A trip to Canberra

Hmm... a few months back, I received an email in regards to the new Wiggles concerts!! Seeing as our son loves the Wiggles, we thought we'd try and book some tickets - as close to the front as possible. Unfortuantely I missed the presale tickets by 1 day, and logged in the next day 1 hour after the public tickets went on sale. I searched all the shows in Melbourne and Adelaide, and all they had were seats way up the back. So I thought I'd check out Canberra, low and behold they had seats available almost in the "hot potato" section! :-) So we bought them!

Then we tossed up do we drive all the way...all 14 hours with a 3 year old? Or do we drive to Melbourne then fly from there to Canberra?? Drive and fly won! So our tickets have been bought to frly from Melbourne to Canberra.

Next dilema is accommodation.... where to stay? This is something I take rather seriously... especially as it will be for 5 whole nights...an awfully long time if you're staying somewhere noisy, uncomfortable, cramped, dirty, and not child-friendly!! So I reckon I have read all available reviews on Tripadvisor for pretty much every 4 star and above hotel, motel and apartments in Canberra...

I finally made a short list of the following: Crowne Plaza (Pros: 2 queen beds, free breakfast, free kids meals, Cons: charge for parking). Diplomat (Pros: 2 queens, free parking). Mantra on Northbourne (Pros: 1 bedroom apartment, kitchen, laundry, Cons: Only 1 bed, plus a fold out sofa, charge for parking + limited parking). The York (Pros: 1 bedroom deluxe apartment, kitchen, bath, free parking, Cons: fold out sofa, extra charge for sofa). Medina Executive James Court (Pros: 2 bedroom apartment, kitchen, laundry, Cons: limited parking).

In my list I had marked the Medina and Diplomat 3 ticks, Crowne and The York 2 ticks, DP had a look at the websites online and his vote was with The York.  After some variations in pricing on different websites, we requested more competitive pricing, which they were happy to offer on the 1 bedroom apartment, but not hte 2 bedroom. Despite this, we have decided to book a 2 bedroom apartment at The York Hotel in Canberra... stay tuned for a hotel review in early December :-)