Sydney, Australia
We woke early again this morning and were out walking on the
Promenade Deck and saw the sunrise over Sydney.
It was cloudy and warm, so walking early was a good thing.
Breakfast was in the Marketplace (buffet). We both had made-to-order omelets, fresh
fruit and fresh-squeezed orange juice.
Julie is normally not an orange juice drinker, but can’t resist the
fresh-squeezed juice onboard.
At 11:45 am we set off for the Featherdale Wildlife Park to
see some of the native Australian animals.
It was about a 40 minute drive each way from the cruise ship terminal
and decided to take a ship’s tour for ease of transportation. Sydney has a traffic problem that it is
trying to rectify with public transportation, improved roads, etc. Luckily it was Sunday afternoon and no
traffic jams.
The Featherdale Wildlife Park is the oldest, most
established and respected wildlife park in Sydney. We saw kangaroos, koala bears, wallabies, wombats,
Tasmanian devils, dingos, birds, emus, bilbys, and more. All in all, an afternoon of wildlife we’ve
never seen before.
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Willoby |
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After a very long day! |
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Penguins |
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Tasmanian Devil |
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Mama Kangaroo and Joey |
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Joey moved into Mom's pouch |
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Red Kangaroo |
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Most were very small, but several were large. |
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Billy tea, biscuits, scones, etc. |
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Billy tea is regular black tea, brewed in a billy pot, with added eucalyptus. |
We arrived back at the ship at 4pm, in time for the muster
(safety) drill at 4:15pm, in preparation of our sail away from Sydney. We were grateful our muster station was on
the shady side of the ship and it was very warm – upper 80s.
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Required picture of life jackets during the safety drill. |
The champagne sail away party was on the upper decks. Sailing out of Sydney was magnificent. The Symphony is small enough that we could
sail under the Harbor Bridge. Her sister
ship, the Serenity, was also here in Sydney.
She is a bit bigger than the Symphony and cannot sail under the bridge,
so was anchored in the harbor. The
Symphony is 51,004 tons with capacity of 848 passengers (we are sailing with
756 passengers). The Serenity is 68,870
tons with current capacity of 1,070 passengers (which will be reduced to 980 after
her fall 2018 dry dock).
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The band played for sail away. |
At 5pm Louis sang.
Each time a Crystal ship leaves a port Louis Armstrong’s “What a
Wonderful World” is played. We sailed
under the bridge and past the Opera House.
The Serenity readied herself and followed us out to sea. It was quite a sight to see both ships in the
same port, as well as sailing out together.
The Symphony is headed to New Zealand next, and the Serenity to the
Philippines. We watched as the Sydney
pilot tried to get off the ship and onto the Pilot boat that was bobbing next
to the ship. Pilots are the harbor
experts that come onboard to sail the ships out of the harbor and to the open
seas. Usually the ship is able to block
the waves so the pilot boat is fairly stable.
Not today. The pilot boat was
struggling to nuzzle up to the ship, and it took quite some time for the pilot
to jump from the ship onto the boat for his return to Sydney. It looked pretty scary to us.
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Sailing under the bridge. |
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Serenity prepares to follow us out of the port. |
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Leaving Sydney Harbor, heading into the Tasmin sea. |
We freshened up and got ready for dinner. A quick stop for a glass of wine in the
Crystal Cove, then onto Prego for dinner.
Prego is the Italian Specialty restaurant onboard.
Tonight we decided to have our Prego favorites. We both had Arugula Salad with Pine Nuts,
Pears, and Blue Cheese, the Signature Mushroom Cream Soup and Lasagna (not your
ordinary Lasagna – it is made with homemade noodles, meat sauce, porcini
mushrooms, mozzarella and has both a béchamel and tomato sauce). For dessert Julie had the Strawberry Sorbet
topped with Prosecco (sorry no picture), while Bob had some vanilla gelato.
We closed the night with the “Crystal in Motion” production
ship. This is a new production show since
we last sailed, while good, it was not spectacular.
We walked 7.15 miles, 17,116 steps, climbed 46 floors (we
don’t take the elevator on cruise ships unless Julie is in heels on formal
night and is concerned about navigating the stairs with heels and the motion of
the ship).
Love the Mushroom soup
ReplyDeleteYup, there isn't much better than the Prego mushroom soup.
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