Family Holiday During Schoolies Week

by Nazura
(Selangor, Malaysia)

Family holiday during schoolies week

I have been following your updates since we decided to have a family holiday in Gold Coast. We'll be joining a tour group and the dates are not that flexible.

I just found out that schoolies week has already started and we are flying tonight to reach Brisbane tomorrow morning before proceeding to Moreton Island for a night stay.

We'll be in Gold coast from Saturday till Wednesday and will be staying at Grand Chancellor Surfers Paradise.

Our itinerary includes the theme parks, Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, Harbour Town shopping.

I am now worried that schoolies week will affect our holiday. Will it be that bad, all the hype about schoolies week?

Okay, here's the low down. There's not alot you can do about it right now and worrying won't help. So take a big deep breath and decide that you won't let it affect you.

The Grand Chancellor is right in the heart of Surfers Paradise and I just phoned them to find out their policy on schoolies. They do have schoolies bookings, but they also have very specific rules and will evict badly behaved patrons - schoolies or not.

Schoolies have "functions" to attend to, there is special entertainment put on for them, and only them. You will see them around and about during the day at theme parks etc. By and large it is a few badly behaved ones that give the event a bad name.

You will find that most establishments will not tolerate any bad behaviour and in reality it will likely only be a few that are badly behaved the rest are just there to have some fun, like most people on holiday.

Your itinerary gets you out and about quite a bit. You are not likely to have much issues with that.

I would probably suggest you try to go to places outside Surfers Paradise at night, so maybe find other places to go to eat, such as Labrador or Broadbeach etc. This is especially true if you have children with you, I would avoid taking my children to places where the schoolies hang out because they really don't need to see partying going on.

I did make some other suggestions after being asked the question: Will Schoolies week affect our holiday?. The people are a couple travelling without children and are staying in different venues to you, but the suggestions still hold true.

I hope that helps answer your question. I cannot promise you an event free time - you will most likely only notice that there younger people enjoying the party atmosphere more so than usual. Be sensible in where and when you go to places and if you have any problems in the hotel, make sure you let the management know so they can deal with it or move you to a quieter part of the hotel. I suspect they will try to keep the schoolies and other visitors on separate floors, but perhaps you can request that.

I wish you a great holiday and hope that you don't worry about this too much. You have to look for the positives and enjoy our wonderful location.

Cheers

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