travel to New Zealand we will rent a camper van, and move along at our own pace. There was plenty of camping on both islands. We will also spend more than 10 days. Thanks for a great trip!
Best Trip Ever
Our trip to New Zealand was unbelievable. Everything was planned for us impeccably. Ana was a delight to work with. Every “t” was crossed and “I” dotted. We did not have one hiccup. Every(...)
(...) reservation on our itinerary was made and we did not have one problem. We had an awesome tri and because it was planned out so extensively by Ana. Thank you. We would recommend you to anyone and everyone.
My wife and I had a wonderful trip to New Zealand.
About New Zealand did an excellent job of covering all the details which led to a very organized and stress free vacation! A couple of the IBIS hotels we stayed at were disappointing but on the(...)
(...) flip side we received a nice surprise with lake view rooms in Taupo and Queenstown. We would highly recommend About New Zealand for booking your next trip to New Zealand.
