Tui Campers

We hired the 4 person Freedom Pathblazer Ford Transit motor home from Auckland to travel around Northland, all the way to Cape Reinga. We were extremely happy with the mechanical function of the vehicle and the comfort it provided for driving, sleeping, cooking, resting. The vehicle was not brand new but it was considerably cheaper than any other… Read more

hire company. Everything our family needed was supplied. Cooking utensils pots, towels, linen pilows and blankets, all nice and clean. Toilet and shower worked well and flyscreens on all windows. Camping chairs and outdoor table was included in price on request. Tui Campers staff is very helpful and no worry about anything we needed. Their communication is great. They even dropped us off to the airport after we returned the vehicle. I will hire from them again and would recommend this company.

Fantastic experience in all regards – Fantastic experience all round. Booked an older model van and as such expected a few minor glitchs. None eventuated. We had read the reviews and decided to give Tui a try. We went in with our eyes wide open!! We had been long term tourism business operators ourselves so knew about reviews, good and bad. Pick up was painless with the lady… Read more

advising us to take photos of anything that we thought was not right before we took the vehicle off site. The van was clean throughout and well kitted for what we required and got us into all the places we wanted to visit. Drop off was as orderly as the pick up and the manager was kind enough to drive us to our hotel which was above and beyond what we expected.

Go Elsewhere !!! – Hi, Corrie and I hired one of your campers on the 8th July 2023. We advised you on our arrival time and was told to call when we land and someone will pick us up from the airport back to your site. Well Corrie did that and was advised you were shut and you said that you had emailed Corrie to advise that, well we were on the plane so did not… Read more

receive the email, our plane was late, we arrived at 2.30pm which was no fault of our own, and you guys could not wait for us and said the keys are in the lockbox. Well that was not a great start to our holiday. So we did not get any tutorial on how all the camper bits worked. This was our first camper holiday so we were not happy.

When we opened the rear of the camper all the extras were just thrown in on the floor was untidy. Next issue was we had no gas in the cylinder!! No sheets we could not believe it, who comes from overseas to hire a camper and brings sheets ??

When we parked up and attached the awning there was only one pole that was the correct height, the others were too tall and too short so we could not use the awning, we advised you of this so we had to go to bunnings to pick some up that you organised to pay for. So we wasted our holiday time picking up new poles.

The other problems we had is one night it was raining and the awning leaked and so did the van so the end of the bed got wet the rain was leaking through the window above the stove. So we were extremely dissatisfied and angry that this happened to us, when we returned the van we mentioned all this and the Manager at the time said we would receive an email regarding these issues and yet we have heard nothing.

Customer service was not good. We paid a lot of money for this camper and really should have been sent to the wreckers. The van was not up to standard and we should be compensated accordingly.

We will never rent from you guys again.

Signed Corrie and Barb

Tui Campers is worst experience ever of my travel-life – Let me tell you a story of the worst product and customer experience in the world – Tui Campers in New Zealand! Me and my family (wife and 1-year and 3-year old kid) decided to go to wonderful New Zealand, but unfortunately decided to rent from Tui Campers – I CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH NOT TO RENT FROM THESE SCAMMERS. More below: 1. General state of… Read more

van OK, we knew that we had rented an older model (2011-2015 unspecified model), but the van was in pretty shite condition. Not properly functioning kitchen, broken bits and pieces and wasn’t very comfortable to drive. With that said, the price was lower than other rental agencies, so guess you get what you pay for.

2. Breakdown and waiting time The van worked ok until the last day when driving near Hamilton and the clutch suddenly stuck to the floor, couldn’t switch gears and thus could not drive any further. We got towed to the side by some nice people and called Tui and roadside assistance. First, we had to wait two hours for roadside assistance to tell us that the some clutch-a-mangingy had leaked its’ fluid and couldn’t be repaired on the spot. Tui told us to get to towed to the nearest campsite, but as we were flying out the day after and was fairly close to Auckland, we asked to be towed there. [Name Removed] from Tui told us she would look into that… And as it was approaching 5pm when they close, she assured me she would have it sorted by then. As the clock approached 5pm, I called them numerous times and finally got a hold of [Name Removed] that told me that [Name Removed] had gone home for the day. Wow, what a nice customer service! [Name Removed] told us he would get a hold of a tow truck and that we would be reimbursed a day’s rent as well as transport to Auckland, just asked that we kept taxi receipt. We then proceeded to wait and wait and, in the end, had to tell [Name Removed] and [Name Removed] that we were leaving the van behind with keys inside as we had now waited close to 6 hours and with two small kids, this was just unacceptable. Just as we were getting into the taxi, the tow driver showed up.

3. Verbal abuse and accusations The day after I went over to Tui in Auckland to meet with [Name Removed] and sort out the van and refund. I told [Name Removed] that I had the receipt for the taxi, and she immediately lied to my face that they would only refund a day’s hire – less than the cost of the transport to Auckland. I balked at that and then the complete and utter abuse started. Examples (caps lock for underlining her anger and tone of voice): I KNOW WHAT I SAID – ARE YOU CALLING ME A LIAR! I WILL NOT TOLERATE THIS ABUSE (she was the abuser). I TRIED TO HELP YOU EVEN ON MY TIME OFF. YOU NEED TO SHOW ME APPRECIATION. And it went on and on, at the end I had to crawl and beg just to get a refund that would cover at least the transportation. She also accused me of not emptying the toilet block, however had done exactly that in the morning – ARE YOU CALLING ME A LIAR, [Name Removed]?!!!?!? (sarcasm may occur)

4. Lies and refunds Then came the process of actually getting the money back. On the day, [Name Removed] said she had initiated the refund for “corporate to process”. That process then took roughly two months, numerous unanswered e-mails and even lies that they had initiated the transfer. Finally, the said they would transfer, and I got the money.

Never ever, ever rent from this company if you hold your life and sanity dear!

Roll the dice and try your luck – Quick review of our experience with freedom/tui/budget campers in Auckland, it's worth thinking about it before booking. The short version is you might end up with a working van, or you might not. If you think putting the holiday budget on black and seeing how it goes then they are the van for you. If spending a week in a clunky hothouse with… Read more

broken aircon on wheels, reliant on filling up an esky/chilly bin/cheap bucket every few hours with ice to keep your food cold as the fridge doesn't work isn't for you then probably look else where. They didn't think it was too much of an issue to be in a glass room with virtually no ventilation during a heat wave and very begrudgingly gave use 1.5 days refund rather than the two we asked for to take it to a comparable model and the costs due to ruined food, ice and eating out costs. Any issues are your problem if they can't fix them due to short working hours and not offering a 7-day service, yep being asked to stay around in Auckland for another 3 days to have it fixed wasn't an option..... so in summary, if you like to take a gamble hire from here, you might get lucky, but if you aren't a gambler go elsewhere.

Amazing, thoroughly exceeded our expectations – We made the mistake of reading the reviews AFTER booking our campervan, and were quite worried when reading all the negative reviews online. However, we could not have asked for a better camper. Our 4-berth motorhome did not falter once during our 2-week road trip through the challenging mountain roads of the South Island. It was spacious and… Read more

comfortable for all 4 of us, and everything worked as it should (the water tank started leaking a bit towards the end, but that did not affect us much). The staff were friendly and helpful from the moment they picked us up from the airport, and helped us with whatever questions we had while we were on the road. Am not sure why there are so many negative reviews, but based on my experience, I will definitely use Tui again next time i come to New Zealand.

Would not hire a campervan from this company – Avoid renting a campervan from Tui. We hired a 17 year old campervan but unfortunately it had not been refurbished or maintained. Doors and drawers were broken (didn't close or lock which was a safety hazard), windscreen was full of chips, water tank was difficult to fill, rear brake light didn't work, it was difficult to get the vehicle into… Read more

gear, driver's side didn't lock/unlock etc. Curtains were torn and dirty and the interior of the vehicle was stained and dirty. Our first vehicle had a leaking roof which we fortunately discovered before leaving their premises so waited a couple of hours for it to be repaired, only to discover 2 days later that the fridge wasn't working. Waited half a day for a replacement vehicle which was in a worse condition than the original one (as described above). I believe they are unable to cope with the busy December/January season and as a result cannot maintain their vehicles and rent vehicles out which quite simply should not be hired out without warnings.