SKYCITY HOTEL
Due to its central location, a 3 block walk to the Harbour and 2 blocks to the shops, restaurants and theatres on the main street, Skycity Hotel was a great place to stay. As part of a casino, there were 4 floors of gaming and at least 15 different restaurants and bars in the complex alone, although, travelling with 2 minors insured I did not venture into any of those - unfortunately!
Due to renovations the roof top pool was closed so we wandered over the road to the Skycity Grand Hotel to use their pool. Not exactly child friendly but the kids made the most of it anyway.
Very comfortable beds - 2 thumbs up by the kids.
A view up to the gaming floors from the lobby.
The beautiful flower display in the lobby of the Skycity Grand, we were on our way to use their pool.
A one lane lap pool and spa was all the kids had to play in but they didn't really mind, I am sure the guests in training did though!
A quick happy snap before heading out for dinner.SKY TOWER
Sky Tower is the tallest tower in the southern hemisphere. It is 328m high and taller than the Eiffel Tower. At normal pace it would take someone 24 mins to climb the 1029 steps to the Main Observation Level. No we didn't try it -although someone has and their record was 4 min and 53 sec back in Nov 2009. Other interesting facts include:
- it is designed to withstand 200kph winds, however this would not help it in a QLD cyclone, and should only sway up to 1m
- it weighs the same as 6000 elephants
- it has views up to 82km in each direction on a clear day
- it is as tall as 37 buses laid end to end
- it has a revolving restaurant and a cafe/bar at the top also
View from the ground up.
Emily's favourite view from the tower - the Auckland Harbour Bridge and Marina.
Looking down at the deck where we were going to spend a bit of time, alas it was closed. At least we got a birds eye view of it.
We certainly don't have views like this in Tonga!
Sky Tower is home to SkyJump - a leap off the Sky Tower with a straight fall of 11 sec at 85kms per hr, and SkyWalk - a walk around the exterior of the tower on a 1.2m wide platform 192m in the air. Neither is for the faint hearted.
Dylan in front of the launch pad, (the outer platform is where you walk) the kids were keen to walk around but were too young, thank goodness I say because I don't know if I would have been able to tag along.
OBSERVATORY RESTAURANT
The restaurant is 194m above ground and has magnificent views, the food and service were wonderful and this dinner out was only the second activity for mum, as the rest of the holiday was kid orientated. I read the riot act to the kids, YOU WILL dress up, YOU WILL use table manners and YOU WILL eat a proper meal before eating everything on the dessert table!!!!
The shades had to be down because of the glare but still a great view.
Emily's foray into food photography - my entree, not bad!
Emily with everything from the dessert buffet as promised. Dylan was over being photographed by this stage so no pictures of him pigging out.After an hour and half we were all stuffed and rolled ourselves back into the elevator to our room and promptly slept it all off. If you go to www.quikpix.co.nz and click SkyPix and enter the code 98128 you will see our picture in front of the tower - again thanks to the help of green screen photography.
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