Australia Day 2: Part 1- Location, Location, Location

It didn't take long for us to realize that we may have picked the wrong hotel in Gold Coast. Maybe it was the $75 cab ride from the airport to the hotel. Or the $12 dollar cab ride from the hotel to the train station. Or the $22 dollar cab ride from the train station to Skilled Park when we learned that the trains to Brisbane weren't actually running that night. Or the 45 minute wait for a cab at the train station later in the evening. Or the 10 dollar ride back to the hotel once a cab finally did come. Then there was the $10 "courtesy" shuttle that ran from our hotel every 2-3 hours to Surfer's Paradise. It started to seem like it was going to cost us just as much to get away from our hotel as it would to actually stay the 4 nights there! Anyway, as I said before, the whole reason we picked that particular hotel was because it had the word "Golf" in it. (And because my 1st 3 choices had already been booked). So, despite the really really inconvenient location of the Crowne Plaza Royal Pines Golf Resort, David definitely enjoyed the view from our room (although due to the weather, he didn't get to enjoy it much from out of the room):