Great Barrier Reef Tours and Vacations

We were pretty late in arranging this trip and Zicasso and our travel company did an exceptional job! We feel like we saw the best of Australia in our two-week trip. The private guides for our tours (Sydney, Blue Mountains, Daintree, Cape Tribulation, Zootastic) were wonderful, informative, engaging, and responsive to our requests and our nine-year-old's endless questions! We felt cared for and even a little spoiled. This certainly exceeded our expectations and was one of the best vacations ever!

Zicasso’s travel specialist was great to work with. She anticipated our needs and was quick to respond with information and to answer questions. She set up a great trip for us and we thoroughly enjoyed our visit to Australia. We had a couple of issues with the tours that were set up for us and they were quickly resolved, with great results.

On our visit to Kangaroo Island, the small-group tour subcontractor mishandled our connection on the island; their recovery was to send a personal guide to spend the day with us and also provide us with dinner! It ended up being one of our best tours. Many of our small groups were just my wife and myself, sometimes with one or two others.

We also had a very rainy and windy day the day we were supposed to go out to the Great Barrier Reef. It was a weekend and the travel specialist was on vacation. That said, the on-call person was amazing in rearranging one of our other small-group tours for that day and we were still able to go to the reef two days later.

All in all, I would highly recommend the travel specialist and her company. They were great up front and great during the trip.

I really thought the Zicasso travel partner was fabulous and so thorough and easy to use. I would rate it the best travel app. It had my itinerary down to the minute detail, info on how to contact various people if there were any questions, and was so easy to navigate.  I would rate my trip to Australia my favorite so far. I recently went to Japan through a different travel agent and was able to compare the difference. Our travel team was so much better! 

My husband and I went to Australia to drop off my daughter, who was doing an exchange study in Sydney. We started in Melbourne and had a full-day tour to Phillip Island, with a moonlit animal sanctuary and penguins. I would recommend the penguins. I saw thousands of penguins. What an experience! I did not like the sanctuary part. Tickets were sold out for the koala petting and there were not very many animals to see. I have heard there are other sanctuaries/zoos in other parts of Australia that are much better.  

The Melbourne food tour was fantastic! Our tour guide did a wonderful job of explaining Melbourne's history with the food. We flew to Cairns, to Port Douglas, and had two excursions: a boat ride with snorkeling in the Great Reef Barrier and a Daintree safari.  The full-day cruise with snorkeling was wonderful, with so much food! The Daintree tour was a bit long and could have been condensed into half the time. I probably would not recommend that tour. 

Finally, we went to Sydney to drop off my daughter. We did the bridge walk, which was fantastic. Each person was so well protected and the safety checks were top-notch! 

Our trip went without any problems and our drivers were well-coordinated and on schedule. I would use this company for future trips to Australia. I plan to visit New Zealand and would use them again.

What an absolute trip of a lifetime! Still can't believe I got to swim along the Great Barrier Reef and also see Milford Sound only weeks apart. Although I tried to pack a lot in, transfers were seamless, hotels were next level, and my wife and I were able to relax through the trip (which included two massages). Plus, all of our private tour guides were genuinely fun to hang out with.

Planning the trip with Zicasso's travel specialist was easy. He provided a lot of options and allowed us to tweak things to our hearts' delight. He also catered to our love for good food, spas, and wine to set up some memorable excursions.

Our travel company also uses an app that kept our itinerary, tickets, and phone numbers in one place with no worries. We literally just had to wake up, show up in the lobby of our hotel, and the rest of the day was taken care of.

Can't say enough great things! Australia and New Zealand may be a world away from the US, but they have the warmest and kindest people in the world, with some of the most spectacular landscapes to enjoy!

Working with our travel specialist to plan our trip was a pleasure; she shared additional recommendations throughout the process to ensure we finalized an exceptional itinerary that exceeded our wish list. The trip ran flawlessly, even though we visited multiple cities and locations.

Honestly hard to narrow down our favorite location, as each city or activity offered something different. Sydney is certainly very special, as was our Ghan train experience. But if we were to identify one highlight, it was our stay in Freycinet, Tasmania. The resort is spectacular, our villa spacious with incredible views across the bay and the staff amazing; nothing is too much trouble. The food at the resort is exceptional, each course with choices of Tasmanian wine.

We enjoyed all our experiences and activities throughout our trip, although strong winds when we took our helicopter flight out to a cay on the Great Barrier Reef meant we were unable to snorkel.

In summary, very impressed with Australia. Everything is clean, no graffiti (in any city we visited!) and everyone was so helpful and friendly. If we had one aspect we'd change, it would be to have added an additional day in Melbourne; it's a beautiful city with much to explore. Can't speak more highly of the team or our incredible trip.

Our family of five had an amazing two-week trip to Australia. We visited Sydney, Cairns, Uluru, and Melbourne, experiencing a great diversity of sights and activities. Zicasso's travel partner was great, working with us to create a custom itinerary. Our travel specialist was a great travel planner and the support was available throughout the trip whenever we needed it. Thank you for a wonderful experience!