Tranzalpine or Taori gorge

A lot of discussions on this in past threads but most are already outdated. I've been thinking about this for months already but as of now I've been leaning towards the Tranzalpine.

Normally, I would take the Taieri booking directly with no second thoughts due to the huge cost savings... but sadly, 2 ships will be at port Chalmers during our Dunedin stop so Taieri just emailed me that there will be no public trains that day as both trains got chartered..

So both train options, I have no choice but to book via the overpriced ships tour. Factoring out the cost advantage of booking direct with Taieri.

The chartered Taieri trains seems to be attractive to me coz of the unlimited drinks and booze throughout the journey, but the main obstacle is there are so many great highly rated independent tour options in Dunedin that combines both city and wildlife which means taking the Taieri will mean missing a lot in Dunedin and Otago area.

ChristChurch, on the other hand, is also a wonderful place but it is still highly damaged from the earthquake, taking away many tour options that up to now, I still haven't found any tour of my liking among the options aside from the TranzAlpine.

I've already been to both ChristChurch and Dunedin before.

Taking both Tranzalpine and Taieri via the ship's tour is very expensive.

For those who have taken both trains, and given you are in the same situation as mine, will you choose Tranzalpine as well? Since I haven't tried both, some of you might have better inputs than me on which one to take.

We are currently in NZ (South Island) doing a 2 week driving trip after our cruise. We took both of those trains within the past 2 weeks so I guess we are up to date. Hard to compare since they are different. The Taori Gorge is a private company that runs a relatively short round trip journey for the cruises that makes for a good port day. The views are nice. But the Tranzalpine is part of the NZ Railroad and is a real public train. The complete journey to Greymouth takes 4 1/2 hours (one way) and we used it to get from Christchurch to Greymouth on our land trip. Doing it as a round trip is ridiculous since it would take 10 hours. It is possible to get off at an intervening station and later catch the return train, but it is still a 10 hour day not suitable for most port days.

By the way, they sell lower price Tranzalpine tickets to those who purchase them in NZ or Australia. In order to get those prices outside of the 2 countries one must use a browser scheme (such as Tor) which can fool the ticket computer to thinking you are located in either NZ or Australia.

The views of the Tranzalpine are quite spectacular as the train moves through the southern Alps. Although we think these views are far superior to the Taori Gorge, the Transalpine is just not very practical for most cruisers.

We should also mention that for the past week there have been rock/mud slides that have actually stopped the Tranzalpine from getting to Greymouth. They have off loaded passengers at a previous stop and bused them to Greymouth. Our particular train this past Friday was the first to get through in several days.

Hank

The Trieri Gorge excursion ex Shipside is sensational and one of the Worlds great railway journey . Worth every cent a great day . The return trip allows some time at Dunedin station . In my opinion better than Tranz Alpine, as the Tranz Alpine is one way by coach and one way by train and it is not the full route of the normal scheduled train . The normal train runs Christchurch to Greymouth, whereas the cruise ship trip is train Arthurs Pass to Lyttleton (the port of Christchurch or Chrstchurch for Akaroa Port one way ). On a cruise ship one can only do Tranz Alpine by ships Charter train as the normal train times depart before ships arrival and arrive back at Christchurch after ships departure .

Thanks for the responses... the price of the TranzAlpine is also too steep for the cruise ship charters at US $360, but it includes 2 meals, one in the train and one in a sheep farm. The entire trip is also 9 hours (long day!!) so it is a long day. It's one way train and one way bus, both scenic with a stop over at a sheep farm.

The Taieri gorge is also expensive when booked via cruise ship at $200, which on certain days when 2 ships are at port we cruisers have no choice but to take the cruise ship charters.. the train is round trip but the entire duration is 4 hours which is the same as the Tranz Alpine one way for 4 hours also. As said the added bonus is Taieri gorge has unlimited water/soda/juices/wine/beer/champagne for the entire duration of the trip.

The only thing going for Taieri gorge is it has a lot of competition as there are several independent tour providers offering great whole day tours of Dunedin and Otago with meals...

Compared to ChristChruch since it is heavily damaged by the quake, I can't find any interesting tours there compared to Dunedin that make me think of getting into the TranzAlpine since I have already been to ChristChurch way back before the quake where it was still very beautiful and undamaged.

Agree about Christchurch. We were there before the quake and thought it was a beautiful city with lots of charm. Went back there last Thursday and was totally shocked and saddened by the extent of the center city damage. There are now lots of positive signs of new construction, but the city is several years away from becoming even a shadow of its former self. Many of our old favorite parts of the city are now empty lots, and there are still numerous condemned buildings that have yet to be demolished.

Hank

Agree about Christchurch. We were there before the quake and thought it was a beautiful city with lots of charm. Went back there last Thursday and was totally shocked and saddened by the extent of the center city damage. There are now lots of positive signs of new construction, but the city is several years away from becoming even a shadow of its former self. Many of our old favorite parts of the city are now empty lots, and there are still numerous condemned buildings that have yet to be demolished.

 

Hank

That's is the reason why I chose TranzAlpine over Taieri as I would like to spend more time in Dunedin than ChristChurch.

Since the TranzAlpine station is in ChristChurch, I will still able to see the extent of the damage but just won't stay there for too long.