lundi, mai 11, 2015
♥ Australia 2015 - Part 1
Will be typing out 4 posts for this Australia Trip 2015 :)
Part 1 - The Preparation
Part 2 - Gold Coast & Brisbane
Part 3 - Sydney
Part 4 - Melbourne
To start off, this would be my 5th time going to Melbourne, Australia. In fact, 5th consecutive year. Some might say i'm crazy, some might say it's my homeland, some might say i'm gg there to find boyfriend. Hahaha.
2011 & 2012 was to Melbourne for a school trip.
2013 was to attend the Graduation.
2014 and 2015 was solely to play. Hahaha.
Flights -
As we were going for multi cities in Australia, we were looking at 3 options: Flight, Train and Car.
However, we decided to settle for Qantas Multi-City Flights for this vacation as the total cost for flights were still cheaper than taking a train or driving from state to state. (Yup, we did check these)
In my opinion, i still believe that you get cheaper deals by booking your flights early. Perhaps this only applies for multi-city? Nah, not true. Usually the really cheap deals are still available from 3-6 months away from AD of departure. Any later, you pay more for the same choices of seats. (For my 2014 trip, my friend paid $600+ for her 2-way flight to Melb, i bought a month later and paid $900+. Booking earlier is still cheaper for sure)
We decided on the dates that we wanted to fly & just checked the price on the website. We initially wanted to leave sg on 24th April, but 25th was ANZAC day, a very important and historical day for NZ and Australians. Arriving on that day would be quite inconvenient (road block, shops not opened, etc)
Flight Summary:
The total flight tickets only cost us… $899.70 SGD! For 30 kg checked in luggage, all meals provided & 4 (later 5) flights! It could had be approx $50/pax cheaper if we booked 2 weeks earlier, not kidding..
Part 1 - The Preparation
Part 2 - Gold Coast & Brisbane
Part 3 - Sydney
Part 4 - Melbourne
To start off, this would be my 5th time going to Melbourne, Australia. In fact, 5th consecutive year. Some might say i'm crazy, some might say it's my homeland, some might say i'm gg there to find boyfriend. Hahaha.
2011 & 2012 was to Melbourne for a school trip.
2013 was to attend the Graduation.
2014 and 2015 was solely to play. Hahaha.
Flights -
As we were going for multi cities in Australia, we were looking at 3 options: Flight, Train and Car.
However, we decided to settle for Qantas Multi-City Flights for this vacation as the total cost for flights were still cheaper than taking a train or driving from state to state. (Yup, we did check these)
In my opinion, i still believe that you get cheaper deals by booking your flights early. Perhaps this only applies for multi-city? Nah, not true. Usually the really cheap deals are still available from 3-6 months away from AD of departure. Any later, you pay more for the same choices of seats. (For my 2014 trip, my friend paid $600+ for her 2-way flight to Melb, i bought a month later and paid $900+. Booking earlier is still cheaper for sure)
We decided on the dates that we wanted to fly & just checked the price on the website. We initially wanted to leave sg on 24th April, but 25th was ANZAC day, a very important and historical day for NZ and Australians. Arriving on that day would be quite inconvenient (road block, shops not opened, etc)
We booked all direct flights initially, it wasn't until a month after we booked, were there changes with our last flight (Melb - Sin)
The total flight tickets only cost us… $899.70 SGD! For 30 kg checked in luggage, all meals provided & 4 (later 5) flights! It could had be approx $50/pax cheaper if we booked 2 weeks earlier, not kidding..
Visa / Insurance -
We needed to buy visa to enter Australia, it can be purchased online on this website - http:// . Aud 20 for 1 year duration & multiple entries, take note that the clock starts ticking once you purchase the visa. My advice is that to only buy 2 weeks (or 1 week if you dare) before AD of departure.
We got insurance from UOI (cheaper than airlines' insurance, and other co's) for SGD ??.
We also signed up with MFA. It's free. (To write more details)
Accommodation -
We were staying in 4 different cities. So looking for hotels and apartments and sticking to our budget was quite troublesome. Our budget was $60/pax/night, which makes it $120/night total.
Gold Coast - 20th Apr to 24th Apr
Brisbane CBD - 24th Apr to 25th Apr
Sydney - 25th Apr to 30th Apr
Melbourne - 30th Apr to 5th May
On the day when we met to book our accommodation, we had intentions to book via agoda & expedia. However, not sure if it was a lucky or unlucky thing, agoda website was down throughout the whole day!! In turn, we decided to look at airbnb apartments instead. Citibank, OCBC banks had promo for it, might as well try them. Furthermore, had heard pretty good reviews of the website and apartments.
important.. your travel kaki & yourself need to agree on how or where you wanna stay throughout the stay.
We agreed that for Brisbane & Melbourne, we would stay in hotels. Since we were staying only for 1N in BNE, we wanted to pamper ourselves. For Melbourne, staying in hotels in the CBD is more convenient than staying in airbnb.
Thus for Gold Coast & Sydney, we looked at airbnb apartments.
9:45 PM
