Cairns on FF points

[andye]

My lot are teen or tween - looking at a 3 bed apartment for around $1500 / 5 nights...

The Coconut resort is certainly not hotel accommodation but would come in well below that. Great activities-tweens would love, teens too if they are playful puppies rather than quiet brooders.
Its a bit of a way out of town. If you are planning to spend all your time on the reef, the activities are obviously less important

We also stayed one night at Holiday Inn-again not in the middle of town but great service and wehen we were there kids had free brekkie (cant remember if evening meal was frer too or just discounted). Ended up with 5 breakfasts for $4 above the room rate

 

[andye]

What's the "taxes", co-payment like with etihad?

$58 return a few months ago

 

[MikeG]

Both AA and Etihad had just about zero availability of reward flights. AA had business class seats (2) - not helpful with 4 of us flying...

So I ended up flying up with JetStar - cash tickets, which was the cheapest fare, and we can use the QANTAS lounge with AA Platinum. Flying back with Tiger which I paid partially for with Velocity points (from AA and Commonwealth Rewards points transferred)... Not free but not that expensive... AGain the cheapest fare. The great thing is they are the fastest flights too Syd-Cns at between 2 and 3 hours.

The rental car is a freebie from my Europe trip last year (Europcar gives a free weekend after so many hires, and a weekend turned out to be the first three days). Will probably taxi or Uber back to the airport after that, or just extended it.

Accommodation booked is one of the holiday apartment complexes that sound from the reviews like it's not too offensive, but it's not exactly resort accommodation - which is fine as long as it has a pool and a big screen TV.

Parking at Sydney Airport for 5 days is cheaper than flights for 4 or us connecting to Canberra or even rental car to/from. So thats a no brainer ($100-130).

So far so good. Now to book the cruise...

Happy Wife = Happy Life.

 

[MikeG]

Just a quick thankyou to everyone who helped me out on this thread. We just got back from the holiday, seeing Michelmas Kay was the highlight of the trip, along with swimming in the waterholes of Mossman Gorge in the Daintree Rainforest and riding on the skyrail with the kids. Brilliant.

I also have to take a lessons learned with using budget airlines. The flight up was cancelled costing us a day of our holiday, (same day replacement airfares would have cost us $4000+) and flying Tiger home although without incident was a tad uncomfortable. Oh, and I was wrong about the lounge access. Bugger!

Again, thanks everyone, your advice was highly appreciated.

M

 

[Deleted member 29185]

Just a quick thankyou to everyone who helped me out on this thread. We just got back from the holiday, seeing Michelmas Kay was the highlight of the trip, along with swimming in the waterholes of Mossman Gorge in the Daintree Rainforest and riding on the skyrail with the kids. Brilliant.

I also have to take a lessons learned with using budget airlines. The flight up was cancelled costing us a day of our holiday, (same day replacement airfares would have cost us $4000+) and flying Tiger home although without incident was a tad uncomfortable. Oh, and I was wrong about the lounge access. Bugger!

Again, thanks everyone, your advice was highly appreciated.

M

Shame about the deathstar experience however great to hear you all had a wonderful time. I think Michelmas Cay is a great snorkel spot but right now I'm trying to book some snorkel trips in PNG, that sound like they'll put Michelmas to shame! Time will tell.