Boxing Day in Melbourne

We heard from our friend Martin Handy about all the shopping madness during the boxing day in Australia, and were suggested to shop during that day as there will be discounts everywhere! So when we made our itinerary in Australia, we decided to go back to Melbourne from Tasmania on 26th Dec. Especially to enjoy the boxing day in Melbourne:p

We arrived at our hostel in Melbourne at 11.30 am, left our luggage, and went directly to the Bourke Street. It was really crowded, so many people around to do their shopping.

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Great Ocean Road Sunset Tour

We were looking for an affordable Great Ocean Road Sunset Tour, the normal price is about AUD 120 for the peak period of December. The sunset tour is slightly more expensive than the day tour. Finally we found a deal from a website called OZnet, where we got the cheap Great Ocean Road Sunset Tour for AUD 77,5 per person, including sandwich for lunch! On the next day of our booking, we got an email confirmation from bunyip tour. That time we knew that Bunyip would be our tour provider.

On Dec 27, we were picked up at our hostel in Melbourne at 10.30 am. There were only 6 tour participants on the bus when we jumped in. We made some stops at other hotels, and stopped at Bunyip office to pick up some other groups. We left Bunyip office at 11.30 pm, and started our tour. Unfortunately we had to pass the traffic jam just outside Melbourne. Our driver and tour guide, Steven McDonald is a lovely guy.

We stopped first at Bells beach (one of the famous Australia's surfing beach) at 1 pm and had our toilet break and also the coffee break (biscuit, coffee, tea). 

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The Greenhouse Backpacker Melbourne

As it was our first time visiting Melbourne, we were looking for a hostel which is very centrally located. And we were fortunate to find the Greenhouse Backpacker hostel on Flinders Lane, 5 minutes walk from Flinders Station.

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Ticket Promo Garuda Indonesia ke Australia

Thanks to Pak Elisa

Setelah frustasi dengan Customer Affair Team Garuda Indonesia (diwakili oleh Pak Priawan), yang selalu berusaha memberi penggantian berupa what so called: service recovery (dari mulai upgrade ticket domestik kami ke business class hingga tawaran ticket Jakarta-Aceh PP), kami tidak sengaja membaca tweet @IndonesiaGaruda. By the way, kami menolak semua tawaran yang tidak masuk akal itu, dan kami hanya minta full refund.

Hari itu twitter resmi Garuda Indonesia me-RT salah satu Bapak, yang menyampaikan berita bahwa Garuda Indonesia telah memenangkan Asean Premium Airline of The Year. Saya reply menanyakan kenapa kasus saya sudah 4 bulan terkatung-katung dan memberikan link tulisan ini. Setelah saya klik button tweet, baru saya berusaha mencari siapakah Bapak tsb. Ternyata beliau adalah Bapak Elisa Lumbantorian, yang saat itu menjabat sebagai Marketing Director PT Garuda Indonesia.

Tweet kami di reply oleh Pak Elisa:

Hari itu juga, saya diminta memberikan alamat email oleh team yang diberikan delegasi untuk memfollow up masalah kami. Esok harinya, saya ditelepon oleh Bpk. Alfian, yang menyatakan bahwa beliau akan minta dikirimkan kembali dokumen yang sekiranya mereka butuhkan. Saya diminta untuk menyimpan dokumen yang terkait kasus kami tsb. Demi apapun, dokumen tersebut kami simpan rapi di tempat aman:p

Tgl 2 April 2013, kami mendapatkan konfirmasi dari Bpk. Alfian bahwa Garuda akan melakukan full refund atas ticket Sydney Jakarta yang kami beli pada tgl 1 Jan 2013, sebesar AUD 2,048 (silahkan baca cerita detailnya di bawah ini). Tentunya kami bahagia sekali membaca email tsb, namun masih was-was hingga transfer masuk ke rekening kami. 

Tgl 26 April 2013, Alhamdulillah kami mendapatkan uang kami kembali. Selang hampir 5 bulan, dengan perjuangan yang melelahkan, uang kami kembali, utuh.

Terimakasih kepada Pak Elisa yang sudah berkenan membaca dan mereply tweet kami. 

Terimakasih kepada teman-teman yang sudah support melalui RT di twitter kasus kami ini hingga akhirnya Garuda bersedia melakukan full refund. Hanya Tuhan yang bisa membalas kebaikan teman-teman semua.

Alhamdulillah, case is closed :)




Pengalaman Buruk dengan Ticket Promo Garuda Indonesia

Masih ingat cerita kami tentang berburu ticket murah ke Australia? We were excited mendapatkan ticket promo Garuda Indonesia ke Australia untuk liburan akhir tahun. Namun apa yang kami alami pada tanggal 1 Januari 2013 di Bandara International Sydney, merubah pandangan kami tentang Garuda Indonesia, peringkat ke 11 the world top airlines pada tahun 2012.

Setelah menikmati Sydney New Years Eve Fireworks, kami pulang ke rumah teman kami dan melanjutkan packing. Saya bertanya pada rene, mengenai rencana kami berangkat hari itu ke airport. Rene mengatakan kita akan berangkat jam 07.30, karena jadwal pesawat Garuda Sydney Denpasar kami adalah jam 12 siang.

Kami pun tiba di Sydney International Airport dan langsung menuju counter antrian check in Garuda Indonesia. Sayangnya kami tidak bisa mobile chek in untuk flight Garuda, seperti yang kami lakukan untuk connecting flights kami dengan Jetstar. Di antrian, saya ragu kenapa tertulis flight Sydney-Jakarta? Namun kami berdua berasumsi mungkin flight akhirnya adalah ke Jakarta, transit di Denpasar. Sehingga kami menunggu sampai tiba pada giliran kami di counter check in. Betapa kagetnya kami saat petugas mengatakan bahwa pesawat ke DPS sudah berangkat jam 10 pagi! Mau pingsan rasanya! Kami pun pergi ke counter khusus dimana kami complaint kepada petugas yang orang Australia itu.

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Penguins and Cakes at St.Kilda

After a window shopping on boxing day in Melbourne (on 26 Dec 2012), we went to St.Kilda to see the sunset. We took tram #16 from Federation Square, and prior to getting on the tram we bought Myki card at Seven Eleven of Federation Square.

Arriving at St.Kilda we walked directly to the Pier, and stayed there to see the penguins. It was very cold that evening, even with a sunshine! We enjoyed a great view from St.Kilda overlooking the Melbourne city.

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Cape Tourville, the Freycinet National Park

To wrap up our half day visit at the Freycinet National Park, we visited Cape Tourville after visiting the stunning Honeymoon Bay. Suddenly the sunshine went away and replaced by the thick dark cloud. I was to tired and decided to stay in our car, so did Ijul and her kiddos. While Rene and Arul went inside the Cape Tourville.

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Honeymoon Bay at the Freycinet National Park

After visiting the Wineglassbay Lookout, we continued our journey exploring the Freycinet National Park by visiting the Honeymoon Bay. We had promised Dhaffin that we would take him swimming after the hiking. There were only three groups of people on the Honeymoon Bay, made this area really perfect for the honeymooners:p This was our very first sight of the Honeymoon Bay:  

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Wineglassbay Freycinet National Park

First of all, I have to say it all over again that this place is the reason why I visited Tasmania. And I am glad I did! Sit back and enjoy our experience visiting Wineglassbay at the Freycinet National Park as well as all the pictures:)

We left Launceston at about 8 am on Christmas day and drove straight to Freycinet. We took the route of: Launceston - Campbell Town - Lake Leake - then to Freycinet National Park. We enjoyed beautiful views along the way, yes we enjoyed every second of it:)

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Sydney New Years Eve Fireworks from Mrs Macquaries Point

Hi all happy new year! It has been my dream to watch the Sydney New Years Eve fireworks live show, and Alhamdulillah we made it this year. So we skip our posts of our Australia and Tasmania trip and jump to this special report on Sydney New Years Eve. But we promise to continue updating our blog with our Asutralian trip posts:)

Before our departure to Australia, I have sent questions to mba @adekumala, the owner of one of our fave blog Travelling Precils. That time we were sure that we were going to see the Sydney New Years Eve fireworks from Sydney Observatory Hill. Upon our arrival in Sydney, we went to the Sydney Observatory Hill to survey the location, but we couldn't see the opera house. So we decided to see the fireworks from other place.

the view from Sydney Observatory Hill

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Tamar River Launceston

On the second day in Launceston, we had some time in the morning before we left for Freycinet National Park. So we woke up early and drove to the area of Tamar River. It was a quiet Christmas Day and it was very cold though the sun was shining.

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