Heathfamily Posted May 25, 2011 Share Posted May 25, 2011 Not sure where to put this so I will try here :biggrin: We have had our visa granted this week, it needs to be validated by April 2012. We were going to wait until the house sold, freeing up the equity, before validating it/moving, however as the market is slow at the moment we are now planning on going end July 2011 for 2 weeks to validate, have a look round, and hopfully a bit of a holiday. We are going to WA in the Rockingham to Mandurah area as my wife has a job offer in Armadale. Would it be best to book a package holiday type thing that includes flights, accomadation, car hire etc or would it be better(cheaper!) to book them seperately? Any recomendations on accomadation, flights , car hire? Accomadation dosent have to be 5star was thinking along the lines of a holiday home. Car would only need to be a family size like a Mondeo/Vectra. Any links or websites would be gratefull. Sorry its a long post and if you got this far thanks for reading. :v_SPIN: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest The Ropey HOFF Posted May 25, 2011 Share Posted May 25, 2011 Hi and congratulations on getting your visa. We went to perth for a month and we loved it there, but down at Manduragh it is very quiet and we didn't see any hotels or anything, but check out the stayz site, they might have a holiday rental, you might be lucky because it is winter in WA so take some warm clothes. We booked our flights with Singapore airlines who are great and we found our own accommodation and hire car. Best of luck, we liked Manduragh. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
judyq Posted May 25, 2011 Share Posted May 25, 2011 hi, we did it all on our own after hours of trawling the net!! For accommodation,as the hoff says, stayz is really good but also google caravan parks in the area as they have nice cabins that are quite reasonable. Holiday lettings also has some good places but a little more expensive. Flight wise we ended up with a very good deal going through dial a flight. Best to call them but they are on line, can also do a good deal on car hire included !! Thrifty was cheapest when we were looking! Have a great holiday, thats where we are looking to go next year!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest The Ropey HOFF Posted May 25, 2011 Share Posted May 25, 2011 Just a word of warning for everyone going on a reccie who is hiring a car ............ we paid and extra £150 to reduce the excess from $3,500 to $300 we couldn't foil paying that sort of money out if we had, had a little bump. Always check what the excess is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heathfamily Posted May 28, 2011 Author Share Posted May 28, 2011 Well flights are booked!!! Wife went to local travel agents and they got us on Cathay Pacific with a 2 hr stop in Hong Kong after an hour of trying to get something to fit into our dates as I have fixed holidays at work. We will be going for 10 days at the end of July, I know its not long but we need to activate our visa and dont want to risk waiting for the house to sell as we need to activate by April 2012. Have also booked a car with travel agent so just need to sort accomadation. Cant belive we are going in 8 weeks!!!! We are all so excited!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heathfamily Posted May 28, 2011 Author Share Posted May 28, 2011 Is there anywhere I can get a good road map for the Rockingham/ Safety Bay/South Perth area? I dont like/trust satnavs and dont think you can beat a good map book. If all else fails I will print off pages off Google maps :biggrin: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest cazbeckham Posted May 28, 2011 Share Posted May 28, 2011 Sat Navs are best. We have one in our Toyota Prado but when one of our visitors was here they hired a car and paid an extra $20 for sat nav. Much better than trying to read our maps here. Realy don't think the maps are much good here and we have tried a few. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cal2 Posted May 28, 2011 Share Posted May 28, 2011 thanks for the helpful advice on here we're coming out for a reccie in August Sydney area Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heathfamily Posted May 29, 2011 Author Share Posted May 29, 2011 Accomadation now booked!! All booked in 3 days to go in 8 weeks!!! Still cant believe we are going in 8 weeks time, we are all so excited. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
busa13r Posted June 6, 2011 Share Posted June 6, 2011 Hi Heathfamily, Congrats on the visa! We are validating on the 24th June for 3 weeks. Ropey Hoff is quite right about the excess. We have booked a full size car with Carhire3000 and will be paying the extra £150 to reduce $3300 to zero - well worth it as the missus wants to drive as well :eek: ha ha. We will be in Mandurah till the 3rd July and Ocean Reef till the 16th. I know you have booked the accommadation but as its winter we were able to get further reductions on houses through holiday lettings. Have a great time :biggrin: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
S92LAME Posted June 7, 2011 Share Posted June 7, 2011 car hire in Aus for me, was rediculously cheap! untill i got there! i hired a Commodore SV6 for 4 days and it was an awsome car for just the 2 of us! loads of power and really roomy. cost $260, plus $30 something for the sat nav. no word about the excess thoughn untill i got to the office and it was $2800! so i had to pay another $28 per day to bring it down to a reasonable level. and after seeing the crazy driving in Sydney there was no way i was going with out it!! on the up side, the sat nav was excellent, easy to use and got us round sydney no problem and then Canberra and back. much easier to follow than the one i got driving round California the last time i was there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heathfamily Posted June 7, 2011 Author Share Posted June 7, 2011 Thanks for the tips on the excess, I think we have paid for the top insurance which includes an excess waiver but I will check the paperwork. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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