Brisbane/ Gold coast

Brisbane / GoldCoast (Episode 2 of our Ozzie trip)  This is the equivalent of the LA / Vegas circuit in the US. Lots of beaches, amusement parks, water activity.. generally lots of entertainment stuff. We visited the amusement parks mainly.. Movie world and Seaworld. If you've been to the ones in the US.. there's not much you'll gain here. But the kids will have fun for sure.  Next: Cairns (The great barrier reef)

From Australia-Sep-2008

The land of Koalas & the 'Roos

Planning

So, we decided to go meet the Mayteys down under. Mindful of the overhead of managing our 5 yr old monkey, we decided to take a guided tour approach.
Kesari seemed to have the best user feedback on the web ( mouthshut.com )
The 'Australian Escape' from Kesari was what we wanted. They were priced the highest, but we later learned that Kesari prices had several extra benefits.

• The prices were all inclusive
• No extras for paying the bus drivers, porters, guide, etc.
• Breakfast, lunch & dinner are paid for. They also arranged for Indian food at almost every place we went.
• Even at the Mumbai airport, they gave us a food satchet with lots of snacks. They included a Tel Poli, Chaklis, Mixture, Dink Ladoo, chocolates, etc.

Some negatives( there always are)

The Bangalore office was less knowledgeable/helpful than the Mumbai office (compared to the experiences of fellow travellers).

We were mis-informed about stuff like clothes to take, despite us asking several times. I was forced to look up the web for better connections between Bangalore/Mumbai and prod Kesari to make them book us a decent connection. They told us the flights out of Bangalore to Sydney had LOONG layovers, which again was not true. The Itinerary The whole trip over 12 days was split amongst 4 main areas Melbourne Gold coast Cairns Sydney & Canberra

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