Day 63: 20231125 Saturday November 25, 2023- Sydney Hyatt Regency and Sydney Harbor
The weather forecast was accurate in that it rained pretty much most of the morning while we were driving back from Newcastle to Sydney. The return route did take us back across the Sydney Harbor bridge en route to the Sydney Hyatt Regency Hotel. Ben dropped Janet off with our luggage at the Sydney Hyatt Regency, which Princess uses in conjunction with a land based cruise tour called the Australian Outback tour. We had booked a stay from Sunday until Monday when the land excursion takes off for Cairns and Alice Springs. Since we were staying in Newcastle to explore the coast north of Sydney, we had booked Saturday night at the Sydney Hyatt Regency as well so we could transition into the cruise. Tour, but paying a lower room rate through AAA than the Princess pre-cruise stay rate.
However, at the check in desk, it was discovered that we were actually double booked for the Saturday night- one individual stay booked through AAA for Saturday night, and a 2 night stay booked through Princess Cruises for Saturday and Sunday nights. When we said we wanted to cancel the redundant Saturday night booking so we didn’t end up paying for 2 rooms, they said it was impossible for the desk staff at the Hyatt to do so because the rooms had both been booked by third party agents- AAA and Princess through AAA. Unfortunately, it is the Thanksgiving holiday in the US and no customer service was available for AAA travel services until the following Monday. I called Princess Cruises and they said they would try to get it taken care of, but never gave me a call back to let me know if they were able to resolve it. So we may end up having paid for two rooms for Saturday night. The cancellation policy for the hotel required 48hrs advance notice. But digging through all our travel documentation clearly shows the Princess pre cruise stay as checking in on Sunday, and not Monday. It may turn out that the Princess pre-stay is the same price whether you arrive one or two days in advance, but if we only paid for one night in advance, this second night may be on the house on Princess’s end. We’ll just have to see how it all plays out.
Ben dropped off the rental car, and as this was his second time, it was a whole lot less problematic. The Sydney World Center turns out to only be a 20 minute walk from the Sydney Hyatt Regency, so Ben just hoofed it across town, walking through part of China town in route.
It turns out fortunate to combine a ship’s docking location at the Circular Quay, and a hotel located on Sydney Harbor because they make up two main tourist zones of the Sydney waterfront. After our transpacific crossing on the Grand Princess, we had stayed at the Blue Mountains and Hunter Valley regions beyond the outskirts of Greater Sydney, but upon checking into the Coral Princess, we had a day to explore the Circular Quay, Sydney Opera House, botanical gardens and The Rocks on foot from the ship. These cover the eastern half of Sydney’s tourist waterfront areas. Now we’ll be able to explore the area to the west which centers around Sydney Harbor.
After we were able to get our luggage up to or room at 1:30pm, we walked across a pedestrian bridge to the Sydney Harbor tourist district where there is an Australian National Maritime museum, Aquarium, and other attractions. We toured the free parts of the Maritime museum which was all the permanent galleries. There was a pay to enter oceanographic photography exhibit, and optional pay to board various ships including a Vietnam era destroyer, WWII sub, replica of Jame Cook’s Endeavor, and other ships. We didn’t board any of the ships but it was interesting enough just to walk around the outsides and take in the permanent exhibits on Sydney’s maritime history. There was an extensive exhibit on the HMAS Sydney that we had heard about when we were in Western Australia. There were also exhibits on immigration that echoed some of what was on exhibit in Newcastle’s museum. There were lots of ship models and memorabilia from various historic Australian vessels.
We ran into a couple who sat very close to us in the dining room on the Coral Princess both in the Hyatt lobby and at the Maritime museum. We learned they boarded the Grand Princess in San Francisco, so they’ve been doing a very similar long term itinerary as what we planned. They are also doing the Australia Outback land tour and New Zealand cruise on the Royal Princess.
Wandering around the maritime museum gave us an appetite so we wandered into Chinatown. We walked into Regent Place, which is an indoor multilevel mall filled with all sorts of Asian restaurants, shops and other services with narrow alleys reminiscent of the markets in Tokyo. We found a hand pulled noodle shop and filled up our fuel tanks with hearty bowls of beef and noodles.
We returned to the Hyatt for a nap and arranged a meeting with the Tour Director for our Princess Outback tour. Ivy was originally from Taiwan but has been in Australia for a very long time. She has lived most of that in Sydney, but she now lives in Perth. She flew in to lead our tour group, which we hear is about 35 people. Most will be arriving tomorrow. She gave us some advice about things to see and do around Sydney. On her advice, we walked down to the cruise ship terminal to view a light show that is projected on the sails of the Sydney Opera House. In the evening, the temperature and humidity dropped to comfortable levels and we were surprised at how busy the streets and clubs are in the downtown core at night. There were lots of people dressed up to party and the pier where our cruise ship had been tied up to was transformed into one huge party. We found a great spot to view the Opera House and waited for the light show to start, but nothing happened at the 7:42pm published start time for the Sunset show. The next show was scheduled for 9pm. Since it was pleasant out, we walked down to the end of the pier where there were great night views of both the Sydney Harbor Bridge and the Opera House. But when 9pm rolled around, there was no show. We waited 10 minutes before giving up and walking back to the hotel. The hotel lobby was full of people dressed to the 9’s for weddings and parties going on in the Hyatt.
Tomorrow, we’ll check out the Weekend Markets at the Rocks, which were closed up by the time we had walked down to see the Opera House light show tonight. Princess will have a reception for our tour group in the late afternoon, after most of the travelers will have arrived from the airport.
