Schoolies guide – tips, tricks and myths.
This is just a quick guide for those going to schoolies on the gold coast from someone that went in 2011. I just want to clear a few things up for some of you.
There is little-to-no violence
I was there for a week and didn’t see one fight. Everyone is friendly and eager to meet new people. I was told by a cop that the hotel I was staying in was located in the roughest part of the gold coast. He told me a few bikie gang members lived just down the street and the surrounding buildings had many people shooting up heroin. It still seemed fine.
Don’t buy any extra passes
It’s been a while since I said I wanted to write this but from what I can remember there are two passes that people seem to get sucked into every year. These are the Pool party pass and the Plan B club pass (if I can remember correctly). They are not worth your money. Apparently the Pool party sucks (costs $30-$40). And the Plan B (or Plan A) pass costs $70 and advertises free entry to lots of clubs. Fact is, they are free anyway. The only club I remember paying for is sin city.
There are plenty of under 18 year olds
You’ll have the most fun running around the surfers paradise and hotel rooms. Don’t feel inclined to stay home if you won’t be 18. The most fun we had were outside clubs.
They don’t put prices up for alchohol
Don’t know where this myth came from. Everything seemed to be priced normally. What I found most strange is that I saw many Melbourne’s drinking UDLs (a girls drink). Us NSW peeps found it hilarious.
You’ll end up spending more than you think
Thought I had budgeted the trip well but ended up paying $1200 for accommodation, flights, food and alchohol for the week. So do have pre-drinks and do shop at coles for food and make your own meals. It’s great fun. My friend started to run out of money and decided to steal $16 worth of food. Undercover cops were waiting for us when we got outside. They let us off though (after paying ofcourse).
Don’t book through schoolies
Probably a bit late now for most of you but it cost us about $500 each for the week. While we were there, they starting advertising for $20 a night! Schoolies makes a huge profit, it’s just like booking through a travel agency, you get the same thing, just pay more. Schoolies.com gives you nothing, you don’t need to book through them to get access to anything, everythings open to everyone. In fact, if you book through schoolies, your hotel will put your room down as a ‘schoolies’ room. This means no outside visitors are allowed up after certain times, no glass bottles, etc etc.
Schoolies doesn’t ‘sell out quick’
I booked through schoolies a month before departure. No problem.
You might come to hate the people you stay with
You’ll find out what it’s really like to live with people you consider your close friends. I stayed with two other people. Before Schoolies we hung out every day, and weekend. After schoolies I can say that none of us are friends. Friend 1 went out once the whole week and stayed in the room the whole time and was grumpy. Friend 2 kept smoking indoors and leaving a mess everywhere. On the second last night, I came back from someone elses place at 5am. Lost my key and tapped on Friend 2’s window to open the door. He came out angrily with this metal thing I pushed off the window after 10 minutes and swung at me. Cutting my hand open. Long story short: came back from hospital 3 hours later with stitches in hand. Friend 1 took Friend 2’s side and I left one night early. Can’t be bothered to go into any more detail.
It’s not as easy as you think to get laid
There was about 15 of us guys that went up from our school (located on the Northern Beaches, Sydney). I was the only one to get laid, on the third night by some cronulla girl. We randomly saw each other on this quiet street walking to the same direction. I sweet talked her and after 5 minutes we were hooking up. Another 5 minutes later we were doing it in this park we found. Afterwards she told me she had a boyfriend of 23 years old that just bought her a $950 ring. She also told me she had slept with two other guys so far on the week. However, I did talk to some people that said they had slept with multiple girls so don’t let me give you the wrong impression. If you have good game, look good (the beach and saltwater gave me a great tan), are genuine and find the right girl. You should do fine.
There are no beach parties except for queensland week
I know, it sucks doesn’t it?
You’ll end up meeting heaps of new people and having a blast with them
I’ll never forget schoolies week, even though what happened. I met some amazing friends that I will meet up with in Sydney eventually. I ended up hanging with some of the people I met on schoolies more than my friends. It was great fun sneaking into hotels, running around the streets at 4am. Going to clubs with them, it all just clicked. I even became friends with two guys from my area that started a fight with our soccer team back in Sydney, we bumped into each other up there and it was all good. We came up with stupid things to do and I can still remember all the laughs, it was so much fun. The whole thing. One thing I do regret is that there was this hot chick from our hotel that kept showing me signs of interest. From the pool, from the balcony. To this day still don’t know why I didn’t approach her. It’s so hard to explain schoolies to someone till they go. You must go to the goldcoast/surfers – it’ll be a fantastic week.
I’m sorry for this rushed guide, if you have any questions just post a reply and I’ll try get back to you. If I can think up anything else to add I will.
Northern Beaches Student, Class of 2011
This is just a quick guide for those going to schoolies on the gold coast from someone that went in 2011. I just want to clear a few things up for some of you.
There is little-to-no violence
I was there for a week and didn’t see one fight. Everyone is friendly and eager to meet new people. I was told by a cop that the hotel I was staying in was located in the roughest part of the gold coast. He told me a few bikie gang members lived just down the street and the surrounding buildings had many people shooting up heroin. It still seemed fine.
Don’t buy any extra passes
It’s been a while since I said I wanted to write this but from what I can remember there are two passes that people seem to get sucked into every year. These are the Pool party pass and the Plan B club pass (if I can remember correctly). They are not worth your money. Apparently the Pool party sucks (costs $30-$40). And the Plan B (or Plan A) pass costs $70 and advertises free entry to lots of clubs. Fact is, they are free anyway. The only club I remember paying for is sin city.
There are plenty of under 18 year olds
You’ll have the most fun running around the surfers paradise and hotel rooms. Don’t feel inclined to stay home if you won’t be 18. The most fun we had were outside clubs.
They don’t put prices up for alchohol
Don’t know where this myth came from. Everything seemed to be priced normally. What I found most strange is that I saw many Melbourne’s drinking UDLs (a girls drink). Us NSW peeps found it hilarious.
You’ll end up spending more than you think
Thought I had budgeted the trip well but ended up paying $1200 for accommodation, flights, food and alchohol for the week. So do have pre-drinks and do shop at coles for food and make your own meals. It’s great fun. My friend started to run out of money and decided to steal $16 worth of food. Undercover cops were waiting for us when we got outside. They let us off though (after paying ofcourse).
Don’t book through schoolies
Probably a bit late now for most of you but it cost us about $500 each for the week. While we were there, they starting advertising for $20 a night! Schoolies makes a huge profit, it’s just like booking through a travel agency, you get the same thing, just pay more. Schoolies.com gives you nothing, you don’t need to book through them to get access to anything, everythings open to everyone. In fact, if you book through schoolies, your hotel will put your room down as a ‘schoolies’ room. This means no outside visitors are allowed up after certain times, no glass bottles, etc etc.
Schoolies doesn’t ‘sell out quick’
I booked through schoolies a month before departure. No problem.
You might come to hate the people you stay with
You’ll find out what it’s really like to live with people you consider your close friends. I stayed with two other people. Before Schoolies we hung out every day, and weekend. After schoolies I can say that none of us are friends. Friend 1 went out once the whole week and stayed in the room the whole time and was grumpy. Friend 2 kept smoking indoors and leaving a mess everywhere. On the second last night, I came back from someone elses place at 5am. Lost my key and tapped on Friend 2’s window to open the door. He came out angrily with this metal thing I pushed off the window after 10 minutes and swung at me. Cutting my hand open. Long story short: came back from hospital 3 hours later with stitches in hand. Friend 1 took Friend 2’s side and I left one night early. Can’t be bothered to go into any more detail.
It’s not as easy as you think to get laid
There was about 15 of us guys that went up from our school (located on the Northern Beaches, Sydney). I was the only one to get laid, on the third night by some cronulla girl. We randomly saw each other on this quiet street walking to the same direction. I sweet talked her and after 5 minutes we were hooking up. Another 5 minutes later we were doing it in this park we found. Afterwards she told me she had a boyfriend of 23 years old that just bought her a $950 ring. She also told me she had slept with two other guys so far on the week. However, I did talk to some people that said they had slept with multiple girls so don’t let me give you the wrong impression. If you have good game, look good (the beach and saltwater gave me a great tan), are genuine and find the right girl. You should do fine.
There are no beach parties except for queensland week
I know, it sucks doesn’t it?
You’ll end up meeting heaps of new people and having a blast with them
I’ll never forget schoolies week, even though what happened. I met some amazing friends that I will meet up with in Sydney eventually. I ended up hanging with some of the people I met on schoolies more than my friends. It was great fun sneaking into hotels, running around the streets at 4am. Going to clubs with them, it all just clicked. I even became friends with two guys from my area that started a fight with our soccer team back in Sydney, we bumped into each other up there and it was all good. We came up with stupid things to do and I can still remember all the laughs, it was so much fun. The whole thing. One thing I do regret is that there was this hot chick from our hotel that kept showing me signs of interest. From the pool, from the balcony. To this day still don’t know why I didn’t approach her. It’s so hard to explain schoolies to someone till they go. You must go to the goldcoast/surfers – it’ll be a fantastic week.
I’m sorry for this rushed guide, if you have any questions just post a reply and I’ll try get back to you. If I can think up anything else to add I will.
Northern Beaches Student, Class of 2011
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