This was the last day of our “RoadTrip” The next week we have booked a room at Mantra. This will not be as much of a “budget break” 🙂 we love eating out at good restaurants, so the Entertainment Book will be used as much a possible 🙂 The package I booked is Room and Full Buffet Breakfast each day, so we are planning on having a big breakfast, later lunch, then light snacks in the evening.
As I mentioned in the previous post, Toowoomba is only a short drive from Brisbane city and knowing we could not check in until 2:00pm we were in no hurry to leave.
I wanted to travel back to Brisbane on the new “second crossing” of the Toowoomba range. Last time we were in Toowoomba, we had seen the construction works happening and were keen to see it finished. This new bypass should help keep large trucks out of the Toowoomba City centre.
We found the entrance to the new highway and it was funny watching the navigation system in the car having a little “panic attack” as the new road has not been updated to the system yet, so the car thought we were driving through a paddock and kept telling us to “turn around where safe”
We arrived at South Bank at just after 11:30am. We did not expect our room to be ready, but we knew that the Mantra would put our luggage into the storeroom and park the car for us. This left us free to have lunch at one for the many restaurants nearby.
We chose Ahmet’s Turkish. We have not been here before and were very pleased we did. It was really nice. We took our time and choose a couple of small plates as starters then split a main meal between us. We also enjoyed a couple of nice glasses of wine. Ahmet’s is in the Entertainment Book with a 25% off voucher.
After lunch, we were still a little early for our 2:00pm check in, so we decided to take a short walk up to Woolworths and buy some cheese and cold meats ready for a few light dinners. We got back to the Mantra and our room was ready, so we headed up to see our home for the next week.
We are members of the “Mantra Plus” programme so we get bonuses such as free Wi-Fi, food and bar discounts, late check out and often an upgrade in the room type. Of course, the upgrade is subject to availability but most times we have been upgraded.
When booking a room, I always book the minimum we are happy to stay in and if we get an upgrade it is a bonus. For a one week stay, we decided on a One Bedroom Apartment which gives a little more space than a Studio Apartment.
When we got up to the room, we had been upgraded to a City View Apartment, which gives us views over the roadway and city rather than looking out over the train line ?
We unpacked our clothes and sorted out the bathroom, then settled in for a quiet afternoon.
