This was a short educational trip to highlight the activities and facilities available in Queenstown, together with the services provided by Ski Express and their partners in New Zealand.

On the final day Queenstown Airport was closed due to bad weather conditions and we spent an extra night in Queenstown and stayed a night in Auckland rather than Christchurch as scheduled.

/Christchurch/Auckland/Melbourne. The new stretch 737 from Melbourne to Christchurch was an excellent new aircraft with video screens for every three rows of seats. Meals were excellent, however the legroom was fairly average. The domestic flights were quite good, however the meal was the same for every flight. We found that you can’t order a vegetarian meal unless you give 24 hours notice.

Sit on the right from Christchurch to Queenstown for the best views of the Southern Alps.

Air New Zealand were excellent when Queenstown Airport was snowed in, they re-arranged our flights efficiently and somehow controlled what could have been a crazy situation with an airport full of passengers with nowhere to go.

Newmans, using comfortable and modern coaches with experienced and professional drivers with a good local knowledge provided the coach transfers throughout.

Other hotels:-

Good family accommodation with great views, swimming pool, good buffet breakfast and some 1 and 2 bedroom apartments. Good value, felt a bit like a ski lodge but looked like a motel and was a good 20 minutes walk out of town.

Similar standard to Copthorne however a few years older but right in town and on the lake.

The Parkroyal is quite a large hotel with 200 rooms and has unusual 1980’s architecture.

Would be a great place to stay as you really feel that you are where it is happening.

The Heritage is the place to stay. An outstanding world class resort that is built out of the local stone and cedar. All rooms are beautifully decorated using natural colours and furnishings and designed using the highest quality materials. All rooms have a stereo with CD player. The resort has an indoor/outdoor pool, gymnasium, sauna and spa. The atmosphere feels like a cross between a hunting lodge and a country club. Well worth the 15 minutes walk to town. In fact after a day skiing, you wouldn’t want to leave this place.

The main purpose of this trip was to have a ski. It was fairly obvious upon arrival at Queenstown that if you were not skiing with Ski Express then you were disadvantaged. There seemed to be Ski Express representatives everywhere. As a Ski Express Client you are given a Ski Express Bonus Card that gives you discounts everywhere and also acts as your bus ticket and lift ticket. It is gold, hangs on a bit of string you just hang it around your neck and you feel like a VIP at the Grand Prix. A Ski Express shuttle runs regularly up to the two nearest resorts Coronet Peak 17km and The Remarkables 28km. We took the 9am shuttle and had a full day at Coronet Peak in perfect weather conditions. It hadn’t snowed for a couple of weeks so the surface of the snow was a bit cruddy but we were on a base of over 1 metre so although the quality of snow was average the coverage was fantastic. All Ski Express clients get 2 hours free ski guiding every day which means you get a great familiarisation of the slopes, get to ski off piste and get priority in the lift queues (non existent anyway). There was a good variety of long and interesting runs especially for advanced and intermediates but not a large beginner’s area. We all had lessons, which ranged from beginner snowboarders to advanced skiers. I was in a lesson with four other advanced skiers and the two-hour session was both challenging and rewarding. I paid $15.00 extra for performance skis and tried the new shaped skis that are all the rage, they only made a difference after the instructor corrected my technique. Coronet Peak has night skiing on weekends but it was too much for us after a full day on the slopes. However it would be a great option to do after a day of activities or after a big night and a sleep in.

Queenstown is the adventure capital of the world and there are enough activities to keep you going for weeks. However we only had time for a few of them on our second afternoon.

Shotover Jet is a thrilling ride where you go flat out through the Shotover River gorges in a speedboat that passes through the canyons with only inches to spare. A great thrill with great scenery and leaves you in admiration of the drivers.

Skyline Gondola is a cable car that goes to the top of the peak overlooking Queenstown, great views and got a bit hairy on the way back when the weather turned foul. We also had a few goes on The Skyline Luge which involves driving a cart with handlebars and brakes down a concrete path that drops for a few hundred yards below the top of the Gondola and has incredible views out over the lake. This can be as gentle or fast, as you like. After a couple of slow runs we got brave and really started to gun it down the mountain, which was great fun, especially as it was pelting down with rain at the time and the carts slid around the corners. Helmets are supplied and as hard as we tried we couldn’t tip the carts over.

Shopping was excellent and concentrated over two blocks around the mall. As our dollar was 20% stronger we found most items of excellent value. The biggest hit was the "Pumpkin Patch" shop, which sells NZ made high quality children’s clothing at very reasonable prices. In Australia you can generally only get these clothes through mail order or at their 2 Australian outlets in Knox (Melbourne) and Chatswood (Sydney).

Queenstown has a huge range of restaurants and bars. During our two days we visited a quite a few. Here are the ones that I remember. Hogs Breath Cafe – a touristy theme bar with good basic meals. Lone Star Cafe – open fire, pool table, dark and intimate with a Santa Fe theme. Pog Mahones Irish Pub – great atmosphere, live band but not the place to be when the All Blacks have just beaten the Wallabies. McNeills Cottage Brewery – the locals’ hangout, small intimate, packed to the rafters with a band that’s played there every night forever. Has a good range of beers and potent Cider. Chico’s – went off two nights in a row, THE place in town with a great three-piece house band that played everything from Bruce Springsteen to Smashmouth. You could have dinner there and not leave until sun-up. Ask for your pink Margaritas in schooner glasses and watch the Japanese tourists to pick up some dancing tips! (You had to be there!)

Queenstown is a brilliant destination that really needs 7-10 days for the visitor to make the best of the place whether it is summer or winter. I would recommend Ski Express every time as the most efficient and connected tour operator in the region.