Good morning! The sun rose REALLY early on the train this morning! I seemed to be up for some unknown reason again at 4 am. Spent some time watching some downloaded Netflix videos on my phone and then went back to sleep! It is a beautiful sunny morning though so glad we got rid of those black rain clouds yesterday!
The train conductor just announced we are over 3 hours late now however they are hoping to make up some of the time over the next few hours. They cautioned the train passengers though that as we are running late that we will have to give way to other traffic on the tracks such as the commuter trains as we enter the various stations.
The car attendant was very nice and as the train was not going to be in the station by 9 am as originally planned, he said he could leave my Rail Bed down for me so I could get extra recline time! Here is a picture of my sitting on my Rail Bed along with the Rail Bed across the aisle where my walker rode during our trip, so it was close for me to use it to get to the toilet (there was an accessible washroom and shower on the train in our car too)!. A took some pictures of the various train stations we went through and then the conductor indicated we had made up 45 minutes due to some re-routing and would now arrived at the Roma Street Brisbane Train Station by 11:30 am – so only 2.5 hour late!
It is interesting that when planning our trip, I booked our car rental pick up at the Brisbane Airport for noon, as we need a car for 5 days and you need to return the car in 24 hour blocks. I knew that we were probably going to have to “entertain” ourselves until noon rolled around so we could go get the car as we would need to return the car about noon for our flight to Sydney on December 6th. However with the train being late, we are now running almost on time!
It was VERY easy to transfer at the Roma Street Station to the direct train to the Brisbane Airport. While I had to get a station attendant help me with what particular tickets to purchase, they were bought fast and we ended up on the correct platform and there was a platform attendant there to see what I needed to get onto the train. I just needed their little ramp as the gap between the terminal edge and the train platform was a bit wide! Finally the train arrived, he put down the ramp and we were off to the Brisbane Airport to pick up our car!
Once at the Brisbane Airport we found the temperature much more suitable for our needs! It is still warm but more like a hot Vancouver day with less humidity. We had to wait for the car rental van to pick us up for about 45 minutes – I think they were having lunch! I was kind of amused by this sign at the Brisbane Airport while we were waiting – it is so bizarre to be waiting in a warm climate and for a billboard to be displaying the Grinch at Christmas! Once we got the car we were then off on yet another highway driving through Brisbane city towards Surfers Paradise, which is located about an hour south east of Brisbane.
The Sheraton Mirage Hotel Gold Coast is a beautiful hotel – similar name to the one that we just stayed in up in Port Douglas, however this one is truly a step above! While the one in Port Douglas had “lagoons” that were for swimming, this one has lagoons that are for display and one big swimming pool/area along with access to the beach out front of the property which is not accessible to me due to the slope! I am happy with the pool or to dip my feet into the lagoon from our terrace!
We arrived at about 2 pm and I was greeted at the Front Desk by the lady who in the end helped me with my reservation over the last 2 days – she was very nice and has upgraded us to a Junior Lagoon level Suite. I had originally paid for a Lagoon Level room, so it was nice that she did that! The hotel she told me is fully booked (not quasi fully booked as rooms were out of commission like the last hotel) as there is a group checking in from December 2-5th, however she was pretty happy she was able to swing the upgrade for me. I was pleased too!
The most amusing thing that happened was when we got to the room was the “Happy Birthday” plate that was given to us along with Champagne by the hotel! I called them and the 1st plate was not Gluten Free (it is on my hotel record that I require Gluten Free food and most hotels figure this out) so they quickly replaced it with the platter above and AGAIN it said Happy Birthday! Hey, why not? We are living a day ahead of everyone at home – why not live 2 months ahead too?
We both had a nap to catch up on some lost sleep from the night before and then we went out to get some groceries for our stay at the hotel – again to the local Coles Grocery store! I scored some really awesome GF items which I will post later, and then we got back and had dinner in our room and went to sleep! Tomorrow we will be checking out the hotel in more detail and probably taking a day off to rest and recover! Until then!