Lyttelton Shore Excursion - City Highlights & Waipara Wine Tour

If I were you reading this review, I would seriously reconsider other options for a tour provider and find any agency to organise my tour other than "Leisure Tours", unless you want to risk your day being ruined. We were unable to hop on the bus due to out-of-control delays in disembarking the cruise; so I can't comment on the tour itself. However, more important than the tour and sightseeing is customer care. We were literally left behind in the middle of nowhere, despite having our friends on the bus begging the tour guide to wait or get in touch with us as we were experiencing delays disembarking the cruise. We tried everything to get hold of the guide or a customer care representative to find alternative ways to join the tour or get some options on whether we can get on an alternative tour to profit from the only one day we are spending in Christchurch. Our family included 2 adults and 2 kids, aged 8 years and 3 years; imagine how horrible it was for us to run from one bus to another and ask every person around for our tour bus without getting any direction or response from the customer service, who decided to just leave the meeting location after waiting for some time (which is understandable) BUT without even trying to get in contact with us to ask our whereabouts or give us any alternative option (that is horrible!!) I appreciate that they waited and had to leave; however, what annoyed me was their lack of responsibility, their negligence and their ignorance of the basic fundamentals of running a tourism agency. On top of all the frustration they caused, they have even refused a refund (a total of $460), and not even offered a partial refund. Certainly, I don't recommend this agency; we bumped into another family who was also left behind in Christchurch. This family was also supposed to join "Leisure Tours" group for a different tour to ours. The whole experience was so disappointing! I will definitely stay away from and not recommend "Leisure Tours" in any of their destinations as customer care is core to any business, and they don't seem to know this principle.

This tour was a good experience except for two of the three wineries that we visited. Our tour guide was great, and the small group atmosphere was very comfortable. We enjoyed the drive from Lyttleton to Christchurch, through the hills with stops to take photos of the outstanding views. Unfortunately, two of the chosen wineries were less than enjoyable. At the first stop, we were ushered into a separate room where the winery owner poured a variety of wines without even telling us what we were sampling. We had to ask questions to pull information about his winery and the wines they offered. This was the strangest wine tasting experience we have ever had. The second winery, Waipara Hills was beautiful, and lunch there was great. Unfortunately, the person pouting the wines and talking about them, and the winery, was rude and condescending. I understand this is not the fault of the tour, but our suggestion would be to re-think the choice of wineries (or at least talk to the proprietors about those representing their brands). The third winery, Torlesse, was outstanding. It was not grandiose like the nearby Waipara Hills Winery, but the owner was very hospitable, and explained their wines with pride. They have an outstanding tawney port, and a very good white port (something we have never seen anywhere else in the world). This is the only winery at which we made a purchase, though we were prepared to do so at the other two until the poor experiences. Our rating was based on the winery choices -- everything else about the tour was great!

Our Tour guide Tania was the best! And thanks to Lizzie for keeping us updated and for her patience and positivity!