Land package

[rkhtex]

We have booked the land package through Celebrity for our Australia/New Zealand cruise in Feb/March 2013, but now we’ve been given some information from a travel agent regarding booking a private land package through About Australia dot com. The private package is more expensive BUT it includes airfare. Also, there seems to be a lot more “down” time. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. I kind of like the itinerary that Celebrity provides better. Anybody have any experience with this? Thanks.

Kim

[Pearl64]

I have been searching for something to get us to Ayers Rock or other places our Celebrity cruise does not take us to. We are doing the circumnavigation on the Soltice next February. I would like a tour either at the beginning or at the end of our cruise but so far I have not found anything. We cannot do the Celebrity Cruisetour as we would miss the top of Australia part of our cruise. I do not want a long tour--just air to Ayers Rock from probably Sydney, hotel, and car rental. So far I have not found anything. I have found quite long tours which we don't want but nothing short. I did check Virgin vacations which also includes the air. I need the air to be included with the flexibility of doing the cruise as well. So many problems!

 

Pearl

[GradUT]

Rkhtex, I lived in Australia for several years and have been back to visit many times since. It is incredibly easy to organized a trip on your own in Australia online, so I don't really see the need for an organized land package, which I expect would cost more than doing on your own. If you need help planning your own land-based trip, I highly recommend going to Trip Advisor. If you let the TA members know when you will be traveling, where you want to go and your budget, they will give you lots of ideas of how to book the air, where to stay and what to see/do. I recommend you give it a try.

 

Pearl64, it is even easier to book your own trip to Sydney to Uluru (Ayers Rock) because you don't have many choices. There are 2 airlines (Qantas and Virgin Blue), there are 3 car rental companies (Hertz, Avis and Thrifty) and there are just 6 choices of accommodations, all of which are owned by Voyages. I recommend you first take a look at the Voyages website for "Getting There":

http://www.ayersrockresort.com.au/getting/

Then look at the website for accommodations: http://www.ayersrockresort.com.au/accommodation/

 

These two sites will tell you all you need to know for the logistics of a visit to Uluru and you can then easily book on your own online.

 

(BTW, I have booked two trips on my own to Ayers Rock. It's not at all hard to do.)

[MMDown Under]

http://en.travelnt.com/

 

This is the Northern Territory government's tourism website, which is a good place to start research on independent travel to Ayres Rock and elsewhere in the Northern Territory.

 

As GradUT said, it is easy to arrange independent travel, either directly or through an accommodation/air package.