With the private room for private patients issue, my public hospital said if a public patient has a greater medical need then they are given priority for private rooms over private patients anyway, so paying your hospital gap to stay there does not guarantee you a private room!

Definately go for some tours of any eligible hospitals in your area, and ask heaps of questions about what sort of classes, care and follow-up care they have, because they are all so different. The one we thought we'd like best we found very sterile and the staff quite patronising on the tour so ruled it out. Also one of the best things to do is just talk to everyone you can who has attended any of the hospitals... personal recommendations are a great help.