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Friday - 50 years married and 56 years together, we thought this was a pretty good achievement so booked a weekend in Melbourne to celebrate. We tried to book Crown Promenade for the four nights but we are unable to secure the 24 which is actually our anniversary. Crown had a deal on at the time where your could stay three nights and pay for two so we decided to take up this offer starting the Saturday night and then booked The Langham for our anniversary night. We have stayed at Promenade heaps of times but never The Langham, we were very pleasantly surprised when we arrived, the hotel is very impressive with a beautiful entrance and it is a short walk to the river. We booked in and even though it was so early we were able to access our room so we found the lifts and went up to await the arrival of our bags. When the bags arrived I unpacked and took out the clothes we were wearing that night for dinner and then went down to the river to look for somewhere for lunch. We found a little cafe facing the river and were given a table out the front which was very pleasant. I took a photo of Robb and the ladies on the table next to us offered to take a photo of us tougher which we gladly accepted. They asked if we were celebrating something and when we said it was our 50 anniversary they congratulated us and we had a lovely chat with them for quite awhile. We ordered a Margarita Pizza and a bowl of chips and shared this washing it down with a beer and a wine. After lunch we walked down to the river to try to book in for a cruise but the booking sheds weren't open, we took the number and thought we would phone later. Returning to the hotel we walked upstairs to the bar for a drink before returning to our room. We had a booking at The Lobster Cave for dinner, we had purchased a voucher for here in December with the intent of using it for our anniversary and we were both looking forward to going. We tried phoning to make a booking for the cruise but the office was closed and I left a message, we never did hear back from then. Our booking for the restaurant was for 6.30 and we needed to allow an hour for driving there, we had a couple of hold ups so just made it in time. We ordered the Classic Seafood Platter for two, this gave us half a good sized lobster with money sauce each and a mixture of seafood and chips. It was plenty for the two of us and we had trouble finishing it. I had taken along a very nice Prosecco to have with our meal. There was a couple on the table next to us and we struck up a conversation and they asked if we were celebrating something special and I was quite pumped to say it was our 50 wedding anniversary but then felt a bit deflated when they said they were there for their 56 wedding anniversary. Anyway we were talking for the whole time, they had also been travelling for a long time, and had an excellent night so much so that we were reminded that we had to leave when the time came. I would thoroughly recommend The Lobster Cave, we purchased a voucher in December which gave us double the value of the voucher we purchased for our meal. The food was good but the service was excellent, if you have the opportunity take a visit and enjoy a good dinner.
Saturday - We were moving onto Crown Promenade for three nights this morning, we could have stayed at The Langham until 12.00noon but we were up and about ready for a coffee so happy to move onto our next stay. Crown Promenade is just around the corner from The Langham so we arrived and left our car with valet parking and went inside to book in. Our room wasn't ready but we booked in and were given our vouchers attached to the package. One of these vouchers was for $50 for Kingpin which is a fun arcade attached to the complex, we decided to visit here and play a few games while we were waiting, in the end we won a handful of chocolates but had a bit of fun on th way. While here we received a notification that our room was ready so we returned to reception to pick up our key for the room. When we were set up we went down to the Crown foodcourt for a quick lunch before walking over to Jeff's Shed to visit The Lume exhibition. I had really wanted to visit The Lume while the Van Gogh exhibition was on but we just couldn't manage it so when we were going to the city for our anniversary I was really keen to visit the Monet and Friends exhibition. We didn't really realise how big Jeff's Shed was but we walked the distance to The Lume and paid our entry before walking over to exhibition. We both loved this experience and wouldn't mind returning for the next one, it is pretty hard to explain how good it was, unless you are there feeling the colours covering everything in the room and feeling part of the paintings and the story behind them, even my doubting husband was impressed. Robb loves playing poker so in the afternoon he spent a bit of time in the poker room and while he was there I amused myself on the pokies. We tried to get into San Antone for dinner that night but the wait was too long so we had dinner at one of the bars and then returned to our room.
Sunday - Part of our package was a $30 voucher for coffee at the Promenade coffee shop so we started our day with a coffee from here and a read in our room. We still hadn't heard back from the ferry people so we walked down to the casino and had a drink in the Jackpot Bar before having lunch in the food court. We had decided to watch a movie at the cinemas in the afternoon so booked into watch Missing which was starting at 2.00pm. We both loved this movie it had everything we liked, suspense, intrigue and a twist. After the movie we had a play in the casino before walking to SanAntone where we had booked earlier in the afternoon for dinner. San Antone is an American BBQ restaurant, we have been here before and enjoyed it, don't go if you don't like eating meat because it is a bit of an overload, the food was good and the service was better.
Monday - We tried the ferry service again but without any success. We grabbed our coffee as usual and read in our room before moving down to the Jackpot Bar for our heart starter. We had lunch in the foodcourt before having another play in the casino. We decided to return to the cinema to watch another movie and chose to watch Avatar on 3D, Robb had already seen it but the 3D was another experience for him. We both enjoyed the movie and after that we turned to the Casino for a bit of a gamble. We spent the remainder of our time gambling in one place or another.
Tuesday - We took our time getting up in the morning and then packing up to return home. We had a good stay in Melbourne and have always loved our time here.