Port Douglas Forum: 2012 Solar eclipse group

I contacted several of the hotels directly and they are booked. Most said they have groups that have reserved the rooms and I could be put on a wait list (with others) should they cancel. Or they are not accepting reservations at this time because they have some group that blocked up the rooms.

A long list of eclipse tour groups with a heap of good information is at

www.eclipse-chasers.com/tseNext.php…

Our local astronomy group - mi start one.

I've just found a good website with a lot of info about the eclipse - http://rses.anu.edu.au/~jcali/eclipses/PLANNING/TSE2012p/path.html. It appears the whole event will be over in just over two minutes! Do you really need to join a tour group for that???

As the main eclipse in the Cairns/Port Douglas/Daintree region will be around sunrise on 14 November next year it means that you could stay anywhere in the region - hotel, B&B, caravan park etc - and either see it from your accommodation or only have to drive a few minutes to the nearest beach to have a ringside view!

Your comments back exactly what I was saying on another thread...

Melb Comm Games, World Road Cycling Champs, WYD in Sydney etc were all exactly the same...lots of overpriced tour only bookings, until a few weeks before...

I started making enquiries about accom for those few days a few weeks ago as GS is into Astronomy (see TRs and comments on red centre forums)...and found about 8-10 places with accomm....but all were after 2x what is normal but still signifciantly less than the tour companies ....booking for 6 21 yos..just a tad too pricey at double the normal Novemebr rate.

Looking for your local astronomy group

http://www.quasarastronomy.com.au/society.htm

Should add, only looked at maybe 15 places in total.....

there's a lot more accom out there than the tour company you are pushing have on the site

PS should add i did it via email contacts...not direct web bookings.. and I looked beyond the "chain" accom..

Rasta,

I need to apologise...there are lots of weird things going on in the Cairns forum this weekend. One of posters, self promos. lots of deleted posts etc..

Your question appeared almost straight after I commented about the eclipse on a different thread...set off alarm bells for self promo....and then the second link was similar to the first......sleep deprivation kicked in (note to self do not read until 2am no matter how good the book is)

I've sent you a PM with a few places that have looked good cheap options with availability.....don't want to put them on here yet as we are still confriming exact travel dates and numbers

Hope you didn't mean me re 'self promotion' Guruswife (grin!) - TA actually allows you to use your own logo as long as there no contact details appearing on it. Anyway to keep the peace I've gone back to my plain ol' Sunbird image!

With the amount of accommodation available in Port Douglas as well as area nearby, I would bery much doubt that the entire shire would be booked out. If really interested in accom, there are lots of websites to start looking at. Why not try the official Port Douglas tourism association website, go to the accommodation tab and start copying and pasting the same enquiry to all the associated accommodation members. I bet you'll find more than half the town not booked out yet.

Sunbird...

No there were a few self promos for other things...

I actually prefer your sunbird image too makes me thing tropical !