Below is our hotel/motel list in Mel and NZ for reference. All hotels in NZ comes with kitchen and complete utensils as we wanted to minimize eating out as much possible.
Day 1: Summers Rest Unit, Port Campbell, Melbourne - 3 Bedroom House, AUD210
Day 2: Nil. In a flight to Chc.
Day 3: High Country Lodge, Twizel - 2 Bedroom Suite, NZD195
Day 4 & 5: Caples Court, Queenstown - 1 Bedroom Apartment, NZD420
Day 6: Alpine View Motel, Te Anau - Family Apartment, NZD177.50
Day 7 & 8: Beach Lodge Motel, Dunedin - 2 Bedroom Apartment, NZD340
Day 9: Ferry Motel, Christchurch - 1 Bedroom Apartment, NZD150
Day 10: Ibis Budget Melbourne CBD - Quadruple Room, AUD179
I will post some of the hotel pics in the upcoming entries together with our itinerary & activities. All hotels were booked from booking.com with 'free cancellation' policies except Ibis Budget, which was booked last minute, paid full and non-refundable. Ibis Budget doesnt have in-room kitchen facilities, as we didnt plan to cook on our last day. We were lucky for our room was upgraded from 2 sets of bunk beds to 2 bunk beds + 1 queen. Probably the owner was pity seeing all of us arrived to check in at 1am, i bet we were his last guests for that day!
My favourite picks amongst all - Caples Court and Beach Lodge Motel. These 2 are highly recommended. Beach Lodge is very spacious, comfy beds, nice deco, free wifi and yes it has a bath tub which the kids enjoyed it to the fullest including Irfan! Near St Kilda beach as advertised by the property, but not that near actually as u need to drive to the beach. Jalan kaki mau semput haha. The owner was kind enough to put our washed clothes into his big dryer and had it settled for 20 min only, as the other two in the guest laundry room took ages to finish haha
Caples Court is very expensive (well majority hotels in Queenstown is expensive since it is a top spot among tourist in South Island), but worth paying. Kids loved its sofabed very much, which can be transformed into a huge queen bed. Good location, nice deco, comfy beds, owner was very friendly and helpful. But parking space was so limited and parking your car was a big challenge. And oh free wifi up to 5Gb per day. Menarik kan! If you want to save a little, go stay at Arrowtown as it is only half an hour drive from Queenstown.
Summers Rest Unit - Very huge and spacious. Super large kitchen and bathroom. Nevertheless we were too tired already and arrived quite late, hence no time to enjoy all the good things about this hotel.
High Country Lodge - Spacious. The main bedroom is too large even for the 4 of us. Sgt selesa kesimpulannya. Large bathroom. Very ample parking space. Close to High Country Salmon.
Paling nampak tak cantik sbb deco agak old fashion rasanya Ferry Motel dan Alpine View Motel. Harga pun murah kan tp ada free wifi hikss. Wifi kat Alpine View agak semput, maybe due to its geographical constraint. Owner muka agak grunge dan garang mcm dlm citer koboi, siap pesan kalo masak dan ada bau yg agak extreme cth macam kari, dia akan charge kita! Lucky our dinner menu for that night was grilled chicken burger hikss
Ibis Budget even though is a budget hotel, surprisingly its toilet is huge and the beds are super comfy. Mmg recommended. Further its main plus point is that you can store all your bags at its storage room for AUD6 only. Sgt murah okey! Sempat jugak kami tumpang solat dekat kitchen area ptg tu before naik tram to Southern Cross Station utk naik Skybus ke Tullamarine airport.
We paid cash for all the hotels, except High Country Lodge since we arrived outside the checking in hours and Ibis Budget (since the reservation made is non-refundable). Why cash and not cc? Maybank cc is charging 2.25% for overseas transaction fees (pls use Bank Islam cc as it offers ZERO transaction fees!!) A budget traveller like us surely wanted to save as much as possible, further a big chunk of our total cost goes to accommodations (i'll share the cost breakdown maybe on my last entry). So why pay extra unnecessarily when u can save a little and route that money to shopping instead? :)
And pls pls pls book early. Trust me the savings can be really significant. Tapi kalau rela nak bayar mahal silakanlah haha
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