Melbourne Puffing Billy Train and Penguin Parade Day Tour Escape

Wonderful trip with professional David Hsu as our tour guide that give lovely touch to our family time in Phillip Island. Highly recommended!

Love the travel plan and the driver was extremely helpful. Brighton beach followed by wildlife. Puffing Billy and Philip island. It’s quite amazing to be able to get done with everything in a day.

Do not take this tour, the van condition is terrible. The driver drove really bad! (I have to cancel the tour at first stop due to car sickness). The seat in the car is not comfortable at all. Very small. Not even give me a partial refund when I requested due to medical condition.

A must for any age if you are in Melbourne. This experience is your second childhood, freedom and fun.

Got to see the highlights - Puffing Billy, Melbourne Bathhouses, Maru Zoo, and of course penguins!!!!! Vance was a very nice driver and made sure we stayed on time and adjusted where needed. He even highlighted where we could plan to eat during the day which helped on a long tour like this. Great Day out and the penguins are the opportunity of a lifetime to see.

I'll start with the pros- puffing billy was a great experience, highly recommend. The penguin parade was incredible to see experience. Now I'll get to the reason I am giving a 1 star- I don't like to complain, because I understand the need for flexibility. The tour felt like a lot of wasted time, time that was not cheap. I opted for this tour, as there were many options for similar tours, including cheaper ones. Scheduled tour time 10am, and changed to 830, due to the train schedule, which was ok. After the train, we had an excessive amount of time at the train cafeteria. The Maru Animal Park, which felt like a sad zoo. For the cost of the tour, the $30 should have been included. We were given 2 hours to spend there, which doesn't need more than 45 minutes (as per itinerary, 1 hour). Then we were brought to an overpriced chocolate store because we had a lot of time before seeing the penguins. After we were brought to Cowes in Philip Island, and here we were given almost 3 hours. 3 hours to do what? No where on the itinerary had this listed. At 1830 we made our way to the penguin parade. The penguin parade ended late, which of course is not in control of the tour. We started our day at 830 and ended at 2300. Our driver, he was nothing close to a guide. I asked the driver why we didn't stop at two of the locations, he said oh because the train. we weren't given the option, nor were we even told we wouldn't be doing the other activities. , we spent almost 3 hours in Cowes, wasting time. I understand the need for flexibility, but it's different when the itinerary is blatantly disregarded and there is zero communication about it. When choosing tours, it's based on the itinerary. What's the point if the itinerary is different? Different without even given any options or information. If I knew this prior to booking, I would have went with a different tour option. This tour was poorly planned and orchestrated. For $122 USD a person (2 people), I would expect a lot better. Completey upset with our experience.

Joined this tour on Trips.com and didn’t think we would regret it so so much!!! :( 1) Our “driver” (according to the tour organiser - "Bus and Coach Charter", he was only the driver, not a tour guide) was so inexperienced and had no knowledge on those attractions wt so ever!!! Most of the tour group couldn’t really understand what he introduced in English. 2) the "driver" was NOT helpful. Some members from our tour (about 1/3 of the tour group) couldn't get a seat on the Puffin Billy Train (obviously seats oversold, I am not sure whose responsibility it was). We approached the station staff ourselves while there was no sign of our "driver". For the whole Puffing Billy journey, we were sitting at the "edges" kindly provided by other passengers (as if we were second / third class), and therefore obviously we didn't have the chance to experience the "sitting by the window edge" in the forest, while the others were having fun trying different camera angles and waving hands outside, we left sitting in the boring carriage. 3) Already disappointed in the Puffin Billy. Then our “driver” always parked so far away from the attractions itself that we had to walk a long way (but totally unnecessary distance) to find our coach. The tour we signed up for did NOT say it had the Maru Wildlife Park, and we had to go there regardless you want to visit or not. So this was a bit of surprise! :(