I have never really been a fan of the Gold Coast. While it is surrounded by some really nice beaches and really nice little towns, Surfers Paradise has never really drawn me in either.
My wife Kelly, however, is a huge fan of the place.
So when it came to having a few days out of the office, we decided to give it another chance and see some of the hotels and attractions while we were up there.
We stayed for 3 nights at the Crowne Plaza Gold Tower in Surfers Paradise. The hotel’s 376 rooms consists of two towers, the first one built in 1991 and the Gold Tower where we stayed opened in 1997.
The room types range from Superior to Executive King rooms in the older tower and Deluxe Kings right up to the corner Suites which have a full kitchen and laundry facilities in the room.
Every single room in the hotel has a bath (spa baths in the Gold Tower) and rooms from the 10th floor up all have pretty good ocean views.
While the hotel is more corporate than family oriented (the Virgin Blue air crew stay here as do teams from the ARU and NRL), it still has a lot of good family stuff including a kids club over the Christmas period and the fact that all of the rooms interconnect with another room making a big room that would be perfect for most families.
The breakfast at the hotel is expensive at $27 per person but the spread was impressive and omelette chef in particular the morning we ate there was hilarious and worth the price of the breaky.
While we were on the coast we also inspected the sister hotel to the Crowne Plaza, the Holiday Inn Surfers Paradise. This is much more leisure and family oriented and was for many years known as the ANA.
It has a downtown location as opposed to the Crowne which is about a 20 minute walk out of the hustle and bustle (a bonus if you ask me) and is the only 4.5 star Holiday Inn in Australia.
Fully renovated in 2007, the colour scheme is pretty ordinary – particularly if you get a red room which is sure to make even the most serenely calm person a bit fired up. Request the blue rooms!
Every room at the Holiday Inn has a balcony and ocean view and the special double glazing on all of the balcony sliding doors means when you are in the room with them shut, practically all of the noise of this crazy town is kept outside – particularly handy if you find yourself in Surfers during the Schoolies invasion.
Rooms range from the Standard Rooms on the 1st to 9th floor, Superior Rooms on the 10th to the 18th floors, and Deluxe Rooms on the 19th to the 22nd floors.
The Holiday Inn also has a nice pool area where you can get a massage or cocktail and it actually feels like it is worlds away from both the nightclub district and the beach even though they are both very close.
Both of the hotels have well-appointed spas run by Beauty Spa Club International which offer all of the treatments you could imagine and use all Pure Fiji treatments. Kelly had a facial at the spa in the Crowne Plaza when we were there and she will be writing up her experience on the website shortly.
On the second last day of our trip we went to Movie World which was a unique experience because I had never been there before (Kelly and my friend Sean had) but as Kel is 6 months pregnant, it provided a different perspective of the place since she was not allowed on any of the (cool/scary) rides.
It was still a great day and as usual I was totally overwhelmed by the best rides in the place (Lethal Weapon and Superman) and we left exhausted.
One of the best experiences of the week was one night when we dined out at a place called Nicolini’s in Surfers. A little Italian restaurant with a lot of charm and character, we were served by Bruna who was hospitable and pleasant and the main meals of Spinach Ravioli and Boscaiola were amazing. (The Italian merlot wasnt bad either…)
In the end, I was kind of pleasantly surprised by the Gold Coast on this trip. It still has very daggy moments, but the level of service in both the hotels and the eateries was exceptional and for sheer diversity of places to stay and things to do, it is hard to beat.
If you are interested in booking a package to the Gold Coast to stay at the Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn or any of the other properties in Surfers, please call me TODAY on 02 4328 4398.
PLEASE NOTE: Neither of the hotels, nor Movie World, paid for Kelly and I to stay there or solicited this review in any way. My thanks however goes to Michelle from sales with the hotels who graciously let us take up her time in showing us around both hotels.
