Monika Vinsova

Monika, we can’t thank you enough for helping us plan a trip of a lifetime. After a couple itineraries, you were able to put together one that fit exactly what we were looking for. We got to see the beautiful South Island of New Zealand by doing the “fly-cruise-fly”, renting a car, glamping and multiple hikes/walks. We had an amazing time!!!

Knowing what I know now, I will never use Kim Kim again. To be fair, it has a market. If you aren't willing to do any trip planning and want someone to do everything for you for a 50% mark up, then Kim Kim is the tool for you. My main complaint: if a company is unwilling to give you an itemized bill for what they are charging you, then it is at least in a grey zone in terms of scams.

I stumbled upon this service when trying to plan our honeymoon to New Zealand and Fiji. I was simply looking for things to do and before I knew it, I had a lovely Kiwi helping me plan a trip. The time zone challenge was not her fault and to be fair we were running up against the clock for a popular holiday time in New Zealand. This made communication difficult. I felt rushed and that all my feedback into proposed itineraries was not acknowledged. For example, I wanted to use Marriott points, but I'm sure they don't have a deal with that brand and couldn't make money off it so they kept pushing us elsewhere. I felt pressured to do things I had zero interest in doing. They weren't able to book a rental car so I had to do that myself anyways. I think my main frustration was being in the dark of what we were paying for. I asked for a itemized bill, but they would only give total cost. So when we would remove things from our itinerary and our price didn't go down correspondingly, a lot of red flags were going off in my head. My wife and I literally booked the final itinerary separately and saw just how much we were paying for the service. We ended up going along with it out of guilt for the time spent by our specialist than anything else.

The Good: accommodations were great, insight into what activities were available, and ideas.
The Bad: everything else

Hotel Reviews

M Social

Auckland

Super cool with a robot butler. Loved it

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Tongariro Suites

Horopito

Staff was the highlight. Loved everything about this place. Very homely

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

QT Wellington

Wellington

Botique but odd. Not my cup of tea, but memorable

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

The Martinborough Hotel

Martinborough

Super cute

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Activity Reviews

Waiheke Explorer Hop-On Hop-Off Tour

New Zealand

Must do in Auckland

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Star Safari Group Tour

New Zealand

Super cool just pray for no clouds

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

I drove

Ahi Restaurant - 4 snacks and 4 courses

Auckland

Good but not great

Quality of Experience

Food

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Monika did a great job thinking through the pacing of our trip. This was a last minute decision to go to New Zealand, we only had a week, and we were pretty tired so not up for a lot of driving.

Because it was high season Monika told us from the start that she couldn't book a South Island trip for us since their service providers were already booked up. While we had to limit ourselves to the North Island, we wish she had suggested some off the beaten path options such as going North from Auckland for a day or two. The advantage of booking with an agent is that you are all set and don't need to think about it when you travel - the disadvantage is that you are all set, and it's hard to adjust when you learn about things that you might rather like to do. That said, Monika was mostly available throughout the trip and made some effort to try to accommodate us.

There were some snafus with the trip:

1. The instructions that Monika provided to us once we booked the trip were difficult to decipher. There were two PDFs: One had the vouchers with the times and the location for pick up and the second was the "Travel Book" with day to day activities and descriptions, but no times or pick up locations. In order to figure out what we were doing, we had to toggle back and forth. Also neither PDF gave us an indication of how far the activity is from our hotel, leaving us to figure out on our own how much time to leave. With the extra surcharge that KimKim charges, I had expected better.

2. Because of the difficulty in making sense of the logistics of the itinerary, we didn't realize until the last minute that Kim Kim had failed to provide transport to our evening kayak trip in Rotoura which was 35 minutes from our hotel. I had to figure it all out on Google maps and when I did I called an Uber. Only when we were in the Uber did Monika get in touch to say that there was a mistake and that she would reimburse me for the Uber. But that again made for unnecessary stress.

3. We loved the evening kayak trip and our guide, but the description had some errors. Besides not arranging for the service provider to pick us up, the Travel Book (or Voucher) told us to arrive at the launch spot 20 minutes early. When we got there 20 mins early we didn't see anyone - they arrived at the start time instead and told us they never stipulate arriving 20 mins early. Finally, the even is billed as providing a "gourmet BBQ with special Kiwi dessert." It was a basic BBQ with no dessert.

4. Monika didn't ask me during the planning whether we are into adventure sports. The Mt. Tawarera crater walk near Rotoura is very cool, but as soon as we got the launching spot and I saw what it was, I decided not to do the walk. I am afraid of heights and not at all interested in walking on the ledge of steep crater in the wind and rain. My daughter went ahead but was only able to get through it by holding on to the back of the only guide. So a little more communication from Monika around our adventure tolerance level and what is involved in each activity would have been better - this turned out to be a wasted day and a wasted expense.

5. For the final day Monika had not planned anything and provided no options even though we had all morning until about 2 pm to do something. When we saw the problem we let her know and she created an option, but told us that it would be an extra expense. We learned, unsurprisingly, that the amount she would charge is 50% more than had we booked it on our own. That's a steep price for this kind of service!

6. Also on the final day, Monika had the car come about an hour early to pick us up which made us have to wait nearly 3.5 hours at the airport for our flight.

All in all, while we were relieved not to have to do all the research on our own and are mostly pleased with the activities Monika set up for us, we are not sure we'd book with Kim Kim again.

Hotel Reviews

The Prince's Gate Hotel

Rotorua

We liked it a lot - good location and nice atmosphere. Our room was small though.

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Most of the people were great, except for one woman who's name we don't know.

Cleanliness & Comfort

Sudima Auckland City

Auckland

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Activity Reviews

Starlight Gourmet Kayak Tour - Glowworm Caves

Rotorua

Quality of Experience

Food

It was okay - Kim Kim billed it as a gourmet BBQ dinner. We were expecting more.

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Jamie, our guide, was fantastic.

Transport

Kim Kim forgot to set up travel from our hotel

Mt Tarawera Crater Walk Experience

Rotorua

This is a great experience if you are not afraid of heights and like adventure. Tour agents should be clear with clients about what this is before booking it.

Ahi Restaurant - 4 snacks and 4 courses

Auckland

The food is overrated. Two of the dishes were bad, a few were okay - only one was actually very good. It's located at the end of a cheap food court in a mall, which is odd.

Quality of Experience

Food