Whitsundays Sailing?

sonic.trip

hi,

just wondering if anyone on boards has any tips/reccomendations for the whitsundays islands. I'm booking flights to Mackay from Melbourne soon and was wondering if anyone had any good places to get a package for 2days/1night or 2days/2night on a chartered yacht and also any info or tips on what to do for the rest of the days.

Ideally arrive in mackay and travel up to airlie beach etc on day 1, then day 2-4 sailing arounf whitsundays, day 5/6 what would people reccomend? and probably won't be more than 5-6 days.

its only a few days to a week holiday break from work in June.

any info much appreciated,

cheers

amybabes

OP,

Whatever you do, do not book a trip with OZ SAIL. They are a big company up there with about 6 boats.
I was on a 2 night trip on their boat Avatar in mid March, worst 2 days of my life! Got eat alive by bedbugs, i won't even go into everything else.

There's an abundance of trips especially when you get to Airlie beach, there's tours all over the place.
Make sure the boat has diving options if you want to, we realised only when on the boat that our trip only did snorkelling.

I reckon we could have fit everything we saw in 2 days/2 nights into one day trip which alot of companies do for a 1/4 of the price!
That would be my recommendation. When we looked up OZ Sail on Tripadvisor afterwards I was so sorry I hadn't done my homework as I'll hardly sail the Whitsundays ever again.

amybabes

Also Airlie Beach itself is really nice.
We spent a night on Hamilton island which is a 40 mins ferry from Airlie beach.
Out of this world, would highly recommend it!

sandyhills

we spent 3 nights on a cruise on Pacific Sunrise and I could not recommend them highly enough. we had savage craic and eat like kings the best food i have had in the 2 months since i have left ireland. they only have 19 passengers and you can scuba dive, snorkel, kyaking and take it easy in the beautiful weather. there are loads of party boats and they cram them on and will be up all night so if that is what you are after it go for it. here is the link drop sue an email she will help you out. Dan her husband was the captain for our trip.
http://www.pacificsunrisewhitsunday.com/ps/

sonic.trip

cheers for the info everyone

@sandyhills, I just tried getting a quote for that website in a shared double cabin and came back with $1432, how much did you pay for your 3night package?

juke

sandyhills wrote: »

we spent 3 nights on a cruise on Pacific Sunrise and I could not recommend them highly enough. we had savage craic and eat like kings the best food i have had in the 2 months since i have left ireland. they only have 19 passengers and you can scuba dive, snorkel, kyaking and take it easy in the beautiful weather. there are loads of party boats and they cram them on and will be up all night so if that is what you are after it go for it. here is the link drop sue an email she will help you out. Dan her husband was the captain for our trip.
http://www.pacificsunrisewhitsunday.com/ps/

Did this 3 years ago - same captain. Highlight of our 3 week holiday - would definitely recommend.

midlouth

http://www.tallshipadventures.com.au/webpage.php?wp=Alexander%20Stewart

Used this crowd last November, sailed on Alexander Stewart, had a fantastic time. It was more chilled out than other boats, bit more expensive but well looked after kind of trip. Brought your own drink with you but everything else included, was about 400 dollars I think.

I didn't think much of Arlie beach, bit of a kip. Only reason I'd go back is it's the gate way to islands. Full of drunken backpackers.

I also drove down to bundaberg from there, you'll cover some of same road. A whole lot of nothing in-between air lie and Brisbane!