Day 01 - Wed 10Apr2024 - A Major change of Plans

 When I woke up this morning my email contained an emergency announcement from Princess that the ship was not at the dock and wouldn't be until 1pm and that boarding would begin at 7pm with a projected departure of 10:30pm.  I could see on my Marine Traffic APP that the Celebrity Solstice was still docked at our berth at Circular Quay, and our ship was still out in the ocean.  The port had been closed overnight which is what prevented the Solstice from departing.  Then this morning, they could not depart until after commute hour was over as it disrupts the extensive ferry traffic.  The Solstice finally left just after 10am on their cruise which heads to Hawaii.

However, we still had to check out of the hotel by 11am; but we now had a full additional day in Sydney to explore.  We didn't receive any communications from our Travel With Alan tour group until we showed up in the lobby.  The elevators were so backed up that we walked down 17 flights of stairs! We were instructed that we still had to have our luggage down in the lobby between 9am and 10am for the luggage  truck pickup.  (It's important that we see our luggage get loaded on the truck!) So we enjoyed a leisurely breakfast and visited with our friends, Doug & Linda before going back up to our room to gather our gear and check out.  

When we got back to the elevator with all of our gear, a couple of ladies had been waiting for over an hour for an elevator.  So we encouraged her to use the house phone and call the front desk to complain.  Within a minute, an employee arrived via a service elevator and all of us were whisked down to the lobby and escorted through a maze of back hallways to the lobby where we surrendered our luggage to a bellman and it was stashed outside next to a wall.  We still needed to stay and claim our luggage as it was loaded onto a truck.  However it wasn't until 11am that the truck showed up, but our luggage was among the first loaded.  We also checked our day packs with the hotel staff and were free to head out for the day.  We were given a sheet of paper that indicated that we had a 8 hour setback in our boarding time.  Since our original time was 11:45am, we now had to be back to be shuttled to the cruise port at 7:45pm.  With this additional new time, our plan was to walk the Sydney Harbor Bridge and take a local ferry back to the Quay.

We left the hotel and walked the few blocks down to the waterfront where a visitor guide showed us how to reach the Sydney Harbor Bridge via an area called the Rocks. We climbed a few sets of stairs and took a glass elevator up to the bridge level to begin our walk across the bridge.  As we were walking we could see our ship coming in.  We ended up watching the ship's arrival until it was moored at its berth.  

It's possible to do a bridge climb up the arches of the bridge, but because of our ages, we were required to obtain a doctor's note indicating our fitness to do the activity.  We didn't want to go through that hassle, but we discovered that at one of the towers, one could climb 200 stairs to the top of the tower for an outside viewing area, a museum and a gift shop.  So we chose to do that and climbed the 200 stairs with no problem.  The views were terrific and the museum was interesting about the construction of the bridge. It was then 200 steps down and we strolled across the bridge to the north side where we walked down towards Luna Park (an amusement park).  There we caught a ferry back to Circular Quay.

Hunger called so we located a Hungry Jack's burger place (the Australian equivalent of Burger King) where we enjoyed a burger and onion rings.  We then strolled the quay towards the Opera House and around to the Botanical Garden which we extensively toured before returning to the opera house and then back to the hotel around 5pm.  We decided to retrieve our carryon gear and not wait for the shuttle at 7:45pm.  We walked to Overseas Passenger terminal and saw that it was possible to check in.  So we joined the queue which took around an hour to complete and board the ship.  The security scan was the most intense of any cruise ship we've been on.  Belts had to be removed and my legal CPAP extension cord was scrutinized before being accepted.

Barrel tree and and an ibis

Luna Park

Departure view of the Opera House

Once onboard the ship, we noted that the ship was built for the Chinese market as much of the signage was in English and Chinese.  The layout is quite similar to its sister ship, the Regal which we just sailed on.  We enjoyed a meal in the Lido buffet before attending the 9:30pm comedian show in the Princess Theater featuring a Kiwi entertainer, Andre King, who was quite good and clean.

Afterwards we spent the rest of the evening unpacking.  Around 11pm we began departing and we got our last views of the Opera House.  At the open sea I watched the pilot get picked up in very rough seas.  And with that it was time to get some rest.  Oh yes, our clocks are being advanced one hour to get us closer to NZ time.