Kangaroo Valley

I hate to give bad reviews, but this company deserves it. Since we came in from Hawaii, our friends in Canberra booked this for us. They were specifically told we would get one of their new canoes. However, when the canoe was delivered to the river, we got an old beat up one. The guy who delivered it was unfriendly, almost to the point of being surly. Paddling this canoe was like driving a tank. It was horrible and took a lot of the fun out of our experience of canoeing the Shoalhaven Gorge. When we returned and flipped the canoe over, we saw that the entire bottom was warped. No wonder we could barely paddle it! When the driver came to pick it up, his attitude was just as unfriendly as the first guy, and said all the canoes were all like that (so, basically, tough luck). Our friends emailed the company about our disappointment, and they came back very apologetic, especially because our friends have hired from them in the past. The company said that we should have told the driver which canoe was for us, but in the hustle of unloading canoes, we just assumed he knew -- which he should have. We go to Australia frequently and will not be using this company again to hire canoes/kayaks. Word of advice to Kangaroo Valley Safaris: either retrain your staff in customer service, or hire new staff who will put customers first.

This review is based on service, ease of transaction, quality of product (the kayak), keeping promises, and the overall experience. It was my girlfriends first time kayaking and my fourth, so we are no pros, but I kinda know what to expect. We had booked the night before and everything went to plan and our expectations were exceeded the whole way through. We did a two hour kayak (5.7km) self guided kayak, where you meet at the site and they drive you to the drop off zone with kayaks. You kayak down stream and through a few light Rapids and are picked up at the other end. The trek is about 2 hours but he staff asked if we would like more time (no added cost, just our preference) so we asked for three hours and they were more than happy to pick us up when we were finished. For $40 per kayak for the three hours and the pickup and drop off, it was a bargain. My girlfriend really enjoyed her first experience and so did I.