Sunday, March 15, 2015

My Big Aussie Holiday

I recently came back from a 2 week Aussie trip. I have been planning this trip for almost a year. It all started when hubby said he wanted to go for Australia for 2015 World Cup. We managed to get the tickets for India-SA at Melbourne and India-Pakistan at Adelaide. We were initially to do this trip with friends, but due to various changes, we did it with MIL and neighbour.

Australia is huge and we wanted to do just a 2 week holiday. The number of places to visit at Australia are too many but we had less time. I certainly didn't want to go about visiting all the places, without really exploring it. The main places that I wanted to visit was Adelaide (because of the match), Sydney, Melbourne, Gold Coast, Brisbane and Great Barrier Reef. With a toddler, I knew it would be difficult to do the activities at Gold Coast and Great Barrier Reef. 

My travel agent, then told me about Tasmania. After reading about it, I felt I had to visit the place. I then narrowed down my list to Adelaide, Tasmania and Melbourne. Everyone were surprised that I left Sydney and Gold Coast. I just thought this itinerary would do justice to the number of days that I had. I roughly saw the places of interest in each place and I had calculated 3 nights at Adelaide, 5 nights at Tasmania and 5 nights at Melbourne. I then saw a deal on makemytrip for Adelaide hotel and I got an extra night free for the same price. So I was finally doing 4 nights at Adelaide, 5 nights at Tasmania and 5 nights at Melbourne.

Around August, we wanted to start booking our flight ticket. Malaysian Airline had put up a sale, with each ticket costing us Rs. 45,000 return. Now that was super cheap, when compared to Singapore Airline that I was getting at Rs. 65,000 return. By this time, we had decided to leave the little one with my parents. I was not confident about my decision, but I thought it would be better for the little one, considering the amount of travelling to do. And I really didn't book his ticket as well!!! 

Around last week of October, I booked my internal flight from Adelaide to Hobart in Qantas Airline. The ticket was charged Rs. 12,500 per person. Around the same time, I booked my flight from Launceston to Melbourne in Virgin Australia Airline. The ticket was Rs. 4500 per person. After a month passed, my son tells me that he will not stay with my parents and he would also travel with us. I called each airline and booked his ticket as well. Luckily for internal flight, it was almost the same price. But his ticket at Malaysian Airline costed Rs. 62,000 return. Now for a child, that was super expensive!! I was almost paying what I was paying for myself with internal flights!!

The next post will have details of all my bookings and what I did at Adelaide.

No comments:

Post a Comment