Hi there - interested to read your review. We are booked at the Meriton Pitt for 5 nights, in a 1 bed aprtment, so it was good to have a current good report. Sounds like there was no problem with leaving bags until later in the day takeover. Did you have a lot of trouble with the lifts ? sounds like they can be a problem. Did you have to pay a bond on the apartment. Any other info would be appreciated. How did you get to apartment from Airport ?

Many thanks.

They have a room where you can leave your luggage. So no problem at all leaving the luggage. By the way, when you drop your luggage, do remind them for higher floor room with view so that you have excellent view.

Also they have a luggage cart (same as used by bell desk folks). We used that one to carry all our luggage into the room and then dropped it back.

There are three lifts and busy all the time. Yes you might need to wait a bit but lifts work - no issue.

No bond for apartment.

We were 3 adults and 2 kids so we had to take a maxi cab from airport to Hotel. It costed about $50.

Once you come out of hotel from reception, on right there is 7/11 and on digonally opposite corner of apartment is woolsworth - which is cheaper.

Do check out QVB right in front of Woolsworth as a hang-out/shopping place.

Hi Angel,

On the 3rd day to blue mountains, did you self-drive? Is it only a day trip? I'm asking this because I wanted to visit as a day trip but we are not driving.

We went to blue mountain by train. We took a train from Town hall station (near Mariton aprt) to central and then central to Blue Mountain.

We bought a combined ticket (on the same day) at town hall station which included return rail fare and hop on/hop off bus in Blue mountain. If I remember right it was around $40 per person. There might be discount coupon you may find.

If you are interested in Featherdale, it's on the way (you get down at blacktown and take bus). Their listed entry price is about $20 pp. I remember seeing 25% coupon in book we picked up from airport. I'm not sure if return rail ticket above allows one hop of blacktown in between or you need to pay extra.

So do the math and do check out flyers in mariton pitt. There are lot of tour operators which do blue mountains + Sydney olympic site + Featherdale Wildlife park. I remember seeing one operator $80 pp. Calling them directly may give you 10% discount too. We didn't do it as there was no space at last moment.

By the way, tour operators still go even if weather is misty. Make sure you check weather yourself whether you go by yourself or with tour operators. Our day was almost a wash due to misty weather.. so highly recommended to check weather.

I forgot to answer.. yes it's a day trip.

Also these Blue mountain tours by tour operators return via a ferry. So you can decide if you want to do all that or just blue mountain and spend time there. Or with some extra money you want to do all with convinience.

Looking forward to reading to all your reviews as we are going to Aus in 14 days and visiting Sydney, Aires Rock, and Cairns (stopping off point for green valley resort) and i have a couple of questions for you.

How long were you there and was it long enough, too long or just the right ammount of time.

Was all the traveling from place to place too much or did you take it all in your stride, i only ask because we are only in Australia for 2 weeks (all i can take off work at one time) but we are spending a lot of time transfering from place to place but we want to see as much as we can.

Any advice or tips will be greatly appriciated.

Cheers,

Nick.

Hi Nick

There are always lot of things to do every place. We also went for just 2 weeks and decided to do unique stuff. We are very satisfied with our trip. Please read day-by-day in respective forums. For example, we didn't climb syndney tower - every big city has one. We didn't do zoo or aborginal cultural stuff every place etc.

Something we found unique:

o Sydney Opera House and actual performance

o Bridge climb (we didn't do it) - at least pylon lookout

o Native animals

o We liked Sydney Aquirium which has lots of sharks

4) In Cairns, Aborginal cultural center (Tjapukai)

5) Hartley Crocodile's adventure park

6) Snorkling/Diving in Great Barrier Reef

7) We wanted to do rain forest canope where you go through rainforest sliding on ropes. We didn't have time.

7) Ayers rock was spectacular - don;t miss sunrise/sunset.

8) In melbourne, Penguine Parade, GAOL, Melbourne Cricket ground, edge in eureka tower (not that exciting though).

Yes it was too much of flying in 15 days but we were able to manage it. We had all days pretty much pre-planned so we didn't waste time anywhere. We did do various guided day bus tours in between to save time etc (please check my posts).

Did you ever post info about Ayers Rock and Melbourne? Would love to read it! Thanks!

Hey Rosenbeans,

Angel did post a Melbourne and Uluru thread.

The links are too long to post in this thread (I tried, unsuccessfully).

But if you just click on the Angel_ca link at the top of the post, it will list all of his/her posts. Then just click on the one for Melbourne, and the one for Uluru.

Joe