Wellington Lord of the Rings City Tour with Small Group

We were generally disappointed with this tour. We were a group of 7. The movie shooting sites were really just one site with 4 different scenes, very disappointing. The WETA workshop was good and information and we did enjoy this portion of the tour. If this is the only tour you have time for while you are in Wellington, I would choose a different tour.

What an amazing time we had at WETA. Wish we could have spent more time there looking at all the objects. The tour guide at WETA was very informativeand knowledgeable. Our guide around Wellington had lots of insight into the different areas with LOTR lore and to the LOTR film shooting sites was great.

Our tour guide met us at the port terminal. We went to Mt. Victoria for spectacular views of Wellington. The short trek through the magnificent woods where several scenes from the Lord of the Rings was a nice break from the ship. Our guide held up photos from the movie and then showed us where the various scenes were shot and told us what happened during the shooting of those scenes. The tour of Weta Studio was an eye opener...the attention to details and the innovative work that is happening there is amazing. The only negative comment I have is we did not see anything like the scene used in the advertisement for this tour. We had a very short day in port and we were returned to the ship in plenty of time before departing.

I started the half-day tour and ended up upgrading to the full day tour. The Weta Workshop tour was fantastic.Some locations are immediately recognisable, others required careful comparison with screenshots to verify that yes, those two trees over there are the same two trees you can see in that particular shot. The guide was friendly and informative and did very well with what must be a tough gig - if you've watched all the DVD appendices, there can't be many amusing on-set annecdotes left that you won't already be familiar with. You won't be magically transported to Middle Earth (which should be obvious), but you will get an appreciation for the reality of how the films were made.

We thoroughly enjoyed our wellington lord of the rings tour. Our guide was very knowledgeable and really enjoyed the weta tour as well. The view from mount Victoria was amazing and luckily we had a very still morning so we had a great view! Really enjoyed the walk through the forest seeing where various scenes were taken too!

The tour covered everything that was outlined on the Rover Tours website. We went as a family of 8 ranging from 10 yrs to 80 yrs. Grant was enthusiastic & very knowledgeable. He made extra time for the children (& adults) to get photos with the large figurines.My rating of 4 was only because we thought we would see some characters in costume or perhaps‘elf ears’ on our guide. Also the movie inside was perhaps a little long particularly for the 10 yr old and 80 yr old. Also Weta Cave is more of a props centre than a workshop. Very interesting tour though.

My sister insisted we add this to our list. It was wonderful. Again the tour guide new ever thing and really gave you behind the scenes details. There is a lot of walking on the movie locations scenes in the Victoria Forest but his details makes it worth it. The tour of Weke Studios was very informative of how things are made for the movies and the displays from the various films were great to see up close.

This was a great tour and even if you aren't a Lord of the Rings fan, it is still very interesting. The Weta Workshop was definitely the highlight along with the drive through the city of Wellington and also the spectacular views of Wellington from Mount Victoria.

This was an excellent Tour which we thoroughly enjoyed. We were picked up from the wharf as directed which told me that we were not dealing with amateurs and the commentary given was clear, very Informative and professional. The drive up to Mount Victoria was scenic and to me eye opening when told about the private rail cars of the houses on the steep slopes. Did make sense !!! Sufficient time was given us all at the summit to take photographs and the walk to the film locations sites was not too strenuous . It was good that Grant had 'photos' of the actual shootings scenes which helped us visualise the actual filming. The scenery there was spell binding. The added behind the scenes snippets about what took place too was fantastic. Now we will need to see the Movies all over again and look out for those scenes !! At the Weta studios ..... well what more can be said !!!!. It was very informative and well done explaining the 'history' behind it all. The screening of the 'movie' was great. Seeing the props close up and holding them too .... wow. Having earlier on our trip visiting Hobbiton we could appreciate the whole series so much more. Congratulations and a huge THANK YOU, and you can bet we will strongly recommend you to all our friends and relatives who are visiting Wellington. To top it all off, we were then dropped off in the City and shown where was what etc. and urged to visit the Te Papa Museum which was exhibiting the War at Gallipoli. There we could see the figurines that were produced at the Weta Studios and all I can add is that they took our breath away. Absolutely realistic. To all those Fans of 'The Lord of the Rings', who are just thinking and undecided about booking on this Tour, I encourage you all to just go ahead and BOOK IT and you will not regret it. It made our trip to NZ worthwhile. Once again, THANK YOU. Patrick

Nice tour. The tortured forest, where they filmed some of the movies, were great. Ray did a great job. Nice day