After a really long morning (because we were already packed of course), and half of our safety information on the Celebrity Cruises app, we had an early lunch of a tomato and cheese sandwich before our lovely Jess and little James came to pick us up. We were very lucky to have Jess offer us a lift to Circular Quay, because we found that trains were stopping at Blacktown and then we would have had to trundle all of our luggage over to a bus into Central, then go into the station and get another train to Circular Quay. And it was a rainy day.
We were actually supposed to spend Friday night in a 3 star hotel in Liverpool St in the city, that was not handy to any stations, and who told me checkout was definitely 10am, and they didnt have a foyer for sitting in. So apart from trundling so far on busy city streets with our international luggage, in the rain, we would have been homeless for 5 hours between check out of the hotel and check in to the ship. So Jessie put the cream on top of our plans.
arrival at the overseas terminal we were met by porters who took our large suitcases and we then joined the lineups for express checkin/immigration, which all took an hour. We had to show them our vacc certificates, and the photo of the negative RAT test we each did this morning. Once on board we were directed to our stateroom where our room keys (sea passes) were waiting for us, as was our luggage. Our steward, Edwin, came along and introduced himself. We unpacked before finding our meeting point for of our safety information.
We tried then to sort out our dinner reservation, which we had never been consulted about. It was for 8:30pm which is far too late for us, we are not night owls. We are on a waiting list. Then we had a hole put in my sea pass card so I can attach it to a lanyard, and wandered off to find an alternative for dinner.
And find it we did! The Oceanview Cafe has Mexican, pizza, Indian, salads, breads, roasts, charcuterie, desserts, and almost anything else you can think of oh, and a bar. We dined, and watched as we departed Sydney.
After our transition through the heads we explored the upper outside decks And then returned to our stateroom to open the bottle of Moet (thank you Char and Dan) that we were allowed to bring on board (2 per stateroom).
Included in our package is a Classic alcohol package, whatever that means. We had a beer, a glass of Shiraz and a glass of sparkling wine and no costs came up on our real time account, so thats okay. We are accustomed to our Silversea cruises where all alcohol is included. We also have a basic internet package, which is one device per person for free.
