1st trip to Australia - help!
 

My husband, baby girl (1 yr old) and I are taking our first trip to Australia in November. We'll be there for 18 days. I'm thinking ~6 days in Sydney, ~1 week at Great Barrier Reef/Cairns, a few days in Melbourne, and then a few others allowing for transit between places. My questions are:

- Should we fly between Sydney, Cairns, and Melbourne or try driving? A little concerned about driving with a little one as she gets bored after a few hours. Having said that, maybe we could do day trips around Sydney - any suggestions?
- Thinking of doing a tour for our time in Great Barrier Reef - any recommendations? Must-sees in GBR?
- Have people stayed at the Sydney Harbour Marriott and have any opinions as to this hotel?

Any more info/helpful hints anyone can provide would be great. Thanks!

<b>"Should we fly between Sydney, Cairns, and Melbourne or try driving?"</b>

Absolutely, you should fly. The distances are too vast to drive without using up all your valuable sightseeing time.

<b>"Having said that, maybe we could do day trips around Sydney - any suggestions?"</b>

Blue Mountains, Taronga Zoo and maybe a ferry ride to Manly.

<b>"Thinking of doing a tour for our time in Great Barrier Reef - any recommendations? Must-sees in GBR?"</b>

You have several good choices to see the GBR. Here are two:

Quicksilver www.quicksilver-cruises.com
Wave Length www.wavelength-reef.com.au

In the Cairns area, there are tons of things to do: http://www.cairns.aust.com/
http://www.tropicalaustralia.com.au/

A trip to Kuranda is lots of fun. Be sure to take the Skyrail
http://www.skyrail.com.au/
While there, you may also want to visit Rainforreststation http://www.rainforest.com.au/ It's touristy, but you are a tourist and you'll get some great photos...so enjoy it.


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Vic's travels: http://my.flightmemory.com/vogilvie

I'll second most of Orlando Vic's comments. AU is BIG! Driving from Sydney to Cairns is like driving from Orlando to Boston ... on 2 lane roads! It's a 3 hour flight. I'd suggest you fly - you can get good online fares with Virgin Blue or Jetstar.

RE day trips around Sydney. Firstly, Sydney is a great city and I'm not sure 1 week is enough to exhaust it's sightseeing possibilities. Ferries go everywhere, the beach is fabulous, the Zoo is fabulous, etc, etc. If it's a great day and you feel a need to get away, maybe the Blue Mts.

We based in Palm Cove just north of Cairns, using it as our base to snorkle on the GBR, tour Kuranda, and tour the Daintree forest. Palm Cove is an absolutely magical village on the ocean - check it out online or in a Fodors book. Your hotel will help you book tours when you arrive.

We spent 6 nights in the Sydney Marriott on the Quay. A wonderful property - convenient to everything in Sydney - we had a great visit.

Just a thought on accommodation - with a toddler, you might appreciate the extra space, flexibility and facilities of a serviced apartment, rather than a hotel room. Costs can be comparable, particularly when you factor in the laundry & cooking facilities of an apartment.

There are some very good options in Sydney - www.wotif.com.au
will give you an idea of what's available.

http://www.wotif.com/search/Advanced...rrencyCode=AUD

Wotif may not have discount pricing available for November yet. If you see something you like, I suggest you contact the property direct because you may well get a bargain, without the same cancellation penalties.

I definitely agree with Bokhara that you should look at serviced apartments for your family. Our first trip to Australia was with our 3-y.o. and 6-month-old children and the serviced apartments were wonderful. Having a separate sleeping and living area meant we could stay up late and watch TV and not wake up the kids. Having a kitchen meant we could prepare some of our meals "at home" and save money and make mealtime a little easier on all of us. And the places with a washer/dryer were a godsend.
If I were going to be up in Far North Queensland for a week, I probably would choose someplace other than Cairns as there's no beach there. We always stay in Port Douglas (and love it) and my brother's family spent a week in Palm Cove in May and had a great time. You might want to check out those two locations.
Finally, you might want to look into daycare for your baby if you do a snorkeling tour. I don't have any recommendations for that, but others here may have some. You could get away with a 1 y.o. on a boat like Quicksilver that's huge and goes to a platform, but you definitely do not want to try it with a small boat like Wavelength (even if they don't prohibit it.) On the small boats, there's no place for the children to go and nothing for them to see/do.

We're heading to Oz for the first time in a month (very exciting!) After Sydney, we're flying to Cairns and will stay at Trinity Beach, just north of the city. After much debate and research, we'll be staying at Sea Change apartments, http://www.seachange-beachfront-apartments.com/ right across a road from the beach. They look great, and get good marks both here and on TripAdvisor.

I'v found the folks there very helpful with my questions, too.

<<I'll second most of Orlando Vic's comments. AU is BIG! Driving from Sydney to Cairns is like driving from Orlando to Boston ... on 2 lane roads!>>

Give or take another 500 miles :)

Geordie

I recently had the experience of taking a toddler to Europe so understand what's worrying you (click on my screen name for the travel report; not the Germany one but the one about travelling with a small child). My daughter doesn't like car travel but does fine on planes. You might have a different experience to us - maybe your child sleeps in the car. If it were me I'd prefer to fly between locations (huge distances would eat into your time at locations anyway) and maybe get a car for the smaller excursions (a car would be handy doing trips to the Blue Mountains or the South Coast from Sydney). Nothing is impossible if you are prepared with small amusements and food and drink to tame the weary traveller!

Lavandula

Melbourne to Sydney is about a 12 hour drive. Sydney to Cairns I think would take two-three days. I think a lot of people do not undertand the distance that needs to be travelled to get from point a to b. Most of the airlines will have good specials out but you may need to be flexible with your dates, times a little and definately not too early to start checking.

Wotif will already have their Nov prices on the website but a word of caution - check with the actual hotel as they may match or even provide a better price. Wotif you have to pay up front when you make the booking and sometimes if your plans get changed it is too hard to change.

Serviced apartments are all around Aust and becoming the preferred option for family travel. You will find hundreds to choose from.

Have fun.

If you have made the decision to fly instead of drive, there are some good airfare sales on now: http://tinyurl.com/38gkpvn

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Vic's travels: http://my.flightmemory.com/vogilvie

Thanks everyone for all the feedback! We are definitely flying (after realizing how crazy we were!). I appreciate the pointers on hotels - we're looking into possibly using some Marriott points in Sydney and/or Melbourne but if that doesn't happen the serviced apartments is a terrific idea. Many thanks!

Dunno if you still have flexibility in your schedule, but if you're going to Melbourne, I'd recommend carving time out to visit the Great Ocean Road. About a year ago, a friend and I hit all the same cities you listed, and the GOR leg of our trip was our fave. The GOR sights rivaled all the other landscape on the trip, including the GBR. 2nd fave was the Atherton Tablelands outside of Cairns. It may not be a coincidence that both legs were the ones were we rented a car -- they were our closest experiences to being in our own little Outback! The GOR has tons of wildlife on the road - your daughter might enjoy that. We even saw a baby koala in the wild.

Couldn't agree more with awlrain about GOR. It's one of the world's great scenic ocean drives. http://www.greatoceanrd.org.au/


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Vic's travels: http://my.flightmemory.com/vogilvie