Day 70: 20231202 Saturday, December 2, 2023- Sydney Royal Princess Embarkation

We met Price and Ciara in the hotel restaurant for breakfast after putting all of our combined suitcases in the hallway.  There were a total of 9 suitcases.  After breakfast we joined our embarkation tour group.  Price and Ciara would spend the morning exploring the Darling Harbor area and then walk to the ship.

Our embarkation tour started with a drive to the Sydney Opera House for a guided tour of the inside of the complex.  The bus had to park about 1 block from the Opera House and the facility was designed in the 1960’s with little regard to accessibility, or even acoustics for that matter.  One of the people in the tour group had a lot of trouble keeping up, and had been pretty miserable throughout the tour because she was at the verge of exhaustion with even mild exertion or anything more than one flight of stairs.  

Princess should have done a better job of discouraging people with physical limitations from participating in these overland cruise tours because it is not enjoyable or even safe for them, and they end up diminishing the experience for all the able bodied participants who have to spend more time waiting or making accommodations that take away time from touring.  It seems the Sydney Opera house is all stairs.  

The inside is as impressive as the exterior, with an industrialized structure infused with organic curves and textures.  The extremely high arches that form the ceilings of the main theaters posed many technical and acoustical difficulties that have take a few tries to get worked out.  It is impressive that the facility hosts over 1080 performances per year in the multiple venues sheltered under the sail invoking shells that make up the highly iconic exterior.  Although we got to step inside the two main venues, we were not allowed to take any photos or video of the insides of the theaters.  

After the Sydney Opera House Tour, we drove through some swanky neighborhoods and had pointed out properties that belonged to celebrities such as Cate Blanchett and Russel Crowe.  We even drove past a modest looking church where Elton John married Renate Blauel in 1984.  They divorced in 1988 after he came out as gay.  It seems like all these Australian capital cities have plenty of very wealthy individuals who can afford properties that cost tens of millions of dollars.  

We ultimately ended up at Bondi (pronounced Bond-Eye) beach, which apparently was the setting of an Australian reality tv series following lifeguards and rescues.  There were lots of surfers working one end of the beach, and people playing beach volleyball on the upper part of the beach.  There was also an area where people seemed to be playing something that looked like beach pickle ball.  Australian has so many beautiful white sand beaches that eventually, they all start to look a bit alike, kind of like seeing all the churches and cathedrals in Europe.  

Traffic back to the Overseas Passenger Terminal was pretty bad.  At one point, we got a text from Price and Ciara saying they were at the National Maritime Museum at 2pm.  Check in for passengers was delayed to 2pm for all passengers due to a mandatory deep cleaning of the ship and terminal spaces.  Our bus was actually right across the street from the National Maritime Museum when Ciara sent her text.  I advised Ciara and Price to start walking to the cruise ship terminal.  Well they ended up beating us to the cruise ship terminal by quite a margin.  The tour bus dropped us off on the curb about 500’ from the baggage drop off area, so Janet and I took turns relaying the 9 suit cases along the side walk.  When we reached the point where the huge line of passengers paralleled the sidewalk, we just happened to spot Price and Ciara as they were snaking their way through that massive line.  Well we pulled them out of the line to help us wheel all the bags to the bag drop off and then all got into the line together.  It took about 45 minutes to get through the line and get checked in.  We were able to save probably a half hour by using the elite priority check in which let us cut to the head of the line.  

When we got on the ship, we took the stairs up to our cabin. When we got to the Caribe deck where our rooms were, the fire and flood control doors were all closed.  But having been on the Royal Princess before, we knew our way around, so we got to our rooms easy enough.  Ciara and Price’s room was all set up, but Ben and Janet’s room had the door propped open with a door stop and it appeared the room was in the middle of getting set up.  The bed was made but there were no towels in the room, and there was a dirty towel hanging on the back of the entry door.  As we stashed our our backpacks, an announcement came on the intercom telling all passengers not to go to their staterooms until a formal announcement was made.  So we left the rooms and had lunch at the Alfredo’s casual dining venue.

We booked this cruise one day after Princess implemented a change in Plus and Premium fare programs, so for this particular cruise, we should be able to enjoy the full benefits of the Plus package.  This includes two casual dining meals during the duration of the cruise, two premium desserts per day, two exercise classes during the duration of the cruise, and free Ocean Now order delivery and room service.  

Late lunch at Alfredo’s was good, but they seem to have taken a good thing and made it complicated and hard.  Alfredos used to be free, and you could order multiple appetizers and desserts.  Now they strictly limit the meal to one appetizer, one main and one dessert.  The cover fee of $27 per person is less than the other “real” specialty dining venues, which are now $39 per person.  

We also didn’t realize that AAA no longer gives us 2 specialty dining vouchers, as they have for all our prior Princess cruises.  Another casualty of the pandemic, we guess.  

Perhaps it was because everyone was forced to remain in public spaces until nearly 4pm when they finally allowed passengers to go to their staterooms, but the ship felt crowded and there was a general sense of chaos that we have not encountered on any of our prior Princess cruises.  When we did finally get to get up to our rooms, it took a really long time for our suitcases to finally work their way up to our stateroom.  

Oddly enough, we booked two adjacent and connecting staterooms- C502 and C504.  Even though they are connected, they have different room stewards.  So our poor room steward had to bring up all 9 suitcases to our room by himself.  

We participated as a team of 4 in an 80’s Music Trivia.  Not our strong suit.  We managed a score of 30/40, but the winning team had a perfect score for a bottle of sparkling brut.  At least it was made in France.  

We hit the Horizon Court for a late dinner, but even at 8pm it was crowded.  We ended up sitting at a table in the Bistro, far from the food, but discovered there were no waiters working that section.  We tried using the Ocean Now system to order drinks, but they never showed up.  After 30 minutes, we canceled the drink orders and left.  They did have a special Ramen counter where you could get pork, chicken, or seafood varieties.  However, the broth was nothing special, and only lukewarm, and the noodles tasted like instant, so it was about what you’d get at an airport ramen shop in the US.  They did have pavlova on the dessert tables though, and nobody walked away hungry.  

We finished up the evening watching the Princess theater show which was billed in the Patter as “Icelone- A Visually High Impact Musician”.  With that description, we had no idea what to expect. When we got to the theater, the cruise director clarified that Icelone is a Magician.  So that was a typo.  Anyways, this guy is Malaysian, and is very good at sleight of hand tricks and card tricks.  His Malay accent was a little trying, but he was energetic and his show used the Princess Theater video back drops to maximum advantage in presenting otherwise mundane tricks.  He had two assistants who helped move props on and off the stage, but neither was your classic attractive and scantily clad woman.  One man was basically invisible (always in the shadows) while the other who did participate in some of the tricks on stage was just another skinny Asian nerdy looking guy like the magician himself.  He did do a variation of the disappearing wedding band trick but the couple who volunteered didn’t wear wedding bands or any jewelry, so the magician had to improvise by providing a ring for them to do the trick with.  The husband was such a skeptic that he physically reached into the magician’s pockets to frisk him, and he was a lot bigger man than the magician, but when the magician pulled off the trick, the man was visibly flabbergasted and looked like he could almost use some help to get off the stage at the end.  

Our suitcases finally made their way to our stateroom so we were finally able to unpack and get all our chargers and tooth brushes set up.  Tomorrow is a sea day so we’ll just take it easy.  Price and Ciara thought they would try to start off with Zumba, but we’ll see if they manage to get up that early.