We have arrived in Australia to begin Leg Three of our epic retirement journey!! Our Celebrity Solstice ship pulled in to Sydney Harbor this morning around 5:30 a.m., and I woke when the ship’s engines slowed down. That was very fortunate because we just happened to be sailing past the iconic Sydney Opera House!! BEST 5:30 a.m. view of my life! There are so many beautiful landmarks right as you pull in to the harbor… I was so excited!!

First Glimpses

The departure day of the cruise is the same everywhere with the “Thank you for coming, now get the heck off our ship because 2500 more people are coming in three hours!”- vibe. We had to be out of the cabin by 7:30 a.m. and by 8:30 a.m. all breakfasts were shut down and you had to be out of the breakfast areas, so, yeah… get off. 😂 Getting off the ship they had people from every department lined up to say goodbye to us, including the cruise and activities directors (a husband and wife team named Dave and Angela, who we loved- picture below), which we thought was super sweet. By 9 a.m. we were in the taxi and on the way to our hotel for tonight, the Intercontinental Sydney Harbor, which is very close to the cruise ship dock.

Royal Botanic Gardens

Our room wasn’t ready yet since it was so early, so we dropped our bags and headed out on foot to the nearby Royal Botanic Gardens of Sydney. Temps got up into the 90s today 🫠, so we wanted to walk earlier before it got too crazy hot. The gardens were beautiful, and we loved seeing birds and plants that are entirely new to us.

From the gardens, we walked on to the Art Gallery of New South Wales. This huge, two building gallery is completely free to the public (except for the special exhibits), and was a really lovely place. It has great views of all the downtown buildings around it, and it has indigenous art, masters, Australian classic and contemporary painters, a huge children’s playground, interactive areas, and so much more. We saw some wild and wonderful stuff, and only finished one of the two buildings. We’ll save the other for our return to Sydney in November!

After a yummy dim sum lunch at Mr. Wong, our room was ready and we checked into our hotel. We are only here for one night, as we leave for Cairns tomorrow. We wanted to go to Northern Australia first since summer is coming and it gets verrry hot up there, plus they get stinger jellies in the summer (November-February), and we’d like to minimize our chances of encountering them when we snorkel the GBR (which we will be doing soon!!! Woooooooowwww!!).

Sydney Opera House Tour

Our late afternoon and evening was built around taking a tour of the Sydney Opera House. We had booked this months ago, and it did not disappoint. We had an hour tour full of information about this incredible structure (the youngest place to ever be awarded a UNESCO World Heritage Site) that includes details about the architecture and the architects, the controversies in building it, the incredible attention to detail to maintain sound and sight lines in the performance spaces, and information about the history of the land and contributions by the first people. It was so interesting, and I would definitely recommend to anyone interested.

After the show we headed to the Opera House Bar for some light dinner and a local beer. It’s a beautiful spot to watch sunset, and it is packed with people and seagulls as the sun goes down. We were hoping to see flying foxes, but no luck today. It was still a beautiful night!

Heading off to bed now so that we can be up and ready for our flight to Cairns tomorrow. Already looking forward to our return to Sydney next month, when we will have a whole week to enjoy its beauty.

Thanks for adventuring with us!