If you looooved The Hobbit & Lord of the Rings, you will love to see this, but be prepared for disappointments. The reality is that they book big groups (over 30 per ‘bus’) every 5 minutes. So once you eventually get to the ‘set’, despite your excitement, you come to realise you can’t take a photo without a crowd of tourists in the shots. The guides comments of ‘tale as many pictures as you want’ and ‘I’ll help you’ are ridiculous because your group is jammed between two others. The group is too big for the guide to be heard so inevitably people at the back get the incorrect information. Ours apologised to the people who got first photos taken at special spots, that they had to wait for everyone else! She didn’t apologise to all we who’d had to wait, then got forced forward by the next tour guide! We were told not to step off the path...I was right on the edge taking a picture of the ‘valley’ whilst waiting our turn, and another group guide pushed me...yes actually pushed! I was disgusted at how they treated all of us. I know these movies were amazing & there is the chance to make more money out of them afterwards, but if I’m going to the effort to travel to NZ and pay good money to see it, I don’t expect the treatment we got. The Shire’s Rest was a tin shed, the ‘souvenirs’ highly overpriced, and the drink you get at the set site was poured so long ago, it has lost all sign of being a carbonated fluid. This was going to be the biggest thing for me in NZ, but instead it was a big disappointment. I acknowledge the set itself is fabulous & being up kept well, but the methodology being used is disrespectful of fee paying customers. I’m glad I saw it though and whilst not wanting to put anyone off, I feel they need to know the reality of what the experience will be...one way, no one off the path, wall to wall people every second and no reasonable time to appreciate or photograph as promised.
