Hobbiton Movie Set Small Group Tour from Auckland

This tour is a must do if you are an avid Lord of the Rings/Hobbiton fan! Mani, our driver and guide, was informative and funny. He gave us lots of tidbits about Auckland, Maori culture, and the movie set during the drive, meandering through lush and green farmlands and countryside! The views were absolutely breathtaking. Seeing the shire in person was just magical and enchanting!

Great trip with a very informative tour guide! Hobbiton tour was amazing and very well timed between the remaining Auckland tour. 7/5!

Do not miss this experience, well organised from the moment you are picked up till the drop off by Michael who informed us not only about the making of the movie but the countryside that surrounds the set.

Great experience and fun trip through the countryside. I would have liked a bit more time in the green dragon, but otherwise I thought it was worth a day trip.

Martin was very good and helped a long journey pass quickly. Quite informative and talked on many topics.

It was an amazing visit and for me as a fan of the lord of the rings franchise it was a dream come true. The ride on the bus was very relaxing and also quite informative. Our driver told us lots of interesting facts about Auckland and the area of the Hobbiton movie set.

Was so excited about visiting Hobbiton and you didn’t let us down! Had the best day with Lance our driver who’s story telling was brilliant. Would highly recommend your company.

Lane was our driver and he did an excellent job of providing information about New Zealand and told many great stories. We had a separate tour guide at Hobbiton who also did an excellent job. There were only seven people in our van which was spanking new and very nice. The only thing that was missing were hobbits. :-)

Firstly, I want to say that our tour guide was awesome, 5-star all the way. So anything negative in this review had nothing to do with him whatsoever. He was friendly, incredible knowledgeable, and kept us entertained during the entire trip. He provided us water and snacks, and explained the entry and exit process from hobbiton, so there were no surprises. He even came inside hobbiton to pick us up directly after our drink at the green dragon. The 3 problems we encountered on this trip were entirely the fault of the company that runs this tour, Cheeky Kiwi Travel. First problem was we had signed up for a 6am pick-up time, and we scheduled our entire day around this time and expected time we'd be finished. Turns out that the tour actually started at 10am, and no one told us this. Fortunately, I had decided to email them to confirm the tour a few days beforehand and found out that the tour started at 10am rather than 6am! Cheeky travel blamed Viator for keeping a tour that no longer existed on their website. Viator blamed Cheeky for not keeping their listing updated as required by all the tours that use Viator. The second problem we ran into was that Cheeky Kiwi Travel allowed a 3 year old child to accompany two parents on this tour, which cost us a good hour of delays for everyone on the tour van (much to everyone's extreme annoyance). On the way to the tour, the child supposedly had to pee and couldn't wait for an appropriate location, so we had to pull over at the side of the road in a rural area, and then he wouldn't go. Before leaving Hobbiton, the father asked the mother if it might be a good idea to have the child use the restroom before embarking on the 2.5 hour trip back. She said no, that the child would let her know when he had to go. Of course, this occurred about 45 minutes later, and we all had to pull over, while we waited literally 30 minutes for who knows what was going on in that bathroom. 2 other van riders risked their lives crossing a 4-lane highway to get to a burger king several hundred yards away to use their restroom in the interim. I have kids and understand the realities of traveling with them, but a small crowded 5 hour (or in our case, 6 hour) roundtrip tour is no place for a 3 year old. Cheeky Kiwi should place an age limit of no one under 14 years old on this tour, because there will always be parents who don't use common sense and will bring kids way too young for trips like this otherwise. The final issue we had with this tour was the van was just too small for this length of trip. We were the first to be picked up on this tour (so we spent the longest time aboard), so we picked front seats behind the driver. Those seats had adequate knee space. But on the way back, a young couple, both shorter than me, snuck into those seats, leaving us in the way back, where my knees were smashed against the seats ahead of me. I'm 51 years old and 6 foot 1 inch. There's no way a taller person would have fit at all. Another man about my height on the tour wouldn't have made it due to 2 knee replacement surgeries, so we left open the edge seat where he could spread out. Bottom line is that they need a bigger vehicle for this tour. Again, this would be a 5-star review if it were only about our guide. But this review is about the entire experience, and Cheeky Kiwi Travel dropped the ball on several fronts. We wouldn't use them again unless they made the changes listed here.

The visit is very normal not much to see maybe I should say the prices are not cheap. The weather in January is very hot.