shandy

My husband and daugther are arriving in Christchurch at 3.15pm and need to be in Queenstown that night. They do not particularly want to hire a car as they are then immediately doing the Milford Track walk and of course do not want to pay rental on the car for several unused days. Is bus the best way to do this and should it be prebooked at all. After the walk is over they will be hiring a car.

Thanks for any help.

shandy

I meant to say that I have tried searching for this information but I keep coming up only with one day scenic bus tours. How do the locals do it? Thanks.

yasron

I think it is a bit of a tight schedule to get to Queenstown the same day by road- see if they find a flight. Good luck

shandy

Actually, now that I have gone over the bookings with my husand properly I realise that they don't have to be in Queenstown the same night which is good. They have one day up their sleeve which means of course they can stay in Christchurch the first night and have the full day to get to Queenstown the following day.

I did eventually come up with a website for intercity coachlines which has day buses to Queenstown. It shows both Intercity and Newman's buses doing the trip. The Intercity bus leaves at 7.45am and arrives at 3.14pm. One of the Newman's buses leaves at 7.15am and arrives at 6.00pm and costs almost double the Intercity bus. I assume from the price and time that the Newman's bus is more in the nature of a tour bus rather than public transport. Would anyone recommend taking one bus over the other. Would the Newman's bus actually offer a more enjoyable experience and let them play tourist for the day or will the Intercity bus be basically covering exactly the same route, just faster and cheaper?

To add to the mix they will eventually be driving themselves back from Queenstown to Christchurch so will have a bit of time to explore so does this defeat the purpose of using the Newman's bus. They will possibly even break the trip with a night somewhere along the way - any suggestions or would you advocate driving straight through?

Once again thanks for any help.

Melnq8

My first thought was that of yasron's, that they should just fly to QT. If they plan to drive back from QT to CH they might want to fly anyway.

IMO renting a car is the way to go - picking up in CH and returning in QT prior to their walk. One way rentals in NZ are not a problem. One day rentals however, might be expensive, but perhaps less expensive than a bus tour for two (?)

If nothing else, they'd be entirely flexible and not tied to a bus schedule. They could take a diferent route on the return to CH, thus seeing more of the country.

Melnq8

Forgot to mention that Newman's is a deluxe sightseeing tour, whereas Intercity is basic transportation. I've not done either.