I was gonna say something like this: The tour itself was wonderful and easy to do. Unfortunately there were parts that weren’t very accessible to me coming from someone with special needs. The tour guide could be brash at times. It was lovely and something I’ll never forget but sadly these things led to a lot of highly unenjoyable moments that tainted my time. If I didn’t have someone I was close friends with on the trip I don’t know what I would’ve done. Im not sure how the hiring of your guides work or maybe if there was personal reasons on the behavior but I don’t wish any ill will towards the person. As for the inaccessibility; long walks, steep hills, not having a lot of wiggle room, space, time to stop and rest. I did put in the original notes that I do need some things (an inhaler, for example). I felt very isolated from the group because of these. I didn’t want to drag everyone behind. I realize that this is a personal issue that I had. I don’t think most other people would find any issue with. Allistic able-bodied people shouldn’t have near as many problems with their time. The sights were beautiful in New Zealand and in Australia. The tour felt clunky and some of the things we did felt like wasted money. In Sydney, there was a point where we paid to go up into an observatory to see the same view we saw from when we were just standing on the bridge. This was just one of a few times where I wished we did some other activity or had choice on where our money went to. I personally wanted to go to the aquarium that was quite literally right across the street from one of our hotels. BE CAREFUL in Australia. During one of the night markets when we had free time before heading back to the hotel; I decided to head out and get something to drink. My friends offered to come along, which im grateful that they did because of what happened on the way back to the hotel. As I was going to throw something away, some guy bumped my shoulder into the trash can, whispered into my ear, “move little-” followed by a slur. I didn’t think I’d feel unsafe and I don’t know if that type of hate is normalized there but I hadn’t heard it any of the whole other days I was there.
