I have seen a few posts asking for advice on moving companies, and I searched the forum when I was choosing one, so I thought it could be helpful for others if I shared my experiences.

On the way to New Zealand, our employer paid for our move and they used Crown. We had no issues and I would definitely recommend them. However, they are more expensive and their quote was $2000 than the other companies we contacted for our move back to Europe.

This time, we had competitive quotes from NZ Vanlines, Transworld and World.

In the end we chose NZ Vanlines because we had a good initial contact with the agent and the price was competitive. However, I regret that decision and would absolutely not recommend them.

First, our container was delayed by 3 weeks because it was delivered to the wrong port. Apparently from there we could have had our goods delivered by truck but NZ Vanlines refused to pay for it. We had to wait for the container to be transported by train. So after 66 days at sea, they tagged on another 20 days in storage.

Then we were told we would have to pay an additional 900 euros for delivery of our goods because the shipping company decided that they can't deliver to our street. They made this decision without consultation of any sort, but of course there's nothing we can do about it.

The only good thing I can say about them is that their movers in Auckland were very good and helpful. But I'm sure other companies have good movers and better customer service.