Taieri Gorge Railway Questions

[Psoque]

Hi. We are visiting Dunedin on a cruise in January 2008. I see that that Celebrity is offering a tour excursion that iniclude the Taieri Gorge Railway. However, it appears the price is a bit steep for this excursion.

 

I checked the fares on the Taieri Gorge Railway website, and it seems the fare for the train ride ($77 NZD round trip) is much less than the cost of the excursion ($200 USD). I also see that the railway people are offering something called "cruise ship departure," which has to be booked through the cruise line.

 

I am highly suspicious that the cruise ship passengers are "forced" to pay more for the train ride, but I have no idea how this works.

 

So, here are my questions:

 

1. Have any of you done the train ride? And if so, is it worth it?

 

2. Is there any way we can book a fare directly with the railway company and not be forced to pay the cruise line excursion fare?

 

3. Is there any good reason cruise line is charging more for this excursion? Is it possible that, even if we do this "independently," there will be a reason for us to pay a lot more than the train fare to make this a reasonable excursion?

 

Thank you very much.

[kaseyoz]

from what i have read in the past, the cruise lines books the whole train making it impossible to book for your selves. I have also heard it is a great train ride.

We hired a car ourselves and drove around as there is so much to see and do in this place without spending hours on a train(mho)

 

we drove around otago bay albatross place,lanarch castle, cadbury factory, railway station LOL and baldwin street (steepest st in world) it just depends on what you want to do and see. We were also a family of 5 costwise it makes sense to self drive

[kaseyoz]

BTW the cost may be more than booking yourselves (if you could of course) as dunedin is at least an half hour drive away from ship.

They do bus transfers though for everyone .

 

also double check if cost is in usd or nzd

[SheilaNC]

We did the train as part of a land trip by bus and train from Queenstown to Dunedin. While it was a nice ride and I got some good pictures, I don't think it is worth $200 (NZ or US), just MHO

[matmar]

Its worth doing if you are paying the NZD$77 but not when paying US$200. We did it on our Sapphire cruise and honestly I think we got ripped off by Princess and we could have spent our money better on other things.

 

Trouble is the cruise lines book out the whole train and you will have no chance of trying to make a booking independantly.

 

I'd say look at other options, there is plenty of them.

 

Have a great trip..

 

Cheers

 

Mark