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| View from our hotel room window. |
The one good thing to come out of our
Tiger Airways fiasco
was $200 worth of vouchers to use on future flights. Though I was skeptical of
ever flying with them again, I booked a cheap weekend getaway to the Gold Coast
area in Queensland and figured if we didn’t get there for some reason, it would
be okay.
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| The crowd at the free beach concert on Saturday night. |
Amazingly, our flights went pretty smoothly, and we spent this
past Friday night through Sunday night in the Surfers Paradise area of the Gold
Coast. We didn’t have extremely warm weather, but getting away from the cold
rain of Melbourne for a weekend was a welcome change.
We stayed in the heart of Surfers Paradise at the Hotel
Grand Chancellor. It wasn’t fancy or anything, but our view was awesome, and
the location couldn’t have been better. We walked around Cavill Avenue (the
main strip) for food and entertainment and hung out on the beach across the street.
The water was pretty warm (warmer than the air!), and the sand was perfectly clean and almost white.
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| Huge hotels everywhere! |
It was a rather relaxing weekend spent napping on the beach,
surfing, doing a little shopping, listening to the live music playing for the
Surfers Paradise Festival, and trying out different restaurants. We found the
Queenslanders (especially the wait staff) to be very friendly and helpful. We
aren’t sure if this is because Surfers Paradise caters specifically to
tourists, or if Melbournians are just a bit snootier.
The crowd that visits the Gold Coast is interesting. I’ve
never seen the show, but I often felt like I was in an episode of
Jersey Shore.
It’s definitely got a party-like atmosphere, people dress in some interesting attire (especially at night), and the whole coastline is full of
towering hotels. There are some big theme parks in the area, including a water
park and Sea World. We didn’t hit up any of those, but a lot of visitors do.
The nightlife is insane. My next post will talk about that and a scary fight we
saw. To give you a preview, I’ve been calling Zack a “GCH” (Gold Coast Hero)
lately. Check back soon to find out why!
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| Zack is living the life! |
Regarding your comment about wait staff, I'm going to vote that Melbourne is a little bit snooty. It's cultural/metropolitan and not really looking to please tourists. I found the service people in Cairns to be more open and helpful compared to Melbourne (in fact, my husband and I discussed this very topic!) We decided that the sunny weather and the tourism industry gave the service people a reason to be chipper!
ReplyDeleteI could sure use some sunny weather right about now-how old is this cold rain getting?!
DeleteWe are headed up to the Gold Coast this weekend for the school holidays. We will have to see what we think about the wait staff. We are in Sydney and I've found a few places with helpful staff, but generally that is not the norm. We will not be able to check out the nightlife since our young children will be us. Judging by your report though, maybe that is not a bad thing.....
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to hearing what your family, including the other American Aubree/y, thinks of their time in the Gold Coast!
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