Wed recap: This is seriously a 'hotel'!?!

As I mentioned, Mr Fix It had been to Australia and Bali before and he did not feel the need to book any type of travel accommodations like hotels, car rental, restaurant reservations, touristy type attractions or tickets, etc.  We had our airline tickets and we had a couple nights at two different resorts booked and that was it!  And I didn't get him to book the resorts until literally 2 to 3 weeks before our wedding!

So when we arrived in Brisbane, Australia, I totally trusted him to figure it out.  Thankfully, I did convince him to rent a Garmin GPS system with our rental car which was a huge lifesaver in helping us get around!  He knew he wanted to check out Burleigh Beach (a place on the Gold Coast just over an hour south of the Brisbane airport) so we programmed in the city and took off.

When we arrived, we just started looking for hotels close to the beaches.  We found one that he said we should check out and as we walked up the steps to the door, Mr Fix It looked at me and said he just wasn't feeling it.  So after entering and seeing no live person to assist us, we followed his gut and walked out quickly.  We drove just a little ways away and found this place called La Pacifique apartments.

Now I'm telling you...this was a score!!!  We walked past an okay sized pool and into the front office and found a very tiny little front desk with an older looking bearded gentlemen sitting there.  We asked him if they had anything available for about 2 or 3 nights.  He said they didn't do one night stays but they did have a place available for 3 nights.  So we asked if we could see it and he walked around the corner and opened the front door to what was the apartment he lived in.  He called for his wife, Robyn to come out and asked her to take us up to #36 on the 12th floor. 

The second we walked in, we looked around, smiled at each other and told Robyn "Sold!"  So we headed back downstairs and booked the room for $150 a night.  Granted, it wasn't really a room at all.  In fact, it was a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom apartment! 

Here's a pic of the living room. 

We stayed there from Monday until Thursday when we were heading to O'Reilly's Rainforest.  We had only booked one night at O'Reilly's and we were so thankful for that as you will see in tomorrow's post.  So on Thursday morning, before we left La Pacificque, we asked the manager, Graham if they would save us the same room for us to come back and stay at for Friday and Saturday night as well.  They were so sweet and accommodating, they totally said no problem.  In fact, they gave us directions to a local grocery store and we bought some groceries to make breakfast and lunches each day since we had a fully stocked kitchen.  When we left for the one night to stay at O'Reilly's, Robyn and Graham even let us keep some of the groceries in the refrigerator.

Here is Mr Fix It making me breakfast one morning:

We totally enjoyed Graham and Robyn.  They were very sweet to us and we would run into Graham walking around the beach across the street sometimes.  They referred us to a few malls, shops, etc and even called me into their apartment one night to watch how they fed the wild birds off of their back porch from right out of their hand!  It was something you would probably never see here in So Cal. 

When we came back for the last 2 nights, they discounted our room for the 5 night stay since we had stayed 3 nights and then another 2.  So overall, we only paid about $110 US a night at most including taxes.

Our unit had apparently just been remodeled and so the cable tv in the living room wasn't working.  They called in their repair man, John to fix it and we became quick friends with him.  He shared lots of stories about how he came from Austria to Australia and his life.  He would stop and chat with us when we would run into him around the apartments.  One day when we ran out of laundry detergent I asked Robyn if we could get some more packets.  She didn't have any so she just gave me the box of detergent from her own apartment. 
Here's a pic of Mr Fix It looking out the kitchen window.  Every morning I would wake up and go look out this window to see the surfers in the water and what the weather was like. 

The cool thing about this place, too was that I could get up each morning and walk across the street to a little convenience store that had internet access which is how I was able to chat with my daughter, Little Miss on Facebook each day and keep up on a few blog posts, too.  Overall, we scored on our 'hotel' stay in Australia and would totally recommend it for anyone who travels there!

And here is a little video tour from me of our apartment.  Please excuse the racy pics of me in my undies in the mirror reflections :)  And sorry that the lighting is not fabulous on video:

So would you ever consider 'winging it' for a vacation in another country?  As much as I was freaked out to do this and wouldn't do it regularly, I have to admit that Mr Fix It did not let me down on our honeymoon.