Yellow Fish cruises: Day 29: Sydney, Australia

Today was the BEST day. In fact, when I told G at dinner that today was the best day, he said I always say that. Maybe I do, but today was the best of the best. He said I always say that, too, but I refuse to change. Surely there are worse things in life than to have a wife who says that every other day is the BEST day?

It didn’t start out too fun, when the alarm went off at 4:30am. I was dressed for what I expected the weather would be at that time in the morning: slacks, a fleece jacket, a Goretex jacket and a wool headband, and made my way to the area at the front of the ship over the bridge, the perfect place from which to watch our sail into Sydney Harbour. I was far from the first to arrive, but I still scored a primo spot from which to watch. There is a huge wind that picks up just as a ship enters the harbor, but I was dressed for the weather. I remember from two years ago how cold it can feel, regardless of air temp (the high this afternoon was sunny and nearly 80).

It was still completely dark as the Ruby Princess entered the harbor, but the earliest light of day soon appeared. While the light at the very top of the Harbour Bridge is visible almost as soon as the ship is in the harbor, the Sydney Opera House, being lower, isn’t visible for quite awhile. But when it finally does appear...wow. I hope I never stop getting goosebumps when I see it.

Our first view of the Sydney Opera House (far right)

The Opera House and Harbour Bridge with Fort Denison in the foreground

Link to an article about the history of Fort Denison

Some of the crew was on the crew pool deck to watch sail in

Captain Lawes had told us yesterday that, because today marked the Ruby Princess’ maiden call in Sydney, there would be some extra pomp and circumstance upon our arrival. In fact, he specifically mentioned water sprays and fireworks. Well, they weren’t New Year's Eve-caliber fireworks from the Sydney Harbour Bridge, but we found out later that what we saw was lighted by Australian chef Curtis Stone who has a specialty restaurant called Share on board a few Princess ships (including the Ruby Princess). He later came on board for a media event attended by Australian travel agents.

Fireboat welcoming the Ruby Princess on her maiden arrival in Sydney

Celebratory fireworks

Fireworks and the Sydney Harbour Bridge

The eastern sky took on a pre-sunrise glow by the time we reached Circular Quay next to the Opera House, and the location of the Overseas Passenger Terminal where the Ruby Princess would be berthed.

Making the turn into Circular Quay

(Pinch me)

The Overseas Passenger Terminal ready for our arrival

The Sydney Opera House at sunrise

The water sprays continued until the Ruby Princess was at her berth

Reader Diane watched the Ruby Princess’ arrival on the Sydney Harbour webcam, and she kindly sent me these screen grabs. You can even see the fireboat. Thanks Diane!

Once the Ruby Princess was at her berth, we returned to the cabin to shed our outerwear and went to the DaVinci Dining Room for breakfast with Paul and Marlene. While we ate, we put together a plan for our day. However, they had to change cabins today, and that turned in to quite an ordeal. First, there was a huge delay in getting a cart to move their hanging clothes, and then the minibar items and meds they had placed in their new cabin refrigerator were removed by Room Service when they delivered their minibar. Oh boy. I’m still waiting to hear how that got resolved.

The view from the jogging track on Deck 19

Replenishing the food stores

Sometime after 10am we all finally met up and walked down to the ferry terminal to take a fast ferry to Manly Beach, on Sydney’s northern shore. The fast ferry takes only 18 minutes to go from Circular Quay to the Manly Wharf, and costs just $1 more each way than the city ferry. Once we arrived, we walked down the pedestrian mall, called the Corso, from the harbor side to the ocean side where long, beautiful Manly Beach is located.

Ferry from Circular Quay (The Rocks) to Manly

Manley Beach looking north

Manley Beach looking south

It was a windy day!

Beginning surfers riding the waves

We got carry out fish and chips and ate lunch sitting at picnic tables on the beach, then walked along the boardwalk lining the beach to watch the beginning surfers practice their skills. On the way back to Manly Wharf, we stopped at a souvenir shop, a pharmacy and Cole’s Supermarket. At Cole’s, we perused the sweets aisles to check out how the products offered differed from what we get at home, and we saw TimTams were on sale half off. I have never had one before, but have read others rave about them. We bought a pack and opened it while sitting on a bench on the Corso. How good were they? Well, G sent me back in for four more packages. They are a chocolate covered wafer cookie and are every bit as yummy as we’d heard.

Once back at the ferry terminal, we purchased tickets for the fast ferry back to Circular Quay and were thrilled to see several sailboats and racing yachts in the harbor.

The entrance to Sydney Harbour with the North Head on the left and the South Head on the right

Lighthouse on the South Head

Racing yacht in the harbor

Love that lean!

It was a great day for a sail!

Fort Denison and the Opera House

The Opera House and the Ruby Princess

On our return, we walked around Circular Quay to the Holiday Inn Old Sydney, the hotel that we’ve stayed at in the past. Paul and Marlene will stay there for four nights after this cruise to Queensland, and we wanted to show them how close it is to the Overseas Passenger Terminal (just one block back). They couldn’t get over how the Ruby Princess is docked right in the heart of the action. Frankly, I can’t either, after last year in Southeast Asia, where the ship was often an hour or two (or even longer) bus ride from the cities we were visiting. This is such an easy season for us!

Walking back to the ship along Circular Quay

We were rather wiped out when we reboarded the Ruby Princess, but had time for just a short rest before we needed to get showered for the evening. I stuck to my usual MO and showered during muster drill. And let me talk for a moment about that. We had been given something in writing saying we needed to go to muster drill despite having attended in Los Angeles. But we also had something in writing saying that we didn’t. The day we boarded, the announcement for muster drill stated that ALL passengers needed to attend the muster drill; our next door neighbors had boarded in Seattle, done a muster there, then cruised up to Alaska before returning to Vancouver (another muster) and finally LA, and they had to do three muster drills in 10 days. We skipped muster drill today, and then waited for a nastygram to be delivered to the cabin. We never got one.

By the way, there was also confusion about whether we needed to leave the ship with our passports (we were told both yes and no), and whether we could come and go from the ship during its stay in Sydney. Both of these questions appear to have different answers when the ship is leaving for a domestic itinerary (like this one is) versus an international one (like going to New Zealand). I’ll continue to try to get definitive answers while we’re cruising out of Sydney.

Sail away was scheduled for 5:30pm, but we decided to just watch from our dinner table. After all, we had already cruised past the Opera House three times today, and seen the Harbour Bridge from land and water. Well, as it turned out, we hadn’t yet sailed when we went to the Princess Theater for tonight’s production show performance of Stardust at 7pm, so we would have been out on an open deck for a very long time if we had waited for our departure.

Day 1 dinner menu, page 1

Day 1 dinner menu, page 2

Day 1 dessert menu

Watercress, radish and iceberg salad

Seared garlic prawns starter made entree-sized

Tonight’s WiFi speed!!

Cruise Director Aaron always talks about which countries the current cruise’s passengers are from after the first night’s Princess Theater performance. Last cruise, the number of US passengers was just slightly greater than the number of Australian passengers (with the U.K., New Zealand and Canada rounding out the top five). Not surprisingly, this cruise it’s all changed. The U.K., New Zealand and Canada still have spots 3, 4, and 5, but there are just over 600 US passengers on board...and nearly 2000 Aussies. I suspect we won’t see this many Americans on board again after this cruise (where there were 300 in transits staying on from last cruise). I remember being one of 20 or so Americans on board the Golden Princess cruises two years ago.

We returned to the cabin immediately following the show. We were wiped out tonight, from our early wake up and our walking in Circular Quay and Manly. G asked me over dinner how many sea days we have at the start of this cruise and was quite happy to hear it was two. G thrilled about sea days? The times, they are a changing. :-)