We are going to Australia! Part 2

pomegranate_planet
Jul 26, 2019
4 min read

Updated: Jul 31, 2019

Hotel vs Self-Serviced Accommodation.

There are two cities on our tour in Australia - Brisbane (B) and Gold Coast (GC).

We chose B as arrival and departure city, as flights to GC were a bit pricier. Hence we stayed at B two days at the beginning of our trip and one day at the end, and seven days were dedicated to GC.

Brisbane (W Hotel) Gold Coast (Private Villa)

Overview

Would we swap the amount of days we were in those cities if we could? Yes we would. It was great to realise how different those two cities were and for someone who would want to move to Queensland it should be an easy choice!

Not because one is better than other, but simply because lifestyle of Brisbane (Museums, Art Galleries, Waterfront, sky scrappers) attracted us way more. When Gold Coast is all about lifestyle on the shore (beaches, surfing, theme parks and restaurants with the sea view).

Accommodation

It's been proven by ourselves to ourselves that the earlier you book the place to stay, the price of it will be more attractive than even a week later, and of coarse the choice of accommodation for your dates is bigger.

We've decided to choose different types of accommodation, as we wanted to experience what it would be like to be a tourist and to live in Australia as a resident (grocery shopping, cooking, etc).

So the choice was made: in Brisbane we stayed at W Hotel (shorter stay), and in GC we've rented a private villa (for a longer stay)

Price wise both types of accommodation were similar to each other. So it really is about the comfort of "your own home" or the comfort of "everything is taken care of" vacation.

Sounds unbelievable, but in the hotel there was more personal touch, than in rented villa.

Staying in the HOTEL

There is always a standard to expect when staying in the hotel. Usually without surprises you know what you are paying for.

Arash chose this hotel and the only surprise for us was there is how great facilities and the whole stay actually were!

1. 24-hr service is handy (even if usually we don't need it, but it's great to know someone is always there to help).

2. Parking can be an issue if you hired a car and staying in a hotel, but normally hotel's would provide an option for extra fee, which we happily used.

3. You get what you payed for. Including interior, facilities and services.

4. Breakfast (meals) always at your service either in one oh the hotel restaurants or you can order it to your room without literally getting out of bed.

5. You don't need to take care of cleaning anything after yourself, magical cleaners arrive when you are not in and make it look like nothing ever happened.

6. Laundry - again someone will take care of it (for little extra price of course)

Staying in SELF-SERVICED place

You get to have breakfast, lunch and dinner the time you want and whatever you want, rather than what’s on the menu. You have a fat giant option to cook it yourself! For many people on the holiday, it sounds like a nightmare, but not to me haha I LOVE cooking!

There is also an option for lazy days when you can still go eat out. For example, every morning we went to Pacific Fair Shopping Mall to get coffee, which was incredibly yummy and pretty good priced. Large Cappuccino is only $5 (it’s great compared to Auckland)

1. You are your own boss/host/service. Some of us do like to have everything under self-control, what can be better than self-serviced accommodation then?

2. You can easily find free parking, either on the side of the road or like we had an open garage on house premises.

3. You might not get what you've paid for (interior photographs on the website had different furniture, to what we arrived to, which looked more like a museum rather than home)

4. We cooked breakfasts and some dinners, reheated or cooked more any time we wanted. And when we didn't feel like cooking we were dining out.

5. Taking care of all the cleaning, washing dishes, etc, isn't fun, when you are on vacation. Plus at self-serviced placed you'll cave to clean up after you leave the place - and you would't want to do that either...

6. Laundry business is al yours, wash whatever you want as many times as you want without extra fees (just make sure there is washing machine and washing powder at your disposal)

Conclusion

As a couple, we'd choose to stay in a hotel for the whole trip next time (we might change two or three depending on a duration of stay and budget). This time in villa we were lacking that special holiday vibe you'll get in a hotel. Maybe we are still too young to get very quiet relaxing holiday, thats why instead of enjoying villa for 7 days - we were running around theme parks, local attractions and socialising with anyone we meet our way :)