Before Christmas we took a sneaky trip to the BreakFree Alexandra Beach Resort, Miss Bumpkin has only been to the beach a few times in her life and Master Bumpkin has never been so it was lovely to experience the beach again through their little eyes.
BreakFree Alexandra Beach Resort is 100km from Brisbane CBD so is an hours drive (when there's no dreadful Bruce Highway traffic!), or you could fly to the Sunshine Coast Airport which is 18km. The popular Mooloolaba area is just down the road (1.5km) which has plenty of restaurants and shops for the whole family. If you fancy a visit to a shopping centre Sunshine Plaza is an only 5km down the road.
We spent four nights at the resort in a two bedroom self contained unit, we were on the third floor and had an ocean view (so beautiful to watch the waves while having a few beverages). The resort had everything you need, a child friendly pool, playground, bbq area and was right across the road from Alexandra Beach. When we checked in the staff required our credit card (which is the usual practice), however they deduct $200 from your card to cover breakages and damage and this will be returned between 5-7 business days post checkout. I booked the room through Discover Queensland and wasn't advised of the $200 fee, I thought this was a bit excessive but had no choice once we had arrived. I will definitely check the terms and conditions if I book another BreakFree holiday.
The room was nice and spacious with two bedrooms, two bathrooms, lounge area and a compact kitchen. The unit was clean and the floor also looked clean, however as most Mum's will know you soon find out how clean the floor is when you have a baby crawling around. Master Bumpkin's hands, knees and feet were pretty dirty after crawling around for 15 minutes. I would say the floor was vacuumed but it has been a while since it had a good mop! The bath was found in the master bedroom's ensuite and was very deep and awkward being an ensuite so it was hard to bath the kids and they ended up mainly having showers for this reason. It would be hard to bath a baby who needed assistance to sit up, the bath is probably for children at least 6 months +. The rooms are not serviced during your stay, however a top loader washing machine and dryer was in the second bathroom so we were able to wash our clothes, swimmers and towels while we were there. The Two Happy Chappy's come from a long line of people who are OCD about washing so laundry facilities (they also provided a clothes horse / dryer to hang towels etc) are a must for me! The kitchen had a full sized fridge, oven, microwave, dishwasher as well as pots and pans, plates, glasses, cuttlery etc, everything you would need to eat every meal in your room. As with most self contained apartments they only provided two sachets each of laundry and dishwashing powder so best to bring some from home if you're staying more than a day or two.
The resort has a pool with a slide at either end of the resort, Miss Bumpkin LOVED it but Master Bumpkin was a little young, he enjoyed paddling on the edge of the pool which had a graduated entry rather than stairs. The main pool also had an island in the middle to jump into the pool and a waterfall as well as bridges you could swim under. There was also a second smaller pool which had a spa off to the side. Some of the ground floor apartments backed onto the main pool so you could literally swim up to your back door / balcony area. When we weren't swimming we also went to the Resort's playground which was a ship theme, it has a shade cloth cover so was nice and cool most of the day. The resort also had a bbq area with tables, however it was pretty busy when we were there so an afternoon dip in the pool to secure a spot might be required!
There is a patrolled beach right across the road, however it is four lanes of traffic so not worth risking a bolt across especially with young children. There are two sets of lights about 100m apart so no excuse not to be safe and wait for the green man to flash! The beach was a little rough for young kids but that's to be expected at a surf beach, they enjoyed splashing in the water and building sandcastles and had a ball each time we went! There was a playground and showers at the beach which is patrolled by the Alexandra Beach Surf Life Saving Club, we also dined there on one night, you can read my review here.
We had a great time, the room was a good size for our family (they have 1, 2 & 3 bedroom units available), the kids loved the beach and it was a convenient location so if we were planning another beach holiday I would return to this resort as it's much more affordable than Mooloolaba down the road.
As they say, life's better at the beach!
#Bumpkin
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