Australian Wine Tours

"We had a great time in Australia..."

"The trip was very nice. Zicasso’s travel agency was a pleasure to work with."

Our trip included three couples from Massachusetts. We worked with Zicasso's travel agency to customize a trip to Australia. In general, the trip was excellent. Most of the travel logistics were perfect. All transfers were on time. All of the guides were on time, passionate about Australia, and were very good to excellent. All the hotels were also very good to excellent. The travel app was very helpful for keeping us updated on trip logistics. Most logistics worked out well. Most of the tours arranged were excellent. The fly nets the agency provided were a godsend in Uluru. Seeing Australia's unique wildlife, snorkeling in the Great Barrier Reef, going to a footy game, walking around cities, meeting indigenous guides, and simply being in Australia is an experience we will never forget. The Great Ocean Road excursion in Melbourne was beautiful, but eight hours in a tour bus was very long. The geographic size of Australia is something visitors have to deal with.

I would have rated the trip five stars except for the following minor issues. We arranged travel between the US and Australia ourselves (not using the agency), which, in hindsight, was a mistake. Therefore, most of the travel headaches we experienced are not included in this review. The one miss they should have caught was informing us that a New Zealand ETA is needed for transiting through Auckland, New Zealand (even though we did not clear New Zealand customs). We were able to apply and get the ETA at the Houston airport just before boarding the plane, but the stress could easily have been avoided had we realized we needed this document before the trip began.

The instructions for where to meet for the backstage tour of the Sydney Opera House were a little off. We were told to meet the tour at 6.45am, downstairs by the information booth. This turned out to be the meeting place for the outside tour. By 6.55am, fighting jetlag and the early hour, we figured the meeting place for the backstage tour was upstairs and, luckily, we made it in time for our 7am tour, which was excellent.

The selection of wineries we visited in Adelaide wasn't ideal. Several did not ship their products to the US, which meant, for practical reasons, we could only purchase a bottle or two. Ideally, we should only visit wineries that ship wine to the States.

Communicating with the agency during the trip was more challenging than we expected. For some reason, we didn't always get their emails or text messages. It wasn't clear how often they checked up on us during our journey. Last year, we arranged a similar trip to Greece and the company we worked with provided us with a mobile phone for the duration of the trip to facilitate communications. They regularly called us to see how the trip was going. In our opinion, this capability and handholding would improve the service this agency provides.

"The trip planner was continuously available to provide superior advice..."

"We couldn't have asked for better service!"

"Excellent; had top-notched accommodations, service, drivers,tours..."