Is it better to stay in Cairns or Kuranda

We will be travelling to Cairns in September with 2 kids 6 & 8yo.

We will have a total of 9 nights and was thinking to do 3 nights in Kuranda (we arrive at 5pm so 2 full days) and 6 nights in Port Douglas (we depart at 6.15pm).

We live in a city and thought would be nicer to stay in Kuranda (rainforest) than Cairns (another city). However when trying to plan my itinerary with ChatGPT, it keeps insisting that there's nothing much to do in Kuranda and I should only stay a maximum of 2 nights. We are planning to do Hartley's crocodiles enroute PD so we have 2 full days in Kuranda - is there enough to do there? Or do I consider a day trip to Cairns? It also seems like it's easier to get from Cairns to Kuranda than vice versa for a day trip (acc to ChatGPT) which is resulting in my dilemma now.

Would like to get your opinions on the split. What do the Redditors think?

We will have a car.

On a separate note, how important is it to have a heated pool (29deg cel) in 2nd week september in PD?

Thank you all!