• Arcadia – so close to our South Yarra property (this means you can stumble home!)
• Bridie O’Reilly’s – On Chapel St, it’s an Irish pub and lots of fun. An afternoon session is a must here. The perfect location for people watching, just grab a table out fron!
• The College Lawn - On Greville St. Sunday afternoons are the go for this place.
• Fog – Also on Greville St, you can get some nice cocktails here and the food menu is great.

• Borche Vodka and Tears – A polish restaurant and they have the most extensive AND DELICIOUS vodka drinks list! It’s a small place and if you want to go for dinner I would make a booking. The evenings usually see an older couple dressed in traditional Polish gear playing an accordion, very cute!
• Hoo Haa – You can grab a great Pizza or a casual dinner, after about 9pm the bar kicks off on Thursday through to Sunday. Hoo Haa has a great Vibe and is always a good place to start the night!
• Lucky Coq – Great any night of the week. They have $4 pizzas!! Woo! The décor has that ‘I found it so I’m going to use’ feel, but very chilled and its buzzing here most nights of the week.

• Orange Bar – A small, very chilled out bar/café. The vibe is often set by the person behind the bar. He plays whatever music he feels like listening too. Nice for a quiet sit-down drink.
• Railway Hotel – Has that pub feel with a bit of class attached to it. The upstairs area is great, and the best bit about it is that attached to the hotel is a 24 hour bottle-o!!!
• The Social – The crowd tends to be a little older (I suppose), a small bar with booths set up outside, couches along the wall and a dance floor towards the back. Decent music.
• The Windsor Castle – Friday nights are packed in the beer garden with an eclectic mix of drinkers. Decor is rainbow fantasia meets the tropics, with hurricane lanterns and straw umbrellas and palm trees. I would say one of the most popular drinking holes in the area.
• Bable – Next to the Coles car park. Great for breakfast or a hot or cold drink.

• Is It Café – Go just for the tagine breakfast…Oh so tasty!
• Mother’s Milk – Great for a quiet drink during the week, or a place to start the shenanigans of a Saturday night!

• Killing Time – Great music and a very cool crowd. A small bar which feels like your own backyard. I would recommend Saturday night. Start here then head to 161.

• One Six One – Go for the music and stay for the retro dance-floor. Thursday nights have live music.

• Electric Land Land – Again, great for a quiet drink during the week, or, Friday and Saturday nights here get very busy. More of a sit down kind of place with heaps of cosy corners to tuck yourself away in.

Please feel free to add anymore to the list! We are always looking for new places to go and to recommend to our guests!

People often ask me “who is Caroline?”, and while we may not have a team member with that name, we all use it whenever we pick up the phone at work. Caroline means ‘beautiful woman’, ‘joy’ or ‘song of happiness’, and our company name was chosen by taking the name of the beautiful street we are located on in South Yarra. If you’ve ever been to Caroline Street, you’ll agree that it never fails to impress – with those large plane trees forming a dramatic arch across the street leading up the hill. No photo I have ever taken of this street has managed to capture the impressive effect of that archway of trees (maybe I need a better camera). It’s always so much better to view it in person. So perhaps the person who named the street broke into song after he/she planted those trees knowing that it would one day be beautiful!

So how well do you think the meaning of Caroline suits our Serviced Apartments, and our team? Our apartments are definitely unique and some of them have views that you could happily sing about. We have a mixture of ultra modern and functional family accommodation in 2 of the best locations in Melbourne. This convenience has made a lot of people happy during their relocation… and what about the team? Who is Caroline really? I’m not going to get into a discussion about who is more beautiful than another, to me beauty has always been about the personality within. Whenever we employ a new team member, we always hope to find someone that is genuine, approachable, friendly and capable of handling many different types of situations. From our Housekeepers who will do anything possible to make each guest feel at home, to our Front Office team who are the ‘face’ of our business… we aim to live up to our name.

Now what on earth am I going to call my new female kitten? I’m thinking something French might be nice… oui?

This weekend, it’s no wonder both of our properties (in South Yarra and Brighton) are 100% fully booked. I might kickstart the weekend with a ‘dazzling breakfast & sparkling wine’ in St Kilda at Veludo on Saturday 20^th March. Sounds like fun.

What I’m most excited about is heading to the Cellar Door at Southgate promenade, where over 60 of Victoria’s best wineries are setting up camp practically on our doorstep! While the Yarra Valley and Mornington wineries are spectacular to visit, there’s always the problem of who has to drive. Not this weekend! They’re all coming to us and it’s going to be glorious!

On Sunday there’s also the Bright ‘n’ Sandy Food & Wine Festival where the StayBayside Group [which we are proudly part of] has a stall to promote the Bayside area as a destination with lots of different types of accommodation. Head down to Green Point to find all the local restaurants showcasing their culinary delights amongst a variety of entertainment for all the family. A great afternoon out – You can even bring your dog!

So what’s it going to be for you this weekend? If there’s something not to be missed, please let us know and we’ll tell our guests!

Albert Park 25 – 28th March 2010

Looking for an adrenaline rush?

Then get caught up in the excitement and roar of the Qantas Australia Grand Prix at Albert Park in March 2010.

We’ve got your accommodation covered. Caroline Serviced Apartments are offering racing fans some fabulous 4.5 star accommodation only 10 – 15 minutes from the track. Why not stay for a 5 nights and give yourself a chance to explore other places Melbourne has to offer?

Get in early though: South Yarra has already booked out and Brighton is filling fast!

The 'G' is electric

If you’re a massive cricket fan like me, you’ll understand the excitement when anyone talks about the Boxing Day Test at the ‘G’. Nothing is more electric than feeling the atmosphere at the Melbourne Cricket Ground during any sporting event, and the Boxing Day Test is no exception!

The (5 day) 3 Mobile Test Series will see Australia take on Pakistan from 26th – 30th December 2009. It’ll be interesting to see how Pakistan play against the Aussies after their recent smashing of the West Indies in Twenty20 cricket in June.

Accommodation packages at Caroline Serviced Apartments start from $225 per night. Our South Yarra property is only a 25 minute walk (or 1 train stop) from the MCG, and Brighton is only a 15 minute train journey to the ‘G’.

Get your sunscreen, get your hat, get your tickets and get in quick for the most convenient 4.5 star accommodation to catch all the action at the G!! To check South Yarra‘s availability just call +61 (0)3 9868 5600, and Brighton is +61 (0)3 8591 3333.

Summer

Caroline Serviced Apartments are in the perfect location to catch all the action of the tennis and also take the time to conveniently access all of the other attractions that Melbourne city has to offer. Melbourne Park / Rod Laver Arena is only 1 train-stop from our South Yarra Property (5 mins) and about 8 train-stops from our Brighton Property (15 mins) on the Sandringham Line.

Get in quick to secure your accommodation, as availability is becoming limited!

• South Yarra has a minimum stay of 10 nights throughout the tournament
• Brighton has a HOT DEAL for stays of 4 nights or more – just remember to mention that you want to book The Australian Open Tennis Package that you saw on our website or our blog so we can throw in a couple of little extras for you (including a Tennis Survival Kit).

Phone +61 (0)3 8591 3333 for Brighton or +61 (0)3 9868 5600 for South Yarra.

After reading this great blog post (from Jade Craven & ThinkTank Media) on Twitter Lists, we put together all of our new found knowledge to try to make some sense of this new feature of Twitter…

How do we use Twitter Lists?

Twitter lists have made it so much easier for us to categorise the people or companies that we follow on Twitter. We have created lists based on industry, geography, clients, connectors and activities in our area.

Industry

This has helped us group together all of our peers (accommodation providers) around the world. We can easily keep up with trends in our industry.  We use this to see how other hotels are utilizing their Twitter accounts, and also to find some really useful links on marketing or industry trends. It actually has reinforced to us that we are leaders amongst our competitors, as we have created a Twitter community that we engage with on a daily basis.

Geography

Our business is located in 2 areas of Melbourne. So we have created one list for South Yarra businesses and another for the Brighton area. We’re hoping to increase these lists as more local businesses get on board with the power of Twitter, but so far it is fairly limited, and not as useful as it could be. If we had more businesses to add to these lists it would be a fantastic opportunity to cross-promote other businesses and create close relationships that help bring more people to our local areas.

Clients

At Caroline Serviced Apartments we have a number of large corporations that send their employees to stay with us whilst working on projects in Melbourne. This Twitter list has only a few of our clients on it, at this early stage and we hope to find more of them utilizing Twitter in the near future.  We hope to be able to follow and provide support for the company progressions.

Connectors

There are a number of Travel Bloggers and Twitter networking events that we can bounce off to improve our profile within Social Media platforms. Travel Bloggers may even be able to use our accommodation for a review on their blog, or offer our accommodation as a prize in their own competitions. Twitter networkers such as @tweetupmellers is an invaluable source of people that we’ve met face-to-face. Although it’s great to chat to people online, there really is something to be said for meeting people in the flesh! Now we’ve met lots of the people at TweetUpMellers, they also now have a connection in the accommodation industry in Melbourne, so that they can recommend us to their clients or friends. Connecting is all about sharing!

Activities

I made a separate list for Melbourne Activities after discovering several individuals or companies who have some outstanding content on things to do in Melbourne.  At our Brighton Property we provide  ‘daily news’ for our guests with suggestions of activities and restaurants , so this list is a great source of ideas! It provides a ‘locals’ perspective on some cool things to get involved in around Melbourne.

It’s a good start…

Although some of our lists are more useful than others at the moment, we see the  potential that some lists can bring. Now all we need is more businesses and good connectors to become involved in Twitter!!! It’s not as scary as they may think!