Golden Memories of Gold Coast. Review on The Gold Coast

Vacationing in Gold Coast was a Golden experience and the memories will remain etched in our minds forever.

Gold Coast is famous for it’s beautiful beaches, water sports and theme parks. There are a number of towns along the beach and each has it’s own charm. We stayed at Coolangutta. The Gold Coast airport is located about 4 kilometres away. Surfer's Paradise is the most lively town in this area and is a 30-40 minute drive from Coolangutta.

The first thing we did when we got there, was to hire a car. Driving is cakewalk in Australia but one has to be very disciplined with speed limits. There are a number of car rental agencies in the Coolangutta airport itself and we hired a car for the entire 6 days that we stayed there. It was a smart decision considering that all the parks were atleast 45 minutes away and taxis are terribly expensive and public transport was not very convenient. Also, our hotel offered free parking to guests, which is not the case in cities like Sydney. We actually saved a good amount of money by directly driving to Brisbane International Airport from our hotel and dropping off the car in the airport. Many car agencies like Hertz and Avis offer the option of Dropping off cars to a different location.

We stayed at RCI Affiliated - Calypso Plaza Resort .It was a well furnished one bedroom apartment with a balcony that had beautiful view of the Coolangutta beach and the ocean beyond. The unit had everything we needed including a washer and dryer, which was a blessing considering that we had tons of sandy clothes to clean everyday. The swimming pool was like a lagoon and had water slides. My daughter thoroughly enjoyed sliding down into the water. There were many children around and the atmosphere was perfect for families. The resort also had a gym and an outdoor Jacuzzi. There were a number of shopping and eating places just outside the hotel , including an Indian restaurant.

We visited 2 of the theme parks run by Warner Brothers, Movie world and Sea world. Movie world had great rides and we actually sat in all of them. We were fortunate that the crowd was just right to make it fun without having to wait too long in queues. The highlight of Sea world was it’s numerous animal shows and each of them was amazing.

My husband, who is crazy about adventure sports, did skydiving. That was an exhilarating experience for him .He was taken in a small 2 seater plane and made to jump off from a height of 10,000 feet with an instructor. He also tried his hand at Jet skiing and my daughter and I did parasailing.

The beaches are beautiful and perfect for surfing. There are several lifeguard-protected beaches including the Coolangutta beach.

Shopping was great at Harbour Town, very reasonable outlet shopping and a huge choice too. Pacific fair was one more shopping area with over 800 shops.

All in all, we loved every minute of our holiday.