Jafa here, 24th January was my birthday and decided to spend time in Rotorua for the day. It was a bloody hot day but I really enjoyed exploring both Waiotapu Thermal Wonderland and Te Puia which came with free buffet lunch... yum yum!! Then, we did brief Rotoroa Lake and City tour but ended up staying at a park for over an hour as another driver who was meeting us at Matamata was held up on another tour.
With regard to the seats in bus, the one that took us from Auckland to Hobbiton stopover I sat in the single seat chair and found it really uncomfortable. It wasn't wide enough to fit in and lock my seat belt in. :( At a quick stop before Hobbiton, I asked to move over to front seat (next to driver) and was so relieved and lucky to sit there most of the trip except from Matamata to Auckland. Front seat was unavailable, so I sat at the back and realised they were large seats, they appeared to be wider than seats in front of me? I was not complaining :-)
Lastly, we had different drivers throughout the day and each of those drivers took care of us which really made our day, thank you team! :-)