Travel Blog: Two Days in Sydney

While we have found travelling to Sydney the "wrong way round", going west to east, tends to lessen jet lag for us, it does not go away. We were comfortably settled in our room at The Four Seasons by 11:30 PM, but didn't actually turn out the lights until 12:30. In spite of our best efforts, we were both wide awake at 5:30 AM, and after staring at the ceiling hoping to go back to sleep, gave it up and got up at 6:00!

Several years ago, on our first New Zealand/Australia cruise on Crystal, one of the lecturers did a whole section on the science of sleep and jet lag. His main suggestion was to re-set your watch to your destination time as soon as the plane leaves the ground, and try and live on the plane according to that time. We have found this to be helpful in previous trips, so based on that we found ourselves in a "dilemma" on the flight from Dubai. We both got a good "night's" sleep and woke up hungry. Logic said time for breakfast, but the watch said 5:00 PM, or time for dinner. What meal to eat? We compromised, with Larry having dinner and Monica breakfast. Regardless, by 7:30 Thursday morning, we were both hungry and ready for breakfast. When we were here in January 2017, the lobby restaurant was closed for renovations, and while it was now open (and looks very nice), we were not keen on a $42.00/person buffet!!!

Our favourite breakfast spot is Pancakes On The Rocks, located near the Park Hyatt hotel in The Rocks area, but everything we needed to do was the other way, so we compromised with one of the restaurants fronting on the ferry terminals in Circular Quay, about five minutes from the hotel. Monica had The Canadian Breakfast (such a stereotype) of eggs, back bacon and pancakes with maple syrup, while Larry had The Big Breakfast, which had all of that plus a sausage and hashbrowns. And yes we ate the whole thing, while watching the good citizens of Sydney scurry by to work. The ferry system is to Sydney what the subway system is to Toronto, an integral part of the transit system, so sitting having breakfast at the Quay is akin to sitting in a restaurant at King and Bay at rush hour, except no one is wearing parkas or boots!

This trip being so long, and needing to bring so much "stuff" along, we decided to buy a bunch of the bulky sundries, like sun screen, shampoo and cough/cold meds, here in Sydney. The cough meds because it seems every World Cruise involves respiratory issues, commonly called the Crystal Crud on Cruise Critic, and we know from a friend currently onboard that this year is no exception, so better to be prepared. And we know from our 2017 visit that the Aussies have some really effective cold meds. Maybe they work so well because our Canadian systems don't know what they are! What we don't use over the next six weeks will be packed into our traveling medical kit!

The plan was to do all of our shopping in the morning, then spend the rest of the day at the pool, or wherever. The hotel is located on George Street, the main downtown shopping and business street. Sort of a combination of Yonge Street and Bay Street. They are putting an LRT on George Street, so what it looks like is an obstacle course, complete with cars turning at random intersections trying to escape, which we had to navigate, with necessary stops on both sides, but we managed. We did, however have to make an extra unplanned stop at Adidas sporting goods when in the course of talking as we walked, we discovered that Larry's gym clothes never made the suitcase. Went from the washer, to the clothes line, back into Larry's gym bag instead of the suitcase! Since the last stop was a shop called Lorna Jane, where Monica had planned to buy new gym gear anyway, we will now be the best dressed people in the gym on the ship! (Yes, we WILL be there regularly!)

All you really need to know about the morning is that we both hit 10,000 steps before Noon!!! After a light lunch, yes, we were hungry again, we set off for a stroll around The Rocks area and spent a while sitting on a bench near The Harbour Bridge overlooking the harbour like a couple of old folks on holiday (Insert smart-assed comments here!) before heading back to the hotel to get ready for dinner.

A different perspecitve on the Harbour Bridge, from
Dawes Point

The iconic Sydney Opera House. It is hard to get
tired of looking at it!

When we did the Greek Islands/Adriatic cruise on Esprit back in September, we met a couple from Sydney and had mentioned that we would be here in February. About ten days before we left, we got an e-mail from John asking if we could get together with him and his wife Fran for dinner one of the two days we would be here. (John, if you are reading this, I believe the English call this "being mentioned in despatches" ) We met at the UTS Haberfield Rowing Club, about a half hour taxi ride from our hotel and had a lovely dinner. The two and half hours just flew by in good food and great conversation. John and Fran live in North Sydney, on the other side of The Bridge, and dropped us off on their way home. We were in bed and lights out by 9:30!

And for all that, we were STILL awake at 6:00 Friday morning! And hungry too. A pattern is developing we think! We had two highlights/plans for the day, the arrival of Serenity at the Overseas Passenger Terminal around 9:30, and lunch at our favourite restaurant, Doyle's at Watson's Bay, at 1:00 PM. Since we decided the best place to watch Serenity come in was the lawn of the Park Hyatt Hotel, and it is "conveniently" located 100 feet down the street from Pancakes On The Rocks.............. After a rather light breakfast, and a long walk, we were in place for Serenity's arrival. And she came majestically down the harbour at about 9:45.

Pancakes at Pancakes On the Rocks. Yummy!!

Crystal Serenity's arrival

After seeing that she was comfortably tied up at the OPT, we went for a walk up to the Opera House and back to work up an appetite for lunch.

Now this is also the first weekend of Chinese New Year, and since Sydney has the largest celebration outside of Asia, there are lots of Asian people visiting, and the city goes out of its way, as it does for every major event, to decorate. All around Circular Quay we found huge blow-up figures, all of which lit up at night. Here is a sampling:

Roosters on Circular Quay

A dragon at the Museam

A tiger relaxing on top of a ferry
wharf

Tai Chi bunnies in the park

Samba kitties on Opera Quay

And in the prime spot, Year of the Dog puppy at the
Opera House

You know you have been coming to a city a lot when you start to recognize little changes, like for instance, the fact that Sydney Ferries has taken delivery of at least three new ships since we were last here. How do we know? They had names we have never seen before, and one of the new high speed ferries took us to Watson's Bay for lunch. We came to Doyle's at Watson's Bay on our first trip to Sydney in 2004, and it has become a "must do" for us on every trip, along with visiting The Rocks, walking the Botanical Garden, and long walks around the city. We prefer to go for lunch because we can get there and back by ferry, while in the evening you can get there by ferry, you have to taxi back, and it is a long ride! The other reason is the portion sizes. After lunch at Doyle's we rarely have to bother with dinner. As usual, it was delicious!

Amazing hot and cold platter, complete
with Lobster Mornay, miso marinated scallops
(under the green seaweed), scampi,
fish, crab. Always the best!!

And yes, he had room for dessert. Monica
had a Coffee Affogato - espresso, and
Kahlua poured over a scoop of vanilla ice cream

The view from the beach back toward
the Sydney central business district

The rest of the afternoon and evening was spent picking up a few odds and ends, finally visiting the new lobby bar in the hotel, and later watching the Chinese New Year fireworks for a few minutes over the harbour. New Year's Eve it was not!