February 18, 2024
As we said before we had to move docks at midnight to make room for a larger ship. In the new dock we you had to take a water shuttle to get to Circular Quay. Most of the larger cruise ships do not fit under The Bridge so they have to dock where we did which is before The Bridge. The dock we were at was past the bridge.
One thing that we did find out was that there were fireworks last night right over the Sydney Opera Hose. They happened around 10pm and people on the port side saw it but those of us on the starboard had no idea. Plus we were still coming back from dinner with our friends so we probably would have missed it anyway even if we had known.
Our friend Jeff took this photo and shared it with us. It is a great photo!
We took the water shuttle in around 9am and walked back to Circular Quay where all the action is. We did some more shopping and walking around The Rocks area.
One of the beautiful tree lines roads around The Bridge
We found a Mexican place for lunch and had nachos along with a giant strawberry margarita.
Kathy and her strawberry margarita Our nacho lunch and I had their apple cider that is 4.3 %
It was very humid which as we all know makes it feel hotter and it was quite sunny. They have this big lawn right under The Bridge and it is well shaded and right on the water so they have several food trucks and a play area for kids. A lot of people come here to picnic.
The green area under the bridge One of the cute little food trucks
We retraced our steps to find one of the pubs that was on our walking tour because they had a great t-shirt that I wanted. Unfortunately they did not have the size I wanted. While we were there the Tallahassee group came in and they were doing their own pub tour so we gave them a few tips of where we went on our tour.
We walked all around Circular Quay and found this cute display in one of the shop windows. Definitely seasonal but still cute.
It is a koala Santa Claus and 8 kangaroos pulling the sled.
A few more pictures of the Opera House.
While we were walking around circular Quay we had one of the fire boats put on a show. We are unsure if this is an every Sunday occurrence or this was something special.
Panoramic of the harbor and the ship is the Royal Princess.
The last water shuttle back to the boat was 4:30 and we did not want to be on the last shuttle so we started heading back to where the shuttle was.
We loved their colorful roads and the buildings that looked like the old west.
We did catch the 3:30 water shuttle back to the boat. We went up to the Explorers lounge for sail away at 6pm. Lots of people were up but it had turned overcast and was not as spectacular as it could have been. The Royal Princess pulled out right in front of us.
One cool thing is that when we went under the Harbor Bridge there were beige walkers up at the top and they all started waving at us.
Bridge climbers at the top. Me, I would have been hanging on for dear life not waving!
We had one more thing planned for tonight besides dinner with friends and that was a bourbon tasting with Aaron, our favorite bartender. They have been doing different tastings but the timing is always wrong so Aaron volunteered to give us our own private tasting. I don’t like bourbon but Linda, Michael and Kathy do so I went along with them.
Our private bourbon tasting.
We have a sea day between Sydney and Brisbane and we are looking forward to that.