First day of holiday

Surfers Paradise! Yey!

We got up early and had subway for breakfast. TT didn't want to chance our luck at getting free Marriott breakfast :(

The subway was the worst I've ever had. I really like them (subway) now, but this one was awful. The girl was obviously a trainee or something and forget to offer us any options. As I'm English and we don't complain (lol) and Tt is shy, we got served bacon in a bun. I know that sounds normal for breakfast, but they're supposed to offer loads of toppings. For example, with bacon I'd certainly go with cheddar cheese, tomato, pepper, perhaps even some lettuce and tomato sauce. But she offered nothing. We both ended up with six inch bacon butties. Worst subway in the world. But I would like to point out that it was a first too, I've never been to a subway that was short of perfect. In fact they're generally so perfectly similar the only way of measuring differences between them usually is how happy the server is and how long it takes to get served.

We had brekkie early - about 8.30. Then the heavens opened. We were treated to a proper cloud burst of rainforest proportions. It belted down. We waited for it to stop because usually rain only lasts about 10 mins or so around here. And we waited. And we waited. Then my phone beeped. It was Helen, the girl who we'd arranged to meet. The sms said simply: "Bloody pom! Trust you to bring your stinking weather with ya!"

We giggled at that a bit and continued to wait. And wait. At 10 we realised it wasn't going to stop so we headed for our first touristy spot. It was called "Infinate" or something like that. We knew it was going to be cheesy. It was a pretty unique idea though and good fun. They let you in (we were the first) and they take all loose belongings from you. They make you empty your pockets into a small bag and give you a receipt. I think this is just to excite your mind into thinking "What the hell....?!!"

They then give you white gloves and white "shoe protectors" to wear. The shoe protectors are just giant bags you put over your feet with elasticated ankle bits. We then joined, or, as we were first, formed a queue by the entrance. When there were 6 people in total the girl gave us her speel: I've never heard the word "cool" used so much in 1 minute in my life. I just wanted to blurt out "Jeez! We've paid for the tickets already! Stop selling it and open the fucking gate!" But I was good and didn't.

When she'd finally done gibbering she opened the gate to let us in. We'd been warned to keep our hands out in front of us and I could tell why. It was pitch black with only a tiny amount of UV lighting. That made our hands and feet light up. We'd been made to put on white gloves and foot protectors that made us look like bad mime artists. Now I knew why we'd been given those stupid things to wear.

It was cool. It was just a maze, but things changed to shock you. For example, the floor would suddenly turn to mattress texture. Or it would be one of those travelators going the wrong way. Or soft, slimy strings would be hanging from the ceiling and make you go "Yeugh!!!" At one point (having just crossed a rope bridge) we suddenly pushed open a door and found ourselves in a lit area.

It was fully illuminated. But it was a mirror/glass maze. We started navigating through it. After 5 mins we passed another couple - they must have come in after us. Another 2 minutes pass and we saw the same couple again. We nodded and smiled. 2 minutes later we passed the same couple again. Between gritted teeth we all nodded and smiled again. We were all getting annoyed now!

The fourth time we passed the same (and only) couple I grabbed the blokes arm and said, with a really serious expression "We've been in here 2 and a half weeks! How long have you been here?" TT looked hugely embarrassed but the other couple both pissed their pants laughing.

We finally found our way out (I should have mentioned, the whole place, both dark and lit areas, are confused by laser beams, flickering lights and weird stereo music. The whole thing is designed to disorientate and it does so very well. When we found the exit to the mirror maze we should have shouted the other couple. But we didn't. No one's perfect eh?!

The next room that caused a problem was the "Star gate" or something like that. It was about 30ft wide, perfectly circular and pitch black. But the floor had a slight dip towards the centre, and the ceiling was concave. And the walls were covered in randomly sparkling LED's So you felt like you were in outer space. Once you walked in you simply couldn't find the way out, even though it was a large empty room. The designers had cunningly made the entrance with a double door so even as more people stumbled in you never got to see any light.

Eventually there were about 20 of us stuck in the room and no one could find the exit. All you could hear were people all around falling over one another and random shouts of "Sorry!" "Aw, Mate!", "Jeez fella!", "Dammit!", etc. It was very funny. TT and I elected to stand by the wall in one place until someone invariably yelled "FOUND IT!" and we just ran towards the sound.

We then went to "Space Travel" or something like that. It was owned by the same company and it had many of the same attributes. Ie. Hugely cheesy and touristy. This one was much more educational though. There is a choice of four pods to enter and we decided on 1 and 2. Inventive eh?

1 was a 3D video showing footage taken by latest Hubble mission and stuff like that. I actually quite enjoyed it since I'm a nerd. Then it was a walk through a virtual universe. I liked that too, but while I was about a quarter of the way through, saying "wow" to facts TT suddenly came out of the darkness, grabbed my arm and said "I've been all the way to the end and it's this planet bollocks all the way" and promptly dragged me out. I was actually enjoying it, but I guess it's not her thing!

We then went on pod 2, which was a totally different type of video. You had to lay on the floor, on your back and stare at the ceiling. Ie - pretend you've had 5 pints of scrumpy (strong English cider). Suddenly you saw an image of Surfers Paradise, and then it zoomed out. And out. And out. It was fantastic. It zoomed out, past the moon, past the sun, past the other planets, until you were at the edge of the solar system and Earth was just a star.

Then it zoomed out some more. Right to the edge of our galaxy, the milky way (see, I learnt something!), then further out, past the other three galaxy's that are part of ours. Then out to the galaxy that's on the edge of the universe. All with a Sean Connery sound alike commentary. It then zoomed back in again, at double speed with no voice over.

It was incredible. I just wished I'd had a joint before I went in. No wonder someone (Tara, from Essex, UK) had written in the guest book "Universe and God and stuff is really big, innit?" Well done Tara. Yes, it is.

We then spent the rest of the day using the hotel facilities - the sauna, jacuzzi, gym and so on. We loved it. Then we undone all our good work by going to the bar. Our stay included 4 drink tokens. There was a business meeting going on in the bar (it was a Friday at the Marriott after all) so we acted responsibly. HA HA HA! Of course we didn't!

TT asked for the juke box to be turned on and we put on loads of loud music. Then we played pool right in the middle of the meeting. While getting pissy. I couldn't play properly as I couldn't stop laughing at the fact I WAS ON HOLIDAY and the other people were trying to do business meetings in hotel bars.

The women at the meeting started clicking their fingers in time with the music and the blokes started offering advice about pool shots. Why can't UK meetings be like that?!

We then discovered the bar wench was English and in gratitude of speaking to another Brit she refused to take the tokens. She just smiled when we offered payment and said "Thanks!" and then muttered quietly "Use them later, when I'm not on shift!" I love being a Brit in Australia. That was another $20 worth saved. I'm a tight bastard!

We called Helen to see if she fancied joining us for a beer. Unfortunately she was busy so we went and listened to some bands and watched Irish dancing girls instead.

After 11pm the place turned into a perverts heaven. It was filled with young drunk teen girls spewing or pulling down their pants / lifting their skirts to all.

Luckily, by that time most of the pervs were either:

a) Laying around drowning in pools of their own vomit
- or -
b) Busy fighting other pervs over the last beer

So only lesbain pervs would have got much of an eye-full. We went back to the hotel and drank beer in our room. We're such party animals eh?