Gold Coast Itinerary and Saving Tips!

GOLD COAST ITINERARY AND SAVING TIPS

Okay, I spent quite long to plan our itinerary for our trip to Gold Coast in Feb 2009. And, at the same time, searching around for cheaper price, I wanted our trip to be fun at low cost!

Before on board :-

1. Airasia booking - we booked the tickets 8 months ahead during a promotion, it cost apprx Rm700 a person.

2. Book accommodation - a friend of mine is a member of a Vacation Club, she was kind to rent to us @ RM150 per unit per night. Santana Resort at Surfer Paradise. 

3. Pre-book a car - I spent very long time searching for a good deal. Register with http://www.hellogoldcoast.com.au and just wait, you will receive emails offers from many dealers. I finally choose Action Rent a Car - Nissan Tiara (in MY is called Latio) 2008 at AUD38/day, additional insurance optional, no extra or hidden charge at all. It's a real good deal!

4. Purchased themeparks tickets online - we chose Movieworld and Seaworld and decided to let go others (can't possibly go to all). www.myfun.com.au Escape pass (access to 2 parks in 3 days)- AUD103.50 (original price AUD63 for each park). Not only save money, but save queing time into themepark too (you will appreciate that if you go during weekends or school holidays!)

5. Book catch-a crab cruise with Tweed Endeavour Cruises. Asked them if we can get discount by using Mastercard, and their answer was yes, so I book the activity with them via email immediately, no prebooking fee required, full payment made only on board. We saved 50%! Not many people know about this promotion though :)
http://www.mastercard.com/hk/personal/en/promotions/Destination_Aus/tandc.html!

Tweed Endeavour Cruises 2 for the price of 1 on the 3-Hour Crab C
atching Cruise
Includes a whole mud crab lunch

Adult ticket price – A $92.00
Child ticket price – A $47.00




Ok, we are ready to go! below is our itinerary for your reference
1st day - Tuesday

• Arrived at 7 am. The staff from Action car rental already waiting for us in the airport
• Straight to Movieworld
• Dinner Charis Seafood (last order 6.30pm)
• 

View from Charis Seafood

2nd day - Wed

• Seaworld
• Lunch at Peter's Fish Market outside Seaworld
• Night markets - Surfer Paradise
• 
• 

3rd day - Thursday

• Morning Harbour Town Outlet Shopping
• 1.00 pm Tweed River catch-a-crab cruise with delicious whole mud-crab lunch
• Night Casino

4th day - Friday

• Glasshouse mountain, Sunshine Coast
• Wax museum

5th day - Saturday

• Morning breakfast Yatala Pie
• Mt Tamborine (quite near Movieworld) - Botanic Garden, Gallery Walk, Cedar Creek Estate winery

6th day - Sunday

• Carara market (a mistake! pls refer to my earlier post!)
• Free & easy shopping, buy souvenirs
• Back home reach air port at 6.30 pm

Tips

• Summer is raining season, if the weather forecast tell you that its gonna rain on the next day, make sure you don't go to Sunshine Coast on that day, it will rain whole day, and it may even float!
• I personally think Peter's seafood is nicer than Charis Seafood
• Wax museum was small and not cheap, about AUD23 a person. Only one figure looks real, Ghandi.
• The crew in the Tweed River cruise never seem to pull out an empty cage before, we reckon that the crew already insert the mud crabs into the cage before putting down the cage into the river (of course all done before we went on board)... we watched some shows in TV before, it's definitely NOT SO EASY to catch a crab... anyhow, it's entertaining and fun, that's enough, of course we didn't question them.
• If you are interested in the Australian Outback Spectacular shows, make sure you reserve at least 3 days in advance. We didn't and thus we missed that out, didn't expect it to be so in demand!
• Add a trip to CurrumbinWildlife Sanctuary or Paradise Country Farm or even Australian Zoo (on your way to Sunshine Coast) if you haven't seen a Koala or other kind of Australian animals before. We have seen many times as this is not our first trip to Australia, thus we decided to skip that.
• Go whale watching if you are going between May to December, this is not available in other time.

Sorry for poor quality photos .. my camera was spoilt when we arrived, how sad.

Hope the above helps! Do drop me a comment if you have any questions!