Gold Coast Holiday

I have never been to Queensland before and had wanted to go since last year. When my friend Keiran alerted me to ultra cheap Tiger Airways tickets, I was definitely going to go. I was going to try and find other people who wanted to go. When Keiran asked if I wanted to go with him, I said for sure. So we bought our $9.95 (taxes included) each way tickets and went to the Gold Coast for a quick 3 day weekend trip.

Firstly, I have to say that we didn't have too many problems with our Tiger Airways flight. We did have to go out to a tin shed both at Melbourne and Gold Coast airport to catch our flights. And there was a one hour delay on our flight back from Gold Coast. But otherwise, it was all smooth. The plane was fine, check in went fine, no luggage was lost and the ride very smooth.

So having never been to the Gold Coast, of course I had to visit the theme parks as well as the famouses beaches. This pretty much took up the whole three days. We stayed at the Neptune hotel in Broadbeach. This was a great choice by Keiran. The hotel only cost us about $55 each per night. It was a fully furnished apartment with a fully stocked kitchen, a bathroom with spa bath, flat screen lcd tv with cable, fully air conditioned, pool and gym downstairs, and a great view from the balcony. Here was the view outside at night. The night times were perfect, cool without being cold.


Our first theme park was Movieworld. I totally loved Movieworld. The rides were all really thrilling and what I like. My favourite ride was the Lethal Weapon ride where your feet are dangling on the roller coaster and you do some awesome 360 loops around. The Superman ride wasn't bad too, with forces of up to 4Gs.

Here is Keiran and I at the Western section of Movieworld.


The best looking ride was this Mountain Ride, with flowing water and a huge drop where you get soaked.


The Police Academy Show was truly spectacular. There were so many stunts and the way they could drive the assortment of cars, motorcyles around in such a tight spot and not crash.


Seaworld was a totally different vibe. It wasn't as hectic and we went around slowly looking at everything. The acquarium, dugong habitat, polar bear habitat, shark habitat etc was all great. But nothing could beat the dolphin show. People were oohing and ahhing at the amazing things the dolphins could do. The dolphin show was thoroughly entertaining, with a touch of cheesiness. They tried to make it this whole mystical thing that didn't really work for me. The dolphins are the stars and they didn't really need to add this story to it.


The waterski show was fun too, with lots of tricks and a few stacks. The rides at Seaworld were quite lame in terms of excitement. It's more for little kids. Even their roller coaster that went 360 was very tame for me.


In terms of food, I found that things were quite expensive. I guess it is a tourist destination and they will rip you off. I didn't really eat anything good the whole trip. It was adequate at best. Food court food was always way overpriced compared to Melbourne. The quality wasn't great either.

Probably the best meal we had the whole time was the bacon and eggs I made myself.


A Tom Yum I had for lunch wasn't what I was used to here in Melbourne. It was also really expensive at $14.


Oysters at a restaurant were totally ruined by this horrific sauce they put on it. On the menu they had Oysters with Chilli and Lime. I'm thinking, fantastic, the oysters will have a tangy Thai type sauce on them. Instead, I get oysters drenched in sweet chilli sauce and this weird grey coloured sauce that I can only assume is some lime sauce.


The Steak was ok. They cooked it more or less how I asked. It was eatable but lacked flavour in the actual steak. There was also heaps of chewy bits that I couldn't chew through at all. This was a bit strange for a scotch fillet as usually those cuts don't have much chewy bits.


A buffet dinner we had at Jupiters Casino was totally forgettable. There was not one item they did well. Everything tasted so strange and even simple things like a roast beef was done so poorly.

So in terms of food, I don't think the Gold Coast is good for that. Things are passable at best, and awful at worse. But otherwise, the trip was so much fun and really good value.