Amazing Kangaroo Safari for Couples

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.

Our trip included three couples from Massachusetts. We worked with Zicasso's travel agency to customize a trip to Australia. In general, the trip was excellent. Most of the travel logistics were perfect. All transfers were on time. All of the guides were on time, passionate about Australia, and were very good to excellent. All the hotels were also very good to excellent. The travel app was very helpful for keeping us updated on trip logistics. Most logistics worked out well. Most of the tours arranged were excellent. The fly nets the agency provided were a godsend in Uluru. Seeing Australia's unique wildlife, snorkeling in the Great Barrier Reef, going to a footy game, walking around cities, meeting indigenous guides, and simply being in Australia is an experience we will never forget. The Great Ocean Road excursion in Melbourne was beautiful, but eight hours in a tour bus was very long. The geographic size of Australia is something visitors have to deal with.

I would have rated the trip five stars except for the following minor issues. We arranged travel between the US and Australia ourselves (not using the agency), which, in hindsight, was a mistake. Therefore, most of the travel headaches we experienced are not included in this review. The one miss they should have caught was informing us that a New Zealand ETA is needed for transiting through Auckland, New Zealand (even though we did not clear New Zealand customs). We were able to apply and get the ETA at the Houston airport just before boarding the plane, but the stress could easily have been avoided had we realized we needed this document before the trip began.

The instructions for where to meet for the backstage tour of the Sydney Opera House were a little off. We were told to meet the tour at 6.45am, downstairs by the information booth. This turned out to be the meeting place for the outside tour. By 6.55am, fighting jetlag and the early hour, we figured the meeting place for the backstage tour was upstairs and, luckily, we made it in time for our 7am tour, which was excellent.

The selection of wineries we visited in Adelaide wasn't ideal. Several did not ship their products to the US, which meant, for practical reasons, we could only purchase a bottle or two. Ideally, we should only visit wineries that ship wine to the States.

Communicating with the agency during the trip was more challenging than we expected. For some reason, we didn't always get their emails or text messages. It wasn't clear how often they checked up on us during our journey. Last year, we arranged a similar trip to Greece and the company we worked with provided us with a mobile phone for the duration of the trip to facilitate communications. They regularly called us to see how the trip was going. In our opinion, this capability and handholding would improve the service this agency provides.

After a cancelled flight by Qantas and a two-day delay, we made it to Australia. Overall, the vacation was very nice. Our only real complaint was our hotel in Darwin. The hotel had seen better days, and the temperature in the hotel was very cold. After Darwin, the hotels and B&B were very nice. I highly recommend the Ghan Expedition train ride from Darwin to Adelaide.

Zicasso's tour planner did a superb job for us. She collaborated with us on working out our itinerary and had useful information on how to combine our desired destinations efficiently.

While we were in Australia, she was available via the company's app, including helping us on a late evening when our flight from Sydney to Hobart was canceled because of a cyclone and we needed a short-notice hotel in Sydney.

This was our first trip to Australia. Zicasso’s travel agent took time to get to know our family and how we like to travel. She gathered our interests and preferences, and carefully curated an itinerary that showcased Sydney, Melbourne, and Cairns/Port Douglas, all within our budget.

This travel agent was very responsive before and during our trip, and monitored our activities to make sure we were happy. In fact, during our stay, one of our excursions (kayaking in Cairns) was canceled due to weather and she was right on top of it. She was able to book us immediately on another expedition (whale watching) of our choice. We appreciated her responsiveness.

Overall, our entire family was extremely happy with our travel agent's arrangements and had a memorable trip to Australia.

Zicasso’s travel specialist is marvelous. From our introductory FaceTime chat, I knew he was the right person to plan our Australian adventure. I shared a general timeline and a few preferences—personalized travel, small-group tours, and a focus on scenery, food, and local experiences. I even casually mentioned that, since I pack light, laundry options every 7 to 10 days would be a bonus.

Wow—did the travel specialist deliver.

Private city tours in Sydney, Adelaide, and Melbourne. A Blue Mountains excursion with a local resident. Wine tastings, a foodie walking tour in Melbourne, and fabulous centrally located hotels that made exploring on foot effortless. The Ghan train journey was an unforgettable highlight.

And yes—lodgings with on-site laundry right on cue around day 10 and day 20. Not bad for a “casual” request!

This trip was truly amazing and the travel specialist was an absolute pleasure to work with. Always responsive, thoughtful, and attentive, he made what could have been complex planning feel completely effortless—and perfectly tailored to my travel style.

Rave reviews all around.