The day was incredible. Both K and Mehmet were amazing hosts. Loved all the commentary and suggestions. They did an awesome job managing all 48 people on the tour. The Bathing boxes were neat and Moonlit Sanctuary was fun. Phillips Island was incredible!

Puffing Billy is really fun, staffs are kind and helpful. Lorraine was great. I had a really good time. .......................

Dirk our driver and tour guide was fabulous, good knowledge of the area and with a great sense of humour. All in all a great trip and highly recommend.

Great tour guide, actually loraine was also our guide at sydney. She is an asset to your company. She discuss in details for specific stop .

Top day with guide/driver Marty. Everything was exactly as advertised, we covered a lot of ground but did not feel rushed. The bus was clean and comfortable. Phillip Island has an incredible amount of wildlife and Marty drove around slowly pointing out various burrows with baby penguins, a wallaby with a Joey in her pouch, and he was really awesome explaining how much time we had at each stop, where to meet and the time. He even took us on an unscheduled drive-by of The Block. This tour was fantastic and exceeded all of our expectations. His dinner recommendations were also top notch. Not a cheap day, but excellent value.

"WOW, what an unforgettable day in Melbourne, Australia! I was blown away by Marty's exceptional guiding skills and his genuine passion for sharing his knowledge with us. As a solo traveler, I felt so welcomed and included when Marty invited me to sit up front with him - it totally made my experience even more special! The train ride and wildlife sanctuary were absolutely breathtaking, and Marty's expert commentary brought everything to life. What really stood out, though, was Marty's kindness and thoughtfulness. He even took the time to take amazing photos of us during the trip, which was such a lovely touch! I'm so grateful to Marty and Wine and Hope Tours for creating an unforgettable adventure in Melbourne. If you're looking for a truly worthwhile experience, look no further! Marty, thank you again for an incredible day - I'll always treasure the memories"

The actual experiences of the train and penguins were good but the logistics of the tour were not. We booked in Dec for a Jan tour. It was advertised as starting at 10.15am, returning approx 10-11pm. The itinerary said would be a chance to have dinner at the restaurant before the penguin parade. So we planned our trip on that basis. You could also cancel up to 10am the day before the trip. Just after the cancellation period expired we got a text message saying tour now leaves at 1.45pm as the penguins are coming in later. As they come in after sunset, surely this info had been known for a while? Why communicated so late? The text did not specify a return time, which was important for anyone needing public transport to get back to accommodation. When we got to each attraction we had to wait for the tour guide to queue up for tickets than hand them out to each of the 54 bus passengers. These had been prepaid but there was no system to hand them out in the bus. We were squeezed onto the last train for the day (4.15) with an over-officious conductor who insisted on one ticket per person (inc small children) rather than let a family through. Everyone on the tour buses had pre purchased tickets so it was clear those passengers had the right tickets, but he was really rude, and not understanding of the fact that most passengers did not speak English as their first language. He deliberately made everyone wait which made the train late. After that everything was rushed, with only 10 mins to queue for the toilet or check out the train station before a 1hr 40 bus ride to Philip Island. There were a couple of stops to take photos. With hindsight, that made us one of the last buses to arrive before the road was closed. We arrived in the car park after 8pm and into the visitor centre at 8.25. There was a huge queue at the food counter (it’s not a restaurant) and a sign saying food would take at least 30 mins. That’s once you get to order. So we’d be lucky to get food by 9.10 and therefore miss the penguins coming in at 9. We made our way hungry down to the viewing platform. No one was taking any notice of the instructions to sit and be quiet or the photo ban after dark. That needs to be communicated much better in various languages. We watched the penguins about half an hour then started the walk back to the car park as the bus would leave at 10. Back to the city at midnight, with very few options to eat. Thankfully we could still catch a tram. There was no need to delay the trip by 3.5 hours. We could have been on an earlier train then had a much more leisurely time at Philip Island and taken in the information displays, eaten and shopped, it should not have been a big rush. We also may have chosen not to go if the change in times had been communicated earlier as it had a knock on effect on plans the next day. Disappointing as I was excited about the whole penguin experience.

Great tour with our guide Warren. Really funny guy, with a lot of information about Melbourne and things around. Best guide so far in Australia. Even funnier than Mick Dundee 🐊

Easy booking and prompt information provided. The whole tour arrangements are great! Dirk is amazing and experienced! We all enjoyed!

We mainly booked this tour because of the Puffing Billy, but we ended up being so glad it included the sanctuary and ice cream/chocolate shop too! Overall, a well-organized day with three very different stops—all enjoyable. The meeting point was easy to find in the center of Melbourne. The boarding process was a bit disorganized but this was mostly due to the rudeness of the other guests - everyone was in a line based on what time we had arrived at the meeting point, and some guests who arrived late walked up to the front of the line and gave the driver their names and got on the bus, disregarding everyone patiently waiting. This actually happened not once but several times! The driver could have asked them politely to go to the end of the line. Instead he just allowed the late guests to go first, resulting in some parties traveling together not being able to sit next to each other, even though they'd arrived early. All this was forgotten once we got to the Puffing Billy. The train is a great experience - fun for kids (and adults) to sit with their legs hanging off the side. We all took lots of pictures and videos. People were mostly very nice about stepping back to let others film for a little while since not everyone could sit by the windows. The train is very punctual, and our driver got us there with plenty of time for a bathroom stop beforehand - much appreciated! Very nice visitor center at the end of the journey - good food and strong air conditioning - nice spot for lunch. We were pleasantly surprised by our time at Healesville Sanctuary - what a wonderful experience! We were at the end of our trip and had already visited several animal sanctuaries, so we weren't expecting much - we kind of felt like we had already seen all the animals we wanted to. But this was the nicest sanctuary of all the ones we visited! The animals were in large spaces, similar to a natural environment, and with plenty of shady spots for resting on a hot day. They seemed very content compared to other animal sanctuaries we'd been at. There were a variety of educational programs happening, about one every 30 minutes - we simply followed the schedule and walked around to the next one, and learned about almost all of the animals that way. The staff were so helpful and alerted us to different opportunities to see the animals at feeding time when they would be more active, etc. It was a hot day and the Yarra Valley Chocolaterie was super crowded when we walked in, so we didn't expect that we'd be able to get ice cream in time to get back on the bus—but despite being very long, the line moved quickly! My husband had time to pick out some gifts while I waited in the ice cream line. Nice bathrooms here too.

Delightful driver full of enthusiasm. Train ride fun and stop at Emerald lake great for lunch. Healesville sanctuary amazing . Choc shop great ice cream. Just as a suggestion a portable extra step would be great for either young children or a not so agile adult for ease of getting on and off bus.

It's was fantastic day recommend this to do especially if you have bus drive Warren he really look after you. They take time look after you make feel good

I booked two tickets to the puffing billy months ago and have requested leave from work for the said date. I used my card to book the tour and last December that card was blocked by the bank due to hacking, the bank replaced the card. A day before the tour, I received an email saying the payment was not processed and that I must pay it 28hrs before the Tour. I provided my new card details to pay for it thinking this is an easy fix, but Getyourguide won’t accept it and told me the only way to pay for it is to request a FORMAL LETTER FROM THE BANK that says the old card was blocked, I rang the bank and they said the letter usually takes 24-48 hrs to be emailed but they processed it as urgent which was excellent, they couldn’t even understand why a travel agency will request a letter from a major bank for this small issue, anyway, so I got the letter, I sent it to Getyourguide and now they replied to me saying they can’t use this letter because it needs a signature from the bank, and told me to contact the bank AGAIN and ask for a new letter. The letter that was provided to me has all the sensitive information and is written in a standard format with the name and position of the representative and the bank name and address. We rang the customer service center and they keep saying “we can’t help as this will be an ESCALATION TEAM issue”, this escalation team cannot be contacted via phone, no phone number at all, and will only respond via email hours apart. This is the horror story of booking thru Getyourguide. We suspect that they do not have enough tickets to sell and now they do this to their clients so they would give up the booking, what a waste of annual Leave, Time and stress. This day has been horrific thanks to Getyourguide which by the way does not have any helpful contact number in Australia AT ALL.

The company canceled the trip due to a lack of tickets sold. I was notified less than 24 hours therefore I was unable to get a refund.

Ruediger B. Great Ocean Road 16.1.2025 Couple We visited the Ocean Road with Mark K. on 16.1.25. It was a very nice tour with additional stops as we had a hard time seeing a koala at the first stop, many thanks to Mark for making this possible. He told us a lot about Australia and was able to explain everything to us in German. It was a perfect tour with a very good guide.