Planning a visit to Gold Coast in June

by Nam

Planning a visit to Gold Coast in June

Hi! Firstly would like to say, your website is fantastic and has some very helpful info on it!

We are a family of 2 adults and a 12 year old boy planning a visit to Gold Coast in June this year.

This is our first visit and we plan to spend about 5-6 days in Gold Coast before we head off to Sydney for 2 days.

Have gone through and checked the weather, so shouldn't be asking you the question again!

Was keen to find out something more about accomodation.

We're keen to base ourselves not too far away from the theme parks, but would like an apartment with cooking facilities.

While we want to enjoy and spend most of our money doing all activities, we're keen to control our spending on food and still enjoy some good food. Hence an apartment type of accomodation which allows us to be flexible with regards food.

Would you be able to help with this. 2 options:

1. We hire a car and are about 15-20 mins away from theme parks (if it helps save on accomodation costs)

2. We stay in close proximity to the parks and not hire a car.

Thanks
Nam

Great question Nam, always hard to try to address all the possiblities.

Bit of background first. There are 5 main theme parks in Gold Coast four are based in the hinterland of Gold Coast at Oxenford (Movie World and Wet n Wild) and Coomera (Dreamworld and Whitewater World) which are both about 20 minutes drive inland from the coast.

The other one Sea World is based at Main Beach which is right on the coast and about 5 minutes drive north of Surfers Paradise.

There are theme park transfers available from many Gold Coast accommodations (from Runaway Bay in the north to Coolangatta in the south) and there are some special theme park express buses that run on certain routes. However, you are limited to the times they run.

Driving yourself is by far the most convenient way, and there is free parking at all the theme parks.

There are a few options for accommodation closer to the inland theme parks - for example there is the Gold Coast Holiday Park which is within minutes of the four parks, but you would still need a car, even to go shopping for food!

If you stay in Main Beach or Surfers Paradise - which would still be my recommendation, there is plenty of apartment accommodation to choose from.

Accommodation prices go up for our peak times which usually are around school holidays. In June our school holidays are in the last half of the month - you can check dates on our school holidays page. If you are holidaying early in the month, the chances are there will be some good value options for great accommodation in and around Surfers Paradise and Main Beach.

The advantage of staying at these two locations is that when you are not at the theme parks you can experience more of what the Gold Coast has to offer, by taking a stroll around Cavill Mall, or a walk along the beach or enjoying some of the other tourist attractions of the area.

The opening hours for the theme parks are generally 10am to 5pm a little less for the water parks - so there is time for you to see a bit more of the Gold Coast.

So how to choose your accommodation? There are a couple of choices - you can check out the accommodation suggestions for Main Beach on that page, and you can look at the apartment options for Surfers Paradise.

Or you can use this great accommodation search tool where you can narrow down your search to apartments, by price and location.

As for car hire - I like to use Car Rentals comparison tool. I find there is a good selection of cars and deals. Whenever I have checked they seem to have some of the best rates around. You can pick up the car at the airport too which means you can save on the airport transfers. Only thing to look out for is in Surfers Paradise some apartments have parking, some don't have any and some will charge you for it. I don't think it is such an issue in Main Beach, but something to consider.

Okay, and now to round out my answer - if you stay in Main Beach, there are a few small grocery stores - but for a decent supermarket you can head to Southport to Australia Fair where there are specialty shops and a food hall area which has butcher, baker, fruit shop and there are both Coles and Woolworths Supermarkets.

If you stay in Surfers Paradise, there are a few Supermarkets which are within walking distance of Cavill Mall area - it would depend upon where you stay, or you could also drive to Australia Fair if that was easier.

Hope that was helpful, please leave any further questions or comments below. If you found this helpful, you can Like it, Tweet it and share on Facebook ;-) Thanks for spreading the word...

Cheers

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PS:: Theme park deals change all the time, so it is worth while checking out the latest deals for Gold Coast theme parks from time to time to see what will be the best for you when you visit.