Hi Cori, we used Excess in September last year and pretty much filled a 20ft container which was shipped from England to Brisbane, cost about £3,400. I got 4 quotes and couldn't really see a difference between the service being sold to me, so just went with the 2 companies I felt most comfortable with and got them down about £300 in price from their initial quote. Don't be afraid to go back to them and say you've been quoted lower and what can they do to better their quote. Our container left our house on 20/9, left Port on 23/9 and was delivered to our house in Brisbane on 7/11. When we arrived in October, dd1 was 4.5yrs and dd2 was 10mths and by the time we had found a house to rent, a school for dd1, bought a car, fridge, freezer, tv, dvd player, fan and dh had found work, the last thing we felt like doing was then having to shop for everything as well. It was the start of summer, the girls and us were adjusting the hotter climate, finding our way around (although I had grown up in Brisbane I hadn't lived here in 14yrs) and we were both very glad not to have to do anymore running around than we had to. In the couple of years before leaving the UK, we had finally bought some nice furniture etc, after living in rentals for so long, and I just didn't want to come here and have to start again with everything. To update some of the electrical things was good to do, but it gave us all some continuity to have the same furniture in our lounge room and bed rooms at least, especially for dd1.
Changing plugs was fine, we've done that on our small things like microwave, bedside lamps, etc, just bring adapters with you so you can use those things until you get around to changing the plugs over.
For us, although it was a lot of money, it made life so much easier when we got here, and I think helped us and the dd's settle more quickly, having some familiar things around. Good luck