As the title suggests, this has been quite a disappointing experience, especially when compared to all the awesome things and great nature we have been seeing in New Zealand so far. The beginning of the tour is a 'pleasant' cruise on the lake that you do with another 50-70 people fighting over seats. Once you reach the area of the caves you are divided into smaller groups of around 10 people, which was apparently too much for our guide. I could not hear a single word of anything she said for the entire tour because I was standing towards the end of the single file line. Most of the time was spent on anything but the glow worms: cruises, walks, pictures in the forest (by the company photographer, to be sold to you later for hundreds of dollars), presentations etc. Somewhere in the middle of that you get to spend around 10 mins in a boat observing the worms, possibly because the company needs to run another 5/600 people through there on the same day. Then we come to the picture policy. No pictures whatsoever. The glow worms themselves are very sensitive to light and sound, so no flashes, lights etc. is understandable. Why pictures were prohibited completely, especially in the brightly lit first half of the cave, that has lamps all over the place to highlight the waterfalls and guides shouting in every direction, seems a bit too much to me. Especially given the fact that the guide will point a Bright flashlight at the face of anyone who talkes out a phone to remind them about No Pictures policies. Since they seem to have a monopoly on glow worm tours in the area though, they can impose whatever policies they like and you still have to go with them. You also have to pay 95 dollars per person for two hours, when a full day cruise is usually 250. The thing that puts this review up to 2 stars is the beautiful New Zealand nature that is still spectacular to see.
