We loved the location... 1 street away from the beautiful huge beach (maybe 100 steps), and an 8 minute walk to the ferry & all the shops. Brenda was very nice and met us upon arrival. She explained the details of the condo, and a few tips about the area.
The condo has the master bedroom & bath upstairs for Mom & Dad, and 2 bedrooms & a bath downstairs for our 2 adult kids (perfect for us). The kitchen had all the appliances and it was open to the living room. The TV has a lot of channels, and it has a built in DVD player. They had tons of DVDs, too. The condo is roomy and was a great fit for us.
As Americans, we needed to bring (or buy at the local stores) the electrical adapters ($10) to fit their outlets for our electronic phone and computer chargers. Our phone and computer chargers seemed to handle the 210 current (probably because they reduce the electrical 110 current in America already) , but if you have other electronic devices, you need a reducer (which we did), but I couldn't get it to work properly... (it got fried and tripped a breaker). Fortunately the condo had everything else we needed, so we didn't need the reducer.
The ferries pretty much leave every half hour. They have a public one (for $7.50 a direction), or you can buy an OPAL pass which lets you travel for $15 all day. It is approx 30 minutes to downtown Sydney (by the Opera House, the Bridge, and lots of other touristy stuff). They also have a competing private ferry company that costs a little more, but is a little faster (20 mins). We bought attractions (like the zoo), and the private ferry was included in the package, and it gave us 24hr ferry service on them, so we didn't need the public ferry those days.
We took a shuttle from the airport to the Sydney ferry terminal ($80 for 4 of us), and then on the ferry ($30 for 4 of us) to the Manly ferry wharf ...roller bags and all... and then, walked thru town to the condo. It would normally seem weird hauling all our luggage like that, but we weren't the only ones, so you don't need a car to get around. It seems to be part of the beach life. We could have taken the train from the airport to the ferry station, as there is a stop at both, and probably would have been cheaper than the shuttle, but we didn't know. When we left for home, we did take a shuttle from the condo to the airport for only $71 for the 4 of us (ASN Transfer Service 61 2 9997 7767), but I'm glad we came in the way we came in, so we could see how the ferry system worked.
We had a great trip, and the condo was great for us ! ...thanks Brenda.