I’ve been to Hobbiton before – in fact last December when we did this same cruise, and the main reason I was doing it again was to take the Small Child to go check it out. Like most teenage boys, he is quite keen on the LoTR and the Hobbit movies and the newest one was out in the cinemas just a couple of weeks away so off we went.
There were eight of us keen to go and we had done all our research well in advance so, we didn’t book our Hobbiton trip through the ship. Like last time, we hired a private vehicle and booked our tickets directly through the Hobbiton website. At $75 for Hobbiton tickets and chipping in a bit for car hire, this works out sooo much cheaper than booking through the ship at $150pp or whatever it is they are charging lately. New Zealand is an English speaking country, that drives on the correct side of the road, so no hassles hiring cars and doing your own thing.
The fun bus was not so fun… we had one with a bad cough up the back and another with the beginnings of laryngitis up the front, and no GPS and some really dodgy maps. So that was a little stressful, but we got there with only one tiny wrong turn and with plenty of time to spare for our tour time. The place must be making money hand over fist, the gift shop is quite twice the size it was when we were there the same time last year, had ten times as many souvenirs and things to offer and the buses and facilities were all upgraded. Pretty amazing how popular the place is turning out to be, but given just how dedicated LoTR fans are – it’s probably not that surprising.
We wandered around, went checking out the hobbit holes, had a great tour guide (a local girl who had just finished her teaching degree, so she had plenty of answers to general NZ questions too). Lots of photos… too many to include. But these were some of my favourites.
Definitely a lot of fun, and so much attention to detail. It’d be nice to be given more time to hang out at the Green Dragon Tavern at the end of the tour, but seeing that they are now pushing thousands of tourists through the place every day, I guess they can’t afford to just let groups linger or the place would be over packed and no one would really enjoy it. The Tavern would be a great place to hold a function though – they do private weddings and parties quite frequently by the sounds of it… no doubt for a price! 🙂