Five highlights in your travel week | March 10

Sofitel Sydney Wentworth has several deals in conjunction with the movie release of Beauty and the Beast on March 23. Its Disney Family Fun Package is priced from $379 per room per night, including overnight accommodation for two adults and one child in a decoratively styled room, buffet breakfast, a themed welcome gift and complimentary dinner for one child up to 12 years of age.

The Beauty and the Beast High Tea, priced at $69 per adult and $29 per child, includes French-inspired delicacies such as passionfruit cheesecakes, white chocolate dome and strawberry rose tartlets. Each child will receive a colouring kit.

The packages are available to June 30.

Maria Island … one of the best places in Australia to see wombats.

Tourism Australia has chosen 12 exceptional wildlife encounters and brought them together as the Australian Wildlife Collection, which features the common thread of a commitment to conservation.

Among them is Tasmania’s Maria Island Walk, a four-day guided national-park hike that includes pristine beaches and a heritage-listed convict settlement.

Maria Island is one of the best places in Australia to see wombats, tasmanian devils, cape barren geese, kangaroos and wallabies. The bird life is also an attraction, with 125 species including all of Tasmania’s endemics such as the endangered forty-spotted pardalote and swift parrot.

The Maria Island Walk takes in the dramatic sea cliffs of Fossil Bay, the peaks of Mt Maria or Bishop and Clerk, and the largest stand of giant Tasmanian blue gums.

Travelodge Southbank Melbourne … get a night of free accommodation.

Enjoy a short break in Melbourne and get a night of free accommodation with this deal from Escape Travel.

Pay from $195 per person twin-share and receive three nights for the price of two at the four-star Travelodge Southbank Melbourne.

The deal includes free wifi and is valid for sale until June 30 and for travel from April 4 to August 31.

Crown Casino, the MCG, Melbourne Aquarium, Rod Laver Arena, the Royal Botanic Gardens and the Melbourne Exhibition Centre are just minutes away.

The Tank Stream hotel … special Easter deal.

One of Sydney’s newest hotels, the 4.5-star Tank Stream, is offering accommodation deals over the Easter break with a discounted rate of $199 per night per room, including of free high-speed wifi and in-room movies, complimentary non-alcoholic mini-bar and Nespresso coffee.

The hotel is in Pitt Street, just a short walk from the Sydney Opera House, the historic Rocks, Barangaroo and the Pitt Street Shopping Mall.

The hotel’s Le Petit Flot restaurant offers bistro-style dining with an emphasis on share plates and local produce, and a laneway wine bar ideal for enjoying classic wines from around the world and light meals.

The hotel can arrange a tour with Tank Stream & Hidden Laneways, providing a two-hour insight into Sydney’s development in early days of the British colony as it traces the path of the Tank Stream.

The deal is valid from April 14-17.

Explore the Great Barrier Reef on a luxury sailing catamaran.

Explore the Great Barrier Reef by sailing from Cape Tribulation Daintree National Park to Mackay Cay aboard a luxury Lagoon 500 sailing catamaran, the first of its kind in Australia.

Sailaway’s new full-day outer-reef adventure takes guests 10 nautical miles off the coast, where a glass-bottom tour and snorkel adventure await, including a guided underwater tour with a marine biologist to see turtles, clam gardens and the spectacular coral reef systems.

A buffet lunch, morning and afternoon tea and coffee are supplied, along with snorkelling gear.

Prices start from $248 for adults and $171 for kids. Tours commence April 7.

John Rozentals is a freelance writer whose passions are travel, food and wine. He lives at Molong in the Central West of NSW, from where he hosts Oz Baby Boomers, a lifestyle-resource for mature Australians, and Molong Online.