Visiting The Great Barrier Reef With Passions of Paradise
The Great Barrier Reef is on every backpackers east coast bucket list, and once you visit you will see why. This place is E P I C and one of our faves when it comes to exploring the underwater world. We’re talking turtles, sharks, coral for days and a ridiculous amount of fish!When it comes to visiting the Great Barrier Reef you have many different options of boats, we’ve tried and tested many of these and selected the best ones when you combine experience and fits in to that all important backpacker budget! Passions of Paradise is a beaut new catamaran that goes out each and every day to the outer section {aka the beautiful part} of the reef.
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Why Passions?
Passions is an epic option for those who want to snorkel or dive on the Great Barrier Reef, this super chill awesome catamaran is one of our favourites for sure as not only does it go to the premium part of the reef but it’s also great value for money, it’s a perfect in between those budget trips and the pricey all singing all dancing trips that you’ll find the oldies on {soz mum}.
This catamaran is unreal for heavy chills after a long day of snorkelling/scuba, they have the BEST spot for just that, so kick back with a bevvy and take in those views! Expect from this trip – epic food {trust us, this buffet is a good un}, a day getting up close and personal with marine life that you’ll never forget, scuba dive for the first time and you’ll meet onboard legends who will take photos, give you snorkel tips and are on hand all day to make sure you have an epic time!
The itinerary
Where does it start?
This trip starts from Reef Fleet Terminal, you’ll need to check in between 7 and 7:30am {so you might want to think twice about that night out at woolshed before!}.
From the major hostels aka Giligans and Mad Monkey we say allow 15 mins to walk there.
What does the day look like?
- 8am – Safety Briefing & tea/coffee!
- 10-12 – Snorkel stop number 1
- 12-1 – Lunch yewwwwww
- 1-3 – Snorkel stop number 2
- 3-4:30 – Snack, bevvy and chill time
- 4:30pm – Arrive back in Cairns!
with RatPack Travel?
What should you bring?
- Sunscreen {trust us, those UV rays yoooo}
- Water
- Hat/cover up
- Swimmers
- Go Pro with a wrist strap {don’t learn the hard way haha}
- A hoodie for the way back
- $20 for your national park fee
Fancy a scuba?
With these guys you have two choices on how you want to see the Great Barrier Reef, you can choose to snorkel or scuba dive! If you have never scuba dived before and fancy trying it out for the first time then where better to start!
Pre book the dive option before you go – they will provide all the equipment and tuition – an intro dive will give you 20 – 30 mins to discover the reef & you’ll go to a maximum depth of 10 metres! You do not need any prior experience so it’s perfect for first timers. We get this on a special BackPacker rate >> $45 yewwww > hit us up if you fancy it?!
From our RatPackers
I booked my campervan to travel in NZ via RatPack Travel, who managed to find me the perfect van at relatively short notice and with a discount! It was a real help to have someone do the searching and mediate with the company, once they had dates and information from me. Thanks for the prompt and friendly service!
Great service! Jenner was so much help and gave us lots of options to suit our journey. Very attentive and made it an easy process.
This was the best customer service I ever experienced! I highly recommend you if you are looking for a Van or Camper to leave your email address so somebody of their team can get in touch with you. They compare for you all camper hire company’s and you can choose with one suits you the best. I literally talk to this awesome lady from Holland (as I’m only available after 8pm MEL time, so the arrange for me a call with somebody from the EU team for free) and she got our dream van for the most incredible price few minutes after we talked! And not even one day later I got my booking confirmation from the camper company. Their service is free of charge as they earn commission of your booking but this doesn’t cost you a cent. I did my own research before but the deals they give me was way better than I could find by my own. I highly recommend to get in touch with this team and let them find your Van. They literally saved us our fuel cost for a 3 weeks travel from Cairns to Sydney. Yes- that’s almost $1000 they saved us! Go and get your van! You won’t regret it.
So far, so so good. I should have started with RatPack to begin with and saved all that time searching for a camper and feeling like I was getting nowhere. Jenna was incredibly helpful -doing all the hard yards and getting us the best deal. Very prompt service. Thanks for making it so easy !
Very friendly service with Tammy. Super attentive and keen to help us. Got us a discount and one of the last available options.
Ratpack was super helpful! They were extremely responsive and helped us get an amazing deal on two 3-person camper vans. Highly recommend giving them a shot!
Really straight forward helpful and friendly people!
Mike helped us with finding the best van for us for our 3 week trip and was very knowledgeable. With some quick phone calls he gave us the best quotes and walked us through the process in detail. Everything was made clear and we booked our trip in just an hour! I would highly recommend their service.
Great experience with the RatPack travel team! Really went out of their way to help us book our Van’s for two different trips! They have great rapport with the various Van companies, were able to help us book the last available Van for our time in WA and were able to get us some discounts as well. Zan and Mikey were both so easy going, made it feel like we were chatting with friends who genuinely cared about our travels haha, awesome guys! Definitely recommend the RatPack service, will save you time and money fellow travellers!
Mike was amazing - helped me find a van and gave me quotes, a full breakdown, etc super quickly no stress! Just what I needed. Can't wait to start my trip. Thanks dude!
Booked a 3 week trip with MIKEY! Customer service was on point. No Buls**t straight to the point. Saved us a further % on the original price of the campervan and sent me a map of the east coast with highlighted areas he highly recommended to stop at. looking forward to our trip! 🇮🇪 🇦🇺
Highly recommend this company! Mike was incredibly helpful; he gave us lots of useful info and managed to get an excellent deal on a camper for our trip. The whole process was quick and easy. Thank you! Alison and Amy x
Mikey was amazing at helping us plan our 3 week schedule for the east coast. He went over and above to make sure that we were able to fit everything in that we wanted to in the time we have. His knowledge has been a great asset for us making an itinerary. Can't recommend enough!
If you want to book a camper for your trip, you should only do so with Ratpack. The team is incredibly fast and provides great service. No annoying comparison of providers, since Ratpack takes over. They are looking for the best deal and can offer great discounts. they respond individually to your wishes and give you additional tips for the trip. Since there is also an EU team, you could make calls at individual times of the day - simply excellent all around - thanks for everything
Absolutely delighted with the service provided by RatPack Travel. In particular, the excellent guidance and support offered by Jules! We explained our plans and she found a suitable solution to meet our needs. Very grateful and suggest other travellers use this facility. Thank you 😊
