JP1

Hi,

Has anyone stayed in the Radison Hotel in Port Douglas. What was it like and are there better places for the same price there?

Also, does anyone know of any 2 or 3 day boating excursions that can be done near Port Douglas or Cairns for between $300-$500 per person? We would want our own room with an ensuite (don't fancy sharing!!)

Many thanks.

Aus4us

Hi

We stayed in the Radisson Treetops in Port douglas. It was really nice. The room we had was newly decorated and next to the pool. It was a lovely hotel for relaxing. There were 2 resturants i think, but we prefered to go in to the ones in PD. There is one in particular called Table 41 in the main street which was fantastic!!! There are plenty to choose from though!!!

We went on 2 boat trips from port douglas, both day trips with quicksilver. One was to spend the day out on the agincourt reef which was first class and the second was to the Low isles which was a day to the islands on a catamaran. The webpage is www.quicksilver-cruises.com

Hope this is some help,

JP1

Many thanks for that - I can't wait to go now!

mand8002

We have been to Rydges Reef and that too was nice.

MrsDagboy

Ditto, Rydges Reef Resort was fabulous, we had a lovely 2 bedroom apartment which was huge (bigger than our house in the UK! ), very reasonably priced & the best part was they had a free kids club . I'd definitely go back.

JP1

Thanks for the info. The Rydges place sounds good too - we don't have children though. Is it more of a family hotel?

MrsDagboy

It caters for both. Radisons (from what I know of it) is more the sort of place for honeymooners if thats what you are after .

youngy73

i work in port douglas. the radisson is nice and has recently undergone an extensive refurbishment. there is a lot of building work in port at the moment. i would give the radisson a wide birth for a year or so as there is a very large unit complex under construction next door. one side of the hotel will be affected by this work. tradies start work at 7am, 6 days a week. try the rydges as that is on the other side of the road or the sheraton if you want a resort. its really quiet up there at the moment so there should be some good deals on. its normally busy now with the school holidays but people are finding out that cairns now has a lot more to offer especially with the development of palm cove which is 2 beaches up from where we live. the quickie also goes from palm cove. agincourt is a nice reef but in season you'll be sharing your experience with 400 others. there are lots of other operators which go to smaller but equally stunning reefs.

JP1

ahhh, very useful information. is the rydges hotel suitable for a honeymooning couple - or is the sheraton (or somewhere else) a better bet? also, we are thinking that it would be good to do a 2 or 3 day cruise around the islands near PD. all that we can find are one day trips though. is there anything longer available and what are the approx costs? alternatively, we are thinking about spending a few days in PD and then flying to airlie beach and doing a 3 day cruise from there - would this be a sensible option? given the choice, we would like to everything in one place but PD seems to have better hotels and airlie beach the better boat trips!

youngy73

what time of year are you planning your trip.rydges is more a family resort and the sheraton is a bit more expensive. i will have a look at some brochures and see if i can find any trips. most of the 3 day trips are dive trips. do you dive? airlie is very lively due to a large backpacker crowd but there are some good trips from there. probably better for cruising around as there are more islands.

steve99

We came back from Port Douglas and Palm Cove just over a month ago, had a great time in both, I did hear some negative comments about one of the Raddison or Rydges, (cant remember which, but that there was development work going on nearby and some areas had got a bit tired as they were'nt getting the volume of guests they needed)

We stayed in the newly opened Breakfree Aqueous on Port which was superb, amazing value for money, 1 bed apartment with full kitchen, lounge etc balcony overlooking one of the 4 pools, spa on the balcony, (only three story's, but you could have a ground floor one which had a deck coming out of the pool straight to your apt!)
We stayed in another one of this chains accomodation in Palm Cove, the Breakfree Amphora again it was practically brand new, 1 bed huge apt overlooking the ocean and again extremely cheap.

check out www.breakfree.com.au (if you have an entertainment card you can use this and get a discount (10 or 15% i think) check out the book for details)

We'll definitely be going back to both these places as we had a great time, position wise I dont the one in Port Douglas could of been any better,
another one that looked to be in a good spot and of fairly high standard was the Outrigger.

Enjoy!
Steve

JP1

Thanks for the responses. We are going to be on our holidays from the 11 or 12 September for 8-10 days. We haven't dived much before and don't have any certificates so we would only be snorkelling or doing shallow dives i guess.

dmf

We have booked to stay at the Mandalay Shalimar Apartments over Christmas for a short holiday. We are intending on doing a few day trips whilst up there. We like the look of the Skyrail Rainforest trip - do you recommend this trip?

Cheers, Dawn

steve99

Its pretty good, it wasnt raining when we were there (its supposed to be much better when its wet) so it was a bit get in a gondola (dream your going to arrive at the top of a ski resort and you dont ) you go over a lot of trees, get to get out at a couple of spots and walk around a sectioned of area and carry on, there is a pub at the end of it though
I thought the train journey back was better than the gondola trip, but still worth doing.

We did the Quicksilver Quicksmart trip out to the reef, much better than the main one they advertise that goes out to the pontoon, (on that one there are to many people (I think they call it the cattle boat..) the quicksmart is cheaper has way less people and goes to different parts of the reef, the reef/fish was much better than that we saw at the pontoon area a few years back.

steve

MrsDagboy

Hi Dawn, the Kuranda Skyrail & the railway back down were both great. Another thing we did was a trip to the Daintree, what an awesome place!

Cant help with any reef trips as we didnt get to do any.