Shoal Bay - August 2009

For my sister’s birthday last year, my mum and I took her for a weekend in Shoal Bay. It was August, so it was cold, so we knew we wouldn’t be spending much time by the beach. So we weren’t too fussed with our location, knowing that we’d have a car and could pretty much get anywhere.

We stumbled on the Shoal Bay Beach Club Apartments, found that they were reasonably priced, could fit us comfortably and not in a bad location. We arrived quite late, and had to buzz to be let in; we were met by the owner who cheerfully checked us in, even though we possibly woke him. He ran through a few things with the hotel, and gave us our room keys.

Our room was two bedrooms, with a full kitchen, large lounge/dining room, and a narrow, but long balcony. We were pleasantly surprised with how modern and clean everything was. If I hadn’t known better I probably would have assumed that it was only recently built.

Don't mind the date on these photos, I couldn't be bothered setting it when I replaced the batteries.

We hit they hay in preparation for a long day full of pampering, shopping and eating.

We woke up bright and early in the morning, and headed into town to have breakfast at the Sandyfoot Cafe. I knew my limits and only had a small meal, while my sister and mum tucked in – and of course couldn’t finish their meals. It was a good breakfast though.

Next we headed over to Nelsons Bay for a little bit of shopping. I tried the fairy Floss ice cream from Baskin and Robins, it was awesome, so I bought a take home tub of it. We shopped around for a bit, but didn’t really find anything.

We dropped back to the hotel to store my ice cream and then headed over to Salamander Bay; we all had appointments booked in at the Body & Soul Day Spa. We got there a little early so we stopped in at the Salamander Bay Shopping Centre for some lunch. We just grabbed some quick counter service meals from the food court, nothing special, but filling enough. I think I had Chinese.

There was some pretty good shopping here, nothing out of this World, but we all bought a little something we couldn’t pass up.

There was also a little shop – out of the shopping centre – that we thought was great. It was called Bay Living, it had beautiful stuff, and at great prices. Mum picked up a beautiful cupboard with a mirror in the back of it, very nice. It was half price or something too, so it was a bargain! Unfortunately it was huge, and we’d walked quite a way from the car. We managed to find a trolley though, and half balanced it on top, and struggled our way back to the car.

By this time it was Day Spa time!!

Mum and I were both booked in for the “Anti Ageing Stress Buster” which is a 120 minute treatment which included an Oxygen Therapy Facial, followed by a 30 minute Swedish Massage, Scalp Massage and finished with a relaxing Foot Massage. I also had an eyelash tint done.

The girls here were great! I was so relaxed the whole time, the girls were very professional and while they give you a list of recommended items for you to purchase, they definitely don’t push or pressure you. They also give you some complimentary tea while you’re waiting.

I didn’t buy any of the recommended items, but I did buy some mineral foundation. Personally I probably wouldn’t get the Oxy-Facial again; it just didn’t have that much effect on my skin.

Mum however looked great. It really plumped out her skin.

We headed back to our hotel for the afternoon, and spent a bit of time in the gym.

That night we had a reservation at the Rock Lobster (yes like the song, but not related!). It’s a lovely seafood restaurant in Nelsons Bay. They must have changed the menu since we were there, because for a starter I had prosciutto wrapped lobster, and my main was a chicken dish and I can’t find either on there.

The lobster was amazing! There was some sort of sauce drizzled over it, and the three flavours of the lobster, prosciutto and this sauce were beautiful! A perfect mix. I also really enjoyed the chicken dish, however I will admit I should have asked for the lobster to be served as a main, as it was really that good.

I also had chocolate soufflé for dessert, and it was outrageously good! Have you ever had a glass of Milo (chocolate milk for those not in the know) where you’ve got mainly Milo and maybe a couple of drops of milk to moisten it up? And it’s like this rich, chocolatey goo? Well that’s what this was like, plus it was warm, and had strawberries and cream on the side. I ended up cutting the strawberries up into little pieces and mixing the whole lot in together. Awesome, just awesome.

The soufflé is still on the menu. I highly recommend it.

The service here always seems warm and friendly, and another bonus for it is that it is Celiac friendly. This is a restaurant that we will continue to return to, every time we’re in the area.
We headed back to the hotel feeling uncomfortably full.

The following morning we headed back to Nelson’s Bay for breakfast. I can’t find the name of the cafe, but it’s in the same complex as Rock Lobster, and seemed extremely popular. Most tables had people sitting at them, and the wait staff seemed run off their feet.

I’m not really a breakfast fan, but the food here was good. The service was slow, but that could have been due to the amount of people there. I got a milkshake when we ordered our meals, and I could have finished it three times over before the food got there. I ordered another one when the food got there, and I’d finished eating before it came back. I hate that, I need to have a drink with my meal, and never managed to do that while here...

We also managed to get in a brief stint of whale watching. *giggle*

After that we said goodbye to Shoal Bay and started the trip home.

Extra photos of our trip.

This really is a beautiful part of the world.

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Posted in: beach club apartments,body and soul,holiday,nelsons bay,shoal bay,weekend getaway

Monday 10th March. Last day!!!

No photos today, just a heck of a lot of writing...

Once again we woke up today bright and early. Most of our stuff had been packed the previous night, so we finished off packing and checked out of the hotel. They stored our stuff for us for the day as well.

Today wasn’t going to be a full day, because unfortunately we were flying home... It was a late flight, but we wanted to make sure we had enough time for everything.

First we went into DTD to pick up a few more souveneirs, then we caught the monorail into DL.

I’d brought my Mickey ears with me to get embroidered today, and I took them into the embroidery place to get them done. There were a few people lined up to purchase their ears, but there was only the CM at the embroidery counter, so I walked in through the door and up to her, and asked if I could get my name on my hat.

She got the name off me – I wanted Bec, and said “no problem. Where’s your receipt?” And I said “ahh, packed in a suitcase” ...? This is when she proceeded to tell me that they couldn’t embroider the ears without a receipt. I asked “Well how about I buy another set and you use that receipt to embroider the ears?” I had a plain set of ears, but I wasn’t against buying a fancy set too, that way I could have a personalised one, and a pretty one... But no go, they wouldn’t do that either. The CM called the manager over and he just said the same thing. He asked me when I bought them and I told him, 2 days ago at the World of Disney store. He asked where the receipt was and I said, buried in amongst one of 3 suitcases. I’m not sure which, and they’re stored in the hotel... It was at this stage that I was getting very disappointed, and worried, I was starting to think that they were going to take my ears off me because I didn’t have a receipt. So I said “Whatever!” and stormed off. They were not going to take my ears off me! I was pretty pissed that they were treating me like I stole them too! Well, they may not have really thought that, but it was starting to feel that way.

So now I was grumpy... hehe – not the dwarf, but you know what I mean. Luckily, Chris had spotted that there was another embroidery place right next door. So we headed in there to try again. Now in here was a lovely CM. I explained my problem to him, and put on big puppy dog eyes, and I may have even started quivering my lip... But hey, what it comes down to, is that he did it for me! Sure I had to pay to get it done, but I got to choose the font and the colour. I stuck as close to the free one as I could anyway, but I felt good knowing that I had the choice. He told me that it would be ready at 12pm. Great.

So I spent time wandering the shops, and then decided that I hadn’t really gotten my sister anything, and the first thing to spring to mind for her was one of the painted parasols with her name on it. So I went and ordered and paid for one of those. It would be ready by 2pm... Not so great, but manageable...

You see, while our suitcases were already packed, they were most likely extremely over weight. Plus, we’d just bought a heap more stuff. So we knew that we had to head to Target before heading to the airport to buy another suitcase. It had been the plan all holiday, but we’d never made it to Target. So we had to fit that into our time.

We hung around until 12, and I picked up my ears. Then we decided we’d head to Target, get what we needed, and then come back into the park for the other stuff.

We got the same taxi driver to Target as we had the other day. So, we had some more laughs, at unknown subjects. Seriously – couldn’t understand half the things he was saying!

First we headed to the suitcase section of Target and picked out a bag. Then we decided to stroll around and see if there was anything else there that we could want. We ended up picking up some noise cancelling headphones. I was dying for something like this on all of our other flights, so it was good to know that we finally had some.

We grabbed a couple of drinks and headed back out to catch a taxi back to DL. We ended up catching a bus. Stupid taxis... But that was fine.

We got back and by now it was after 2pm. Chris went and collected our bags, while I headed into DL to pick up the parasol. It was pretty sad knowing that this was the last time I’d be here for ages, and I didn’t have time to do anything... So I walked slowly anyway. I really had to because it had gotten so busy!

I picked up the parasol and it was beautiful. I wish I gotten myself one now, and I started the slow journey back to the gates. It wasn’t very nice... But at this stage, I still had no voice whatsoever, I was coughing constantly and I’d given up on my new contact lenses, because I didn’t think they were right. It was time to go home.

We waited for the bus for ages. I could have sworn that the time table said it picked up and dropped off every half hour, but no, apparently it drops you off a DL every half hour, but only picks up every hour...

We finally got to the air port and the check in and everything went fine. It was only once we went past security though, that we found out our flight had been delayed. It wasn’t going to be flying out until 12am... It was only 6pm... So we got some dinner and then wandered through the shops. I wasn’t as impressed as I’d hoped I’d be with the duty free, but it annoyed me more that the only time I was offered help by anyone who worked there was in a small little store that I only looked in because I’d looked in all the others. I probably could have spent a fortune in the cosmetic shops...

We ended up sprawled out on a few chairs waiting for our plane. It was then that I discovered we’d put our headphones into our checked luggage... D’oh!

So we sat, and waited, and waited and sat... We played games on Chris’ phone, and waited and sat... Then an announcement came over. Our flight was further delayed until 1am... Sigh...

I decided I'd go back and buy one of those neck rest thingies for the flight and I wanted a hot chocolate. So I headed back towards the shops. To discover that they’d all closed!! Fair enough, it was 12am. I’m sure the poor people wanted to go home, but I honestly thought, that in large international air ports, with flights coming and going at all times, that these shops would be open 24 hours... I was wrong, and very annoyed...

Once again, back to the chairs... Getting very tired. As I’d found out during the last few weeks. When I got tired my cough would start up, and get really bad. Tonight was no exception. I was sick of cough lollies – or cough drops, whatever you call them - that didn’t work, and I was sick of cough medicine – not that I had any on me, but it hadn't worked all week anyway. But still, I kept on sucking on my cough lollies hoping that they would change their minds, and start doing something, but no they didn’t and my cough just got worse...

After all this though, the thing that really pi**ed me off the most during my entire holiday, was when some bloke – probably doing it out of the kindness of his heart – gave me another pack of cough lollies and said “It’s going to be a long flight with that cough...” I mean this really annoyed me! I politely said thankyou and took them from him, and even popped one in my mouth. But on the inside I was fuming!! Who was this man, to think that I’d done nothing about my cough! That I was just waiting for someone to introduce me to cough lollies, like I’d never seen them before!?! Did he really think that I was ok with my cough!?! Like it wasn’t bothering me, like it was everyone else!?!? I mean I must have gone through 3 bottles of cough medicine, and several packets of cough lollies to stop my cough, to help me get even 1 full hour of sleep during my holiday, and nothing had worked. This JERK decides that I haven’t tried his cough lollies and they make all the difference!!! Jerk...

Sorry, that was a bit of a rant there. But it really got to me...

Anyway, we eventually hear one person, who had been speaking to a flight attendant say to their friend that if the plane wasn’t ready by 1:30am, they were going to put us all in the hotel for the night. They were apparently working on the plane’s engine...

Now I didn’t want to spend another night, sure it would be like extending my holiday for a whole day! But, like I’ve mentioned. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t stop coughing and I couldn’t talk. I just wanted to go home. However, I would much prefer that they take their time with the air plane engine, then to rush it and for us all to die a horrible death... I must say that I was surprised to see a lot of people lined up at the desk complaining about how long everything was taking... Were they happy with an air plane that could fall from the sky???

Eventually at 1:15am they boarded us onto the plane. I must say I was pleasantly surprised to find that Chris and I had 4 chairs between us! So we managed to sleep most of the flight home. It went super fast!!

We were greeted at Sydney air port by my whole family, which was really nice.

The End!!

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Posted in: delay,Disneyland,down town disney,flights,holiday,travel

March 9th, Part 2

I really enjoyed the Napa Rose. However, both Chris and I were pretty under the weather, and not very hungry, but we knew that we had to eat something. We ended up ordering the hot rock appetiser... Between us... The waiter tried desperately to convince us that we’d want more then just that, so Chris told him that we’d just arrived in the US that day, and we were jetlagged, very tired and not hungry...

That seemed to satisfy our waiter. We enjoyed the appetiser, and believe it or not, it filled us up... Well, you know, what I mean. It’s all we wanted.

It was lovely, but we’ll have to go back next time, and have a proper meal there.

We strolled through DTD and headed back into DL. We spent a bit of time looking around. I’m not sure what happened here, because I wanted to catch the first showing of Fantasmic! And then watch the fire works afterwards, but somehow, we missed the beginning...? So change of plans, fireworks first.

I finally bought a Dole Whip. Yes it was yum! I was originally going to buy a float, but chickened out at the last minute. :sad2:

We then found a neat little posy to watch the fireworks from. I wanted to video tape them this time. And look who made a proper appearance tonight!!



This really is an amazing show!

So next we headed over to watch Fantasmic! :mickeyjum :maleficen This time we managed to get a position right in front of the stage, but back from the water a little. Everyone was seated waiting for the show to begin. I mentioned to Chris how good it would be if everyone stayed seated throughout the show, because it was a lot easier to see over everyone’s head. I doubted it would happen though, as there was one bloke at the very front of the group who was standing while he waited. I have a feeling that he may have suffered from back problems or something like that, because his family were all seated, and there was enough room on the ground for him to sit, but still he stood. I didn’t mind, because of this thought, but I figured it would mean that everyone would stand eventually.

The show was about to start, and just as I predicted, the crowd all started shifting as to get up. One fella in particular was motioning to all of his friends for them to stand up... But no one did!! The bloke from the front sat down, and although there was shifting to stand up, no one made that first move, so everyone stayed down! It may not seem like much, but this made my night! So I got great footage of the whole show, from my seated position! :banana:

After the show as everyone dispursed, I dragged Chris over to Fantasyland. No we were not going home until they made us! We rode Toad’s Wild Ride, Canal boats, Pinocchio, and I think something else... It wasn’t Alice or Dumbo though, we didn’t end up riding either this trip... Then we finished the night off riding Casey Jr. This ride was more fun then what I thought it would be! I was pretty disappointed with the Canal boats, and had a feeling that Casey Jr. Would be the same, but I really enjoyed it!

After that, it was time to go back to the hotel... Damn. So we walked as slowly as we could back down along main street. I would have liked to have shopped a little, but was a bit sleepy. So back to the hotel, to fall asleep watching the Disney channel.

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Posted in: casey jr.,dole whip,down town disney,fireworks,napa rose,tinkerbell

March 9th, Part 1

We woke up bright and early – compared to the rest of the trip for today. I told Chris I didn’t care what he said, we were opening and closing the park today. I jumped up to get ready and Chris asked me what the time was. I glanced at the clock and in doing so, remembered that Day Light Savings had either started or finished that night. I don’t remember which one it is, but it meant that it was an hour later then what the clock said... Damn! The park was already open!

So we scrambled in to breakfast grabbed stuff quickly and headed out the door. We were almost at the crossing for the park when Chris realised he’d left something vitally important in the hotel room. I say this with sarcasm, but in reality I think he forgot to take his blood pressure pill, so it was a good idea to head back and get it. So we grabbed that and took off back towards the park again. We didn’t get quite so far this time when Chris realised he’d forgotten his cap. Too Bad!! We continued into the park. Almost at the ticket booths and I realised that I’d forgotten my Mickey Ears that I’d purchased the day before. I wanted to get them embroidered. But this was also Too Bad!! We’d be back in the park again tomorrow.

I wanted to do as many Fantasyland rides today, and early, because we hadn’t really done any yet. So we took on Snow White and the Tea Cups.



They didn’t make Chris feel too good, so we grabbed a drink and I had a pineapple stick and we took a stroll around the back of BTMRR and bought Chris some McDonalds fries. Then we sat and talked to the ducks for a little.

We then rode on the Haunted Mansion – the longest line we’d seen for it so far and it took maybe 20 minutes. And then POC again.

It wasn’t long before it got really busy again. Being the first Sunday of Spring Break in the area. We headed over to DCA, mainly just to hang around. I’d brought my video today, and we planned on riding in the front of Screamin’ and taping it.

We headed over to it, but noticed a large group of people heading back towards us. As we approached Screamin’ we noticed that one of the trains was stopped right up the top of the track, and another one was stopped further along. For some reason Chris was fascinated by this, so he insisted we watch them fix it... I think it has something to do with the fact that he works on air compressors, and they’re what run the ride. So we stood by the railing and watched them get all the people off the ride. We felt sorry for the poor people who were stuck in the train that was right near the platform. So close to being able to get off, but so far away! They had to wait until the train was able to move again to get off. Unlike the people who were stuck up the top, who just had a long walk ahead of them.

I left Chris to watch the inaction, and I went a bought a nummy frozen drink, and a packet of chips. I took a little longer getting back to Chris. The fact that Screamin’ was broken down did hold a bit of interest for me, but not enough that I could sit and watch it doing nothing. So I got back and Chris and I sat and watched Screamin’ and ate chips and drank the nummy frozen drink. Finally they started testing the ride again, and it started getting interesting again.

We decided to head a little closer to see if perhaps it would be worthwhile to line up for yet. We noticed that a line had formed, and it wasn’t very long. So what the hey, we lined up for it. It somehow felt like it had more purpose, then just sitting watching the ride...

Some cast members told us that it could be upwards of an hour before the ride started again, which made the line halve in size! Very handy. Note to self – Next time, befriend a CM, and see if they’ll follow me around announcing this to the people in line for rides that I’d like to go on.

It would have been less then ½ an hour and they started loading the ride. Yay! Not long at all. So we asked to be seated at the front, and had a great time video taping the whole ride. It may sound weird, but my most favourite part of the ride is the start, and I don’t mean where you zoom off into the distance. I mean where the announcement comes over “Get ready screamers! Head back, face forward...yada yada yada”

We then wandered around the park, taking in the sites and people watching.





We found a nice shady spot, as it was getting pretty hot and busy, and just watched everyone walk by.



We spent some time in one of the shops, and I bought a few little whatnots for me. Then we headed back over to DL. I decided that I wanted to go on Jungle Cruise again, and video tape it.

Now keep in mind, it’s been several months since we got back from our trip, so I’m a bit lost here as to what else we did this afternoon. I think we did some shopping... I don’t think we spent too much time back at DL, because we had a PS at Napa Rose tonight. So we must have headed back to the hotel for showers and changing.

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Posted in: california screamin',Disney's California Adventure,Disneyland

Saturday March 8th

This was a scheduled day off. We slept in late, had a late breakfast and headed over to DTD.
We had souvenier shopping in mind, because really, we’d bought nothing for anyone back home. I love the stuff I bought for everyone. It was nothing special, but it all had that special little Disney something about it.
I bought a bunch of glass and crystal stuff for my mum, and was advised to take it as carryon. The lady who served me told me that I shouldn’t have any trouble with the glass stuff, but apparently you can’t see through crystal with the air port’s x-ray like things, so they may pull me aside with it... I found this really interesting...

We caught a taxi down to a chemist to get some stronger cold and flu stuff for me. None of this stuff works though. Our taxi driver was a lovely bloke with a very hard to decipher accent. Had a good laugh with him. Don’t remember what about... I may not have even known what I was laughing at, at the time...
Any hoo I really don’t know where the day went. We spent some time doing laundry at the hotel, and for some reason sat around the pool for a little bit. Fair enough it wasn’t as cold as it had been in NY, but there was no way we were going swimming, but for some reason we sat there...

I’d seen some sort of soup ad on the TV during the day, and decided that I was dying for soup for dinner. So we headed down to the 7 Eleven to see what they had. I stocked up on soup, Chris on Beer, and then we headed across the road to get Indian for Chris for dinner. While waiting for dinner I sat mesmerised by an Indian music channel that the restaurant had on. We don’t have anything quite like that in Australia.
Then it was time to walk back to the hotel, and watch the Disney Channel... We also watched the fire works from our hotel room, we had a pretty good view of them, and enjoyed guessing which sequence of fire works were for each part of the show. It was nice to sit down and watch them.

Apparently we didn’t take any photos today... Weird because pretty much for my whole trip my camera was an extension of my arm... I lie, we took a couple, but nothing of great importance, and not like the 200 per day that I had been taking...

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Posted in: anaheim,down town disney,holidays,travel