Phillip Island’s New Bus Tour Experience

Phillip Island has long been a popular destination for visitors and locals alike.
For years, people have flocked to the Island to enjoy the breath-taking scenery, interact with local wildlife, partake in the many adventure activities, enjoy the world-class beaches, taste the regions delicious food & wine, or simply just kick back and relax in their tranquil surroundings.
Missing from all of this – regular bus tours that cater for people already on the Island…until now. 
 

What is now on offer?

We here at Tour Local are both excited and thrilled to announce the arrival of our two new tours onto Phillip Island. 
Being locals to the Bass Coast community, and long time lovers of the Island, we noticed that there was a shortage of tour bus operators providing regular experiences for those people staying on the Island.

In chatting to many local accommodation providers, and also hearing from people directly, it became apparent that something must be done to fill this void.

We realised in creating these tours that they must each have three redeeming qualities
1. They must offer accommodation pickups ON Phillip Island (and San Remo) 

2. They must be regular public group tours, available for individual and couples to book onto – without needing to book a private tour. 

3. Most of all – they must be fun, memorable & enjoyable, and showcase the best that Phillip Island has to offer!

What are the two tours?

There are two tours now available to those staying on Phillip Island – both with local accommodation pickups. These are

Phillip Island Wine, Wildlife, and Penguins Tour
This is a full-day tour, with pickups at 2.00pm during the Summer, and 12.30pm during the Winter. 

This tour is about experiencing the best of the Island, the full day available to us. 
It includes:
-Lunch and Wine Tasting at the Phillip Island Winery
-Time in Cowes, to explore the different shops, bars, breweries, and beaches. 
-Optional Visits to the Koala Sanctuary OR Amaze’N Things
-Visit to a local beach
-Time at the Nobbies as part of our Golden Hour Experience, which includes a Glass of Sparkling Wine & Grazing Board
-Back Beach Road / Summerlands Lookout Drive over to the Penguins
-Entry to the Penguin Parade

AND

Golden Hour Penguin Express Tour
This is a half-day tour, with pickups at 5.00pm during the Summer, and 3.00pm during the Winter. 

This tour is enjoying the thrills of the Island at Sunset – and great for those with only the afternoon/evening to spare
It includes:
-Visit to a local beach
-Time at the Nobbies as part of our Golden Hour Experience, which includes a Glass of Sparkling Wine & Grazing Board
-Back Beach Road / Summerlands Lookout Drive over to the Penguins
-Entry to the Penguin Parade

How does it all work?

You are probably thinking “wow, Tour Local must be a great big company with lots of buses, and plenty of drivers to go around” …not quite.
We are a family company here at Tour Local, with a fitting fleet of luxury small-medium-large buses, and a team of extraordinary driver-guides who are the real heroes of our tours!

The way we are able to offer both these tours as they are is through initial careful planning and consolidation.
It can all happen simply with ONE Bus and ONE Driver-Guide!

To give you a look into a possible day/night on our Phillip Island Tour…

11.30pm – Our Bus and Driver Departs MELBOURNE with 10 travellers on board

2.00pm – We arrive onto Phillip Island, picking up a group of 2 from the BIG4 Holiday Park and a group of 3 from Ramada Resort, before arriving into the Phillip Island Winery for a Wine Tasting and Lunch (it’s always a late lunch during the Summer months).
We now have 15 travellers on board.

4.00pm – We take our 15 travellers into Cowes, and after pointing out the notable spots and things to do, we explain to them that we will be back in about 1.5 hours to pick them up.
During this time, we head out to a Kaloha Holiday Resort and Genesta House to pickup another 3 travellers.
This is where the GOLDEN HOUR PENGUIN EXPRESS TOUR BEGINS
Back to Cowes Main St. we collect our original travellers, and we now have 18 travellers on board. 

We head out to the Nobbies, enjoy our sparkling wine and grazing platter, enjoy sighting local wildlife on the back beach drive, and then of course enjoy our time in at the Penguin Parade

At Nights End – at night, we drop everyone back off where we collected them from, and make our way back to the city. 

Just a little note – if we were to have this many people both coming out of Melbourne AND coming off Phillip Island, then we would run two buses for this, as we do easily have the capability and resources to run multiple buses where needed. 

What happens from here?

Regardless as to which of these two tours your choose, we guarantee that you will enjoy yourself on our tour. 

Receiving feedback from those who have already partaken in our tours, we have been told that this was “the best tour they’ve ever done” and “the highlight of their time in Australia”; which is so kind and humbling to hear…but frankly, we agree. How can you go wrong with a tour of Phillip Island!

Accommodation Venues: 
We can drop off as many flyers as you want so you can hand these out to your guests. It’s as easy as your guests then booking on, letting us know where they are staying, and then we’ll then let them know a time for pickup.


Individual Travellers: 

Whether you are booking for just yourself, a couple, or a small group – you are welcome on board our bus. Simply head online to our website, choose which of our two tours you’d like to do, and then we take it from there.Â