Sydney Day 1

Yesterday I woke up to an angry sea outside our room; today I woke up to see the Sydney Opera House right outside our window. Now there’s a first for me!

We had to go through immigration in Sydney, so with bad memories of going through US immigration, we made an early start, and armed with our passports we went down to the Royal Court Theatre, where we had been told to wait until given a number to go ashore. However when we arrived at the Theatre we were told that there was no hold up in the immigration area, and we could go straight ashore.

Sure enough when we arrived in the immigration hall there was a minimal wait until we saw an immigration officer, and then we were officially in Australia!

We had a quick look around the Cruise Terminal, but there wasn’t much there – no ATM or free wifi, but there were loads of chairs, so that passengers who had decided to spend the day on the ship could sit and wait after they had cleared immigration, and were allowed to get back on the ship again when they whole ship had been cleared. Unlike Port Canaveral, where they had to stand until they could get onboard again.

We stopped by the information booth to pick up some maps and were told by the lady there that the weather was going to be “iffy”. We weren’t quite sure what she meant, but apparently it means “anything could happen” Luckily sun and blue skies happened.

The ship is docked at Circular Quay, so you just walk out of the Overseas Cruise Terminal, and you are right in the heart of things. We walked along the quay (which is actually straight rather than circular) to the Custom’s House where there is free wifi that actually works really well. After we were up to date with all things Internet, we caught the Hop On Hop Off bus, and spent the day hopping on and hopping off. Sydney is such a beautiful city – the architecture is amazing, and it is very impressive to see how they have been able to preserve the older buildings in the middle of the modern skyscrapers.

We had been very tempted to do the Sydney Bridge Climb, but in the end decided against it. It would take quite a bit of time out of our day, and you can’t take photos, so we walked across the bridge instead. It was the perfect day for this – sunny but not too hot, and we probably ended up spending as much time on the bridge as we would have if we had done the climb. Oh well, we know what to do the next time we are in Sydney.

We walked back from the bridge through the Rocks, stopping off at a pub and an ice cream shop on the way.

When Brian had his blazer cleaned they lost one of the buttons, which was never to be seen again. I had heard about a wonderful button shop in Nurses Walk in the Rocks, but it had moved to George Street, so that gave us a good excuse to walk up George Street and look at the shops. We found the button shop (Buttons Buttons Buttons), and the owner had the exact button, so we bought one and a couple of spares. It was a fantastic shop – all she has are buttons, and they come in all shapes and sizes. I could have spent ages there, but I was whisked away by Brian to see a neighboring shop which used a 3 D printer to make a model of you based on the photo they took. I though it was totally creepy – the last thing I would want is a mini me. However, they had family groups on display in the window, so maybe it beats the old fashioned family portrait. Still I prefer the photo I have of my family in my blog. That is more my style that having little action figures of the family running around the desk in our cabin.

We went in and out of the shops on George Street, and spent a long time in the beautiful Queen Victoria Building. We had bought some great bargains there on our previous trip to Sydney, but there were certainly no bargains to be had today. We did find a supermarket where we were able purchase much needed supplies for our sundowners, and replenish my chocolate stash.

We headed over to the Botanic Gardens at about 7:00, but they closed at 6:30, so we walked back to Circular Quay to find somewhere for dinner.

The opera Tosca was playing at the Opera House. I would have loved to go, and you could get tickets through the tour office, but Brian is not an opera fan at the best of times, and I know he would never have tolerated Tosca. We opted for dinner out instead. There are several restaurants along the quay, and we ended up choosing Café Portabella where we could get a table right on the water’s edge. We had a great, but not cheap, meal. We walked back to the ship in time to grab a box in the Royal Court Theater to listen to the Sydney Youth Orchestra. They played the Mozart Clarinet Concerto in A, one of my favourite pieces of music. It was a great concert. I am so impressed with the standard of entertainment on this cruise.

We then went to the Commodore Club so I could have a chocolate affair martini, and we sat listening to Carlo on the piano, looking out at the buildings in front of us, thinking that Sydney must be one of the best cruise ports in the whole world.