Explore the highlights of Christchurch on this relaxed sightseeing tour through New Zealand's famous Garden City. Discover a destination shaped by heritage, resilience, and modern innovation as you travel through the city and its surrounding coastal and hillside landscapes.
08.45 Meet and greet in Lyttelton township for your Christchurch Highlight Tour
09.00 Depart Lyttelton and travel via the inner bays of Lyttelton Harbour to Governors Bay and then via Dyers Pass to the
Sign of the Kiwi. Lyttelton Harbour is an extinct volcano with a natural harbour being formed by erosion in the old
volcanic crater, high crater walls surround the harbour. Dyers Pass climbs up the old volcanic crater wall to the summit
and from the Sign of the Kiwi there are wonderful views of both the Harbour and the city of Christchurch.
09.30 The tour arrives at the Sign of the Takahe, a Scottish like castle which has a viewing platform providing magnificent views over the City of Christchurch, Pegasus Bay, the Canterbury Plains and the Southern Alps which are snow capped for up to 9 months of the year. Access to the viewing platform is via a gentle 5 minute walk.
09.50 Depart the Sign of the Takahe for Mona Vale, a stately home and magnificent gardens. The tour travels to Mona Vale via the hillside suburb of Cashmere and via some of the southern and western residential suburbs of Christchurch, to Fendalton one of Christchurch’s most excusive residential suburbs.
10.10 Arrive at the front gate house of Mona Vale and stroll through the grounds, following the Avon River which acts as one of the properties boundaries. The coach will then travel around to the rear gate house where your tour guide will meet you once you have had the opportunity to explore the grounds .
10.30 Depart Mona Vale and travel into the central city of Christchurch which was completely devastated by the Christchurch earthquakes in February 2011. Your guide will explain both the history of the city and the effects of the earthquake, you will see for yourself both the destructive powers of nature and the rebuild which has and is taking place. The central city tour will conclude in Cathedral Square where you will be given time to explore this central part of the city on foot. There are some great photo opportunities in this area and time for lunch.
12.00 The tour will depart Cathedral Square and return to Lyttelton via the Eastern Suburbs, the estuary and finally the beach suburb of Sumner with its sand and surf beaches and the Pacific Ocean stretching as far as the eye can see. From Sumner the tour will return to Lyttelton via Evans Pass which was closed for more than 7 years following the Christchurch earthquake of 2011 due to cliff collapse. Evans Pass will provide you with fantastic views of the harbour heads and the southern bays.
12.30 A stop will be made at a viewing platform on the harbour side of Evans Pass which overlooks the ports container and coal terminals and affords great views of both the harbour and the historic Timeball station.
12.45 The tour returns to Lyttelton township where your awaiting shuttle transfers you back to your cruise ship.
Typical start time: 8.45am
Duration: 3.5 hours
Please Note that the timings are indicative only for cruise ships berth by 8 am or earlier. For all other cruise ships with a later arrival time in Lyttelton the excursion times will be adjusted to meet the cruise ships schedule.
Rated 4.5 out of 5 from 97 verified travellers
97 reviews
Had a extremely informative and comfortable tour of Lyttelton and Christchurch with Joseph. Joseph stopped at many highlights that included a mount top view of Sumner Beach, Cracoft Reserve, Central Ward, City Mall and Monument, Mona Vale Park and more. Joseph's pride of country is inspiring. Definitely a wonderful tour not to be missed.
An extremely interesting day. The tour guide was very knowledgeable and showed us how much Christchurch has changed since the 2 earthquakes in 2010/11. It was very sad to see the Cathedral still under repair as we had seen it pre-earthquake in 2007. It's a lovely city to visit and to see how much has been rebuilt so far. Hope the good work continues 🙏
Excellent guide, Kevin, provided great overview of the history of Christchurch and the history of the earthquake and rebuilding. Nice balance of seeing city sites, view points, and beaches. Really enjoyed having some free time to walk around downtown.
This was a wonderful tour of Christchurch including lots of history and commentary on the city’s redevelopment following the 2011 earthquake. We particularly enjoyed Scotty’s stories and in depth knowledge about Christchurch. Highly recommend.
Great tour, communication and organization. Beautiful area with a lot of wildlife. Definitely recommended
Great sightseeing trip to Christchurch, Graham had lots of information about the 2011 earthquake. So devastating
A good, quick way to see the highlights of Christchurch including beautiful Mona Vale. Our guide who was a local and retired engineer gave an insightful, comprehensive tour of Christchurch, the earthquakes and the aftermath. Good info on the best coffee and scones in the market. No worries about pickup and drop off to the cruise ship. Highly recommend. Support the local businesses and its people and book this tour.
Beautiful picturesque drive to Christchurch. Our driver/guide Scotty provided a lot of history of the area along the way. He showed us where most of the highlights were in Christchurch and turned us loose to discover them ourselves. Time was at a premium with only a half hour in the gardens and an hour in the city. More time for both would have been great, even if only a half hour. Overall a good tour, however depending on public shuttle buses as the only means to get to the meeting sight was problematic.
Very well organised. Saw everything as planned. Scotty was our super knowledgeable, fun and friendly driver guide and kept us informed and amused the whole time. Very professional, many thanks, would highly recommend!
Thankyou Alan for the day in and around Christchurch. Got to see more than i thought and as a first time visitor was surprised with all you showed us.
Robyn, Syd, Aus
This was a very good tour and the driver Carl was fantastic he gave us so much information about Christchurch and showed us the whole area and downtown. We would highly recommend the tour.
A small quaint town with main street comprising of a couple of eating places and a few local art and craft stores. Limited time is better utilised by taking a short bus ride into Christchurch which has great selection of eateries and beautiful gardens and parks complimented by the hop on/off tram allowing you to explore many POI of the city.
Tremendous overview of Christchurch and Lyttleton; geology, history, culture, economy and architecture. Scotty was a nonstop stream of great information and humor! Very enjoyable day with a guide who could answer every question about anything.
Scotty our tour guide was excellent as he provided all of us information on all the areas the tour travelled. He was very informative and had a nice sense of humor which made it interesting. The drive through the countryside was beautiful and the stop in Christchurch was wonderful. Highly recommend this tour.
Scott was very knowledgeable. The bus was clean and we enjoyed the stops because we could all spread out and be less obtrusive as a group.
Unfortunately we're unable to complete the tour due to weather our cruise ship could not die however Viator and the tour provider were great and understanding gave our entire group a refund as this was out of our control! This is why we will always go through Viator!
Where to start? The van broke down at the first stop and things went downhill from there. The next stop was Mona Vale Gardens which was simply too nice to screw up. After that, the self titled “City Sights” tour was conducted like a speed reading course so that the guide could recover the 40 minutes lost to the van mishap. The substitute van was smaller than the original one and the group of fourteen barely fit. And the passenger windows were smaller which limited our views of the city landmarks which were pointed out on the fly. We never given the opportunity to walk around this beautiful city with our guide. And then after we were done, we messaged the tour office to share our disappointment only to be met with radio silence.
Would I recommend the tour? That’s a hard “No”.
Our ship wasnt running shuttles in Christchurch this day, so we booked this tour on a whim and it was great. A quick way to see as much as possible while in port.
Our cruise ship changed arrival and departure times and Leisure Tours was very accommodating in making adjustments. The office staff communicated well and Scotty was a great guide/driver. We had less time in each place but still saw and enjoyed all!
Scotty was an excellent tour guide who showed us around Christchurch making our tour fun and interesting. Hearing about the 2011 earthquake and seeing the devastation plus the rebuilding was so informative.
We were in Port for the day and they picked us up from where the ship shuttle dropped us off. Easy to find tour group. Really friendly staff and a great tour to really enjoy the beauty of the area. We were offered the option to end the tour in the city to have a bit more time to explore and then catch the public bus back to Port for only $4. But we had been there before and opted to go back to the Port and explore the town of Lyttleton before reboarding the ship.
GREAT tour with Scotty .. very knowledgeable and entertaining ... lot of great stops and plenty of time at each location .. Very comfortable tour bus too .. highly recommend.
Good tour via coach, and a knowledgeable guide/ driver. Tour starts via short shuttle from Littleton port to village centre, changing to tour coach across high hills into and around Christchurch, back via a different route. VFM
Big bus. Lots of people. Not a lot of talking about where we are going or what we are doing. Lots of people.
Check the *Exact* meeting point. We went to Fisherman’s Wharf as instructed, but the coaches were parked further down the road. We came very close to missing the trip. Other than that it was an excellent trip with a very knowledgeable local driver.
I signed up for a 3 hour tour to see Christchurch. I got that, but was also left in Christchurch for 3 hours additionally on my own. Fortunately the weather was nice and I had no other plans. But this makes me worry about other viator tours I have scheduled. Can I believe what I signed up for, or will I get stranded on my own again.
Be sure of dates and weather. Tour provider is confusing. Booked tour. Received email correcting date but tickets with wrong date. Took several attempts to get ticket corrected. When weather interfered with ability to do our tour there was no consideration despite having booked several other tours. Enquired about change in time of tour without success. Can’t in good conscience recommend provider.
The experience was excellent! Our guide was very knowledgeable and answered all of our questions. Would do this trip again.
We had a wonderful time in Christchurch and our driver, Scottie was very knowledgeable. We learnt a lot about the area and got to see some of the highlights of the area. Highly recommend!
Nothing of value to see.
Tour guide was very good.
Viator is a good company. We took 3 tours with them. All guides knowledgeable, friendly and really wanted to give everyone an enjoyable experience.
But in my opinion not much to see in Christchurch.
There were several pros and cons to this tour. On the plus side our driver Larry was knowledgeable, the views of the bay were beautiful and there was a great stop at Mona Vale, a beautiful garden with lovely grounds and flowers. The disappointing part of the tour was how much of it was just driving by some great city landmarks and sights. There was alot of traffic so our driver had to circle around a lot which made it difficult to park to have a short time walking outside the bus. Also our driver was not aware what we were supposed to have a lunch stop and shopping at a market. At the end there was only time for a quick snack in a cafe at the library and no shoppping. There was just enough time to get back on the bus to return to the ship.
Scottie our driver and guide was excellent with an entertaining and very informative commentary Very good value for money
This tour went over the Dyer Pass which gives great views of Christchurch. I enjoyed the walk through Mona Park and the bus did a circuit of the city where all the sights were pointed out and the earthquake history and damage were explained.
We had a wonderful time with the Water Taxi service and transfer to Larnach Castle friendly and in time
Our tour of Christ Church was fabulous. Our tour guide was so interesting and knew everything about this beautiful area of New Zealand . He made the trip fun and entertaining. Would highly recommend this tour.
The trip was enjoyable. It started off very well, but we were under the impression that we’re going to have 30 minutes for lunch and 30 minutes for the market, which, of course we did not. We had about 15 minutes for lunch, which worked out, but the return trip that Larry hit for us was beautiful.
Personally, I’d rather spend a lot more time in Christchurch
This was a really great tour!! Easy pick up! Joseph was a fantastic tour guide. We got great insight into the history and culture of NZ. Christchurch was so amazing and he took us to the very best sites!!
The details we received about the tour were not what occurred, especially at the end. While we enjoyed the scenery and the commentary, we were all looking forward to being able to shop at the Riverside market which was supposed to be our last stop. Instead we were dropped off at the library and told to be back on the bus in 30 minutes. We had time to get a coffee and use the restroom and then headed back to Lyttelton.
Value for money. We saw a lot of Christchurch, and learnt about the city from our local guide, who was passionate about his hometown. Smooth pick up from the cruise ship.
Good tour, got to see places i wouldn't have on my own unfortunately restricted by cruise ship schedule
Very knowledge guide. Much of the tour was about how the earthquakes impacted Christchurch. The tour went much longer than advertised, which was great if you wanted as much sightseeing as possible. No problem getting back in time for the cruise ship.
Great trip. Very well organised. We were picked up at the port and taken to our bus .Driver was very informative on route. We then transferred to trip with Joseph, who was very informative and enthusiastic. Great guide, we had a lovely time
Excellent instructions to meet our tour in town! Our guide Joseph was outstanding and knew so much about Christchurch. The tour was informative and a lot of fun. We stopped for lunch and shopping at the perfect location! Tour was about 5 hours.
Really great tour with an excellent local guide, Joseph. His stories about what existed of the city before the earthquakes were heart felt. I felt that I learnt so much more about Christchurch that I never got from the old news reports.
Great way to get out of the small town of Lyttelton and see some of the sights and go up to the top of the mountains. I would have preferred more time to walk around the area that we stopped for lunch. We only had an hour and much of that was to get food and eat it.
This was a larger bus tour with more sitting than doing. Robin was very knowledgeable and provided good info. The tea room and garden walk was nice. Overall, we could have done most on our own. The tour said limited to 30 but there were 40.
Small bus, which was great. We had a lady guide who was excellent. The views were spectacular and the city (Christchurch) itself was beautiful. A carnival atmosphere and joy everywhere on a weekday.
Scottie was a great guide. Enjoyed his knowledge and tips on where to go and eat at the square. Beautiful ride on the coastline.
This is a bus tour. Our driver, Kevin, was pleasant (and patient with unruly passengers) and informative. We saw great views from the Summit Road, the stunning Monavale gardens, the Sign of Takahe and its architecture, and tour of the city center with a stop at the Riverside Market for a meat pie and fun sweets. Kevin supplied great area information along the way.
Learn about the city’s unique history and architecture. Kevin was an excellent guide . Group was larger than expected doué to a large ship in port
