Luxury Australia Family Vacation Review: Melbourne, Adelaide, Port Douglas, Kangaroo Island, Sydney Bridge Climb, Great Ocean Road

Sydney

• The Bridge Climb was not only fun, but quite easy and should be possible for almost anyone to do unless you have a severe fear of heights, as you are always well-harnessed and have a couple of sturdy railings between you and any edge; the climb itself is taken at a pace that isn't strenuous.
• Both the Sealife Aquarium and Taronga Zoo offer VIP/Gold tours wherein you get your own dedicated tour guide and a behind-the-scenes look at a number of the animals. Highly recommended this add-on if you have kids. Also don't miss the bird show at the Taronga zoo -- it's not really heavily advertised, but it's really cool.
• On Sundays, all of the Sydney ferries have a very cheap, all day, all destinations ticket so long as you have at least one adult and one kid in your group. It's a great way to check out everything around the harbor for about 1/10th of what you'd pay for a family of four.
• The Quay West Hotel has amazing views...our room (2204) was very nearly the one from the hotel's website photo -- picture postcard perfect view of the bridge and opera house :-)

Port Douglas / Great Barrier Reef

• The main feature here is, of course, the Great Barrier Reef. We liked the smaller outer reef cruise, as they stopped at three different areas on the reef for diving and/or snorkeling (depending on your level of skill/certification)...lots of gorgeous coral and fish -- a must do if you're in the area.
• In the Kurunda Koala Gardens is one of the few places in Australia where you can actually hold a koala, as these ones were raised in captivity, whereas a wild koala (even one that's been in a zoo for a while) are too dangerous to try to hold -- we'd recommend the Skyrail to get there vs. the train unless someone in your group is a train fanatic...even at that it's on the slow and hot side, as this is a tropical area.
• The Watergate restaurant in town is a good spot for dinner; the Coconut Grove hotel, while pricey, is definitely the best place to stay in town and very luxurious for such an off-the-beaten path locale.

Adelaide / Kangaroo Island

• The Central Market and Chinatown district are both great for sightseeing, shopping, and lots of food choices.
• We liked the slower pace and older feel of Adelaide compared to the larger cities; there are a number of interesting cathedrals, a sprawling botanical garden, and the excellent Museum of South Australia.
• If you're going to Kangaroo Island, we'd recommend making a day trip (fly out / fly back) vs. taking the extremely bumpy ferry ride -- if you do the ferry, sit on the lower deck toward the back and you'll feel the motion a lot less -- overall, Kangaroo Island is worth the trip.

Melbourne

• The Colonial Tramcar Dinner is a fun family activity with great food and very personable hosts.
• One of the biggest draws to the Melbourne area is the Great Ocean Road -- a tour of this by a knowledgeable guide is highly recommended, but even with this, realize going in that this is a *full* day -- 12-13 hours -- of traveling and plan accordingly. We went with this tour company because we wanted to be in a smaller group, however if overall comfort is your thing you'll likely want to take one of the bigger tour buses.
• Also, absolutely not to be missed are the Philip Island fairy penguins. This too is a long haul of a tour (though you can get a shorter version if just want to see the penguins and don't care as much about the rest of the island) -- pay the extra for the "Penguins Plus" seating, as you'll be far closer to them when the come ashore and will feel much more like a guest than that you're being herded.

Overall, we were very happy with the choices and tours we had -- we were in Australia for 19 days and felt at the end like we could have stayed three times as long and not run out of things to see and places to go -- we deliberately opted for fewer stops so that we could really engage with the places we went rather than just check off that we'd been everywhere and would definitely recommend this approach -- Australia is huge, so even with taking flights between cities we felt like we covered as much ground as we comfortably could in that time frame. We'd seen trips of our length that also included Perth and Uluru or that also included at least a couple of destinations in New Zealand, and while it's tempting to pack in as much as you can, it makes for better memories to allow yourself time to soak in the unique things in each place.