2026 Sydney to Sydney Cruise

A lazy day today. Repacked my bags for my flight to Chile and went to afternoon tea at ‘The Palace Tea Room’ in the Queen Victoria Building(QVB) in downtown Sydney, Australia. The stained glass windows in QVB are amazing.

Today we exited the ship. It arrived in port about 7am and folks were allowed off about 8am. I got off about 9am since the exit announcement for my group wasn’t heard in the room I was waiting in. Didn’t clear customs and agricultural inspection until about 9:30.

I was very upset when my luggage pickup didn’t happen. I had paid for a luggage shipping service(Luggage Forward) to pick up my luggage from me at the pier when I disembarked the ship but there was no one to get my luggage. Oddly enough someone was there to pick up Jennifer’s luggage but they didn’t wait for my luggage.

Unfortunately there was no one that I was able to talk to or contact from Luggage Forward. The company is in USA and didn’t have an emergency contact number. I spent awhile on hold to their support number but never got a person- just canned music. Emailed their generic support email too.

When only a couple of people were at the exit and folks were arriving to get on the ship for their cruise, I gave up waiting and took a taxi to my airport hotel. About settling into my room, I called Luggage Forward again and someone from their after hours phone service picked up the phone.

Not only is there a time difference but also a day difference between USA and Sydney, Australia. It was March 14 in USA but March 15 in Sydney and the support person tried to tell me the pickup was ‘tomorrow’- after a bit we got that straightened out. In the end she couldn’t do anything to help me other than to collect my information and sent an email to the head office.

Tibor asked me to pick up a lens cover since his broke. It took a bit but I found a camera store that actually had camera supplies. Couldn’t find the correct on-line search term- kept ending up with copy centers, photography shops or on-line stores. Took a couple of wrong turns to get to the train and walk to the camera shop but eventually made it. Sure hope what I purchased will work for Tibor.

On the way back to the hotel, since it was afternoon tea time, I stopped at a coffee shop for a bite to eat.

About 3am local time I got a phone call from Luggage Forward in response to my email. They were helpful in that they said they would arrange to pick up my luggage from the hotel but they can’t pick it up until later in the week. Since I leave the hotel for Chile tomorrow, I sure hope it gets picked up or I don’t know what I’ll do.

Last night the ship was ‘rockin ‘n’ rollin’. The seas don’t look that rough but this morning when I had a pedicure, bottles were knocked off the shelves on a particular wave and the water from the basin was splashed out. During the night and in the morning our balcony door was getting water drops from the wind carrying the water up from the waves.

We will disembark tomorrow morning in Sydney, Australia and spent most of the afternoon packing- except for Afternoon Tea.

We have frequently been having dinner in our room. It’s pretty easy to call and get room service- there is no extra charge. I usually have soup and salad and don’t miss the extra full stomach that I get from going to the dining room and having a 4 course dinner.

We spent a lazy day on board today sailing the coral seas. The highlights were a massage and afternoon tea. The sea hasn’t been as calm as the last week or so and the air is cooler.

We visited our last stop before we disembark in Sydney in a few days. I didn’t take any excursion today but I did go on the Hop On Hop Off bus. It was super easy since they had a stop at the pier. I purchased a ticket at the pier and walked thru the welcome center to the bus stop. They had two busses there- one that was kinda like a van that was leaving shortly and the other was a double-decker bus that was leaving in 20 minutes. I opted to wait for the double-decker bus so I could sit on the top level.

It was a short circuit- about 35 minutes- but I enjoyed it and was glad to be off the ship for a bit.

We went past a swimming area that was surrounded by nets- I didn’t understand what that meant when the guide said it. It turns out that the inlet has a very large net around the ocean side of the inlet. This prevents folks from heading out to sea and prevents large animals (I’m thinking sharks) from entering the swimming area.

There were beautiful sandy beaches, lots and lots of sailboats and the weather not too hot and not too humid. It’s a french colony and it was fun to hear french and see french ads, street signs and restaurants. One disappointment was all the graffiti on a very nice mural.

A calm day at sea aboard the ship. We went to another wine tasting- ‘Let wine be your dinner guide’. And we have enjoyed Tibor’s fun messages about his hiking in the Argentina Patagonia.

Each of the wine tasting events we have gone to has been different. We’ve tasted different wines and the presentations & locations have been different. Today there were only 8 of us at the event and it was more informative and included a power point presentation and small portions of food to taste with the wine. It’s pretty fun to get a California wine from a vineyard we know at these tastings.

Tomorrow we will be at our last port before disembarkation.

I cancelled today’s excursion for ‘Firewalking and Cultural show’ and enjoyed my day on the ship. I really like the cultural shows and dancing but firewalking freaks me out to watch even tho it doesn’t appear to hurt the walkers.

Just like the days before, it was a beautiful warm/hot, humid day and the ocean/seas are calm. The air conditioning on the ship is much appreciated.

Today’s excursion was a Eco Park visit which involved 1 1/2 hour bus ride to the park, lunch, shopping, 1 1/2 hours bus ride back and about an hour at the park. And it was a fun excursion. The busses on this excursion held about 35 people and were comfortable and air conditioned.

Fiji has 14 provinces and over 100 dialects including one that ‘everyone’ knows. Their main language is English and their main sport is Rugby. They are incredibly proud that they won the gold medal in 2016 at the Olympics in Brazil. The guide said they celebrated for months.

Their main crop is sugar cane and it was their primary source of income until tourism became number one. They use the sugar cane for sugar and then use the molasses to make rum and other alcoholic drinks. They also have pine trees and sell pine chips to Japan to be made into building material.

Many of the houses are on stilts but some have started enclosing the bottom story for more living space.

Their main religion is christian but they are tolerant and accepting of other religions. I saw many different churches on our drive. These are the ones I managed to get a photo of:

• Salvation Army Church
• Mosque
• Methodist Church
• Hindu Temple
• Islamic mosque
• Baptist Church
• Korean Community Church
• Seventh-Day Adventist Church
• American International Church
• Gateway Harvest Center which I couldn’t tell if it was a church or place to collect product but the sign said “God is King”
• Christian Greek Orthodox church
• Shiri Vishnu Temple
• Revival Fellowship
• Aastaana Aaliya Saifiya (a religion I never heard of)

There were a number of colorful billboards along the road- many of them selling alcoholic drinks. I liked the one that was advertising Fiji water since it showed the same bottle of Fiji water that I see for sale in the local grocery store back home. They also had a ‘don’t drink and drive’ billboard that said ‘choose your ride’ and showed a picture of a taxi and a picture of a police car. Another fun one was for a cheese snack that turns your tongue blue.

The Eco park was fun. I held a snake and a blue and green striped iguana. The Hawksbill turtles had beautiful shells-which is probably why they are endangered- and sharp beaks. We were allowed to feed them as long as we didn’t get our fingers near their beak. The Red-Breasted Musk Parrot was beautiful and Fiji “enjoys five distinct island races” of them. Apparently they have different scents on each island. They had an exhibit of medicinal plants too.

Between the clouds, cloud shapes and color, we had an amazing sunset this evening

Today’s special onboard event was brunch. It was available from 9:30am to 1pm. There was all sorts of food and I especially enjoyed the mimosa, crepes and pickled herring.

It was beautiful calm water and warm outside and I enjoyed our balcony today too.

Today I went on a fun excursion to a blue lagoon, acultural village, and a chocolate factory/store. There were 3 vans in my group and each van held about 10 people. The vans were very comfortable and had air conditioning.

There are 83 islands that make up Vanuatu and there are around 125 dialects with 3 main ones in use- Bislama(a Melanesian pidgin/creole used throughout Vanuatu), English and French plus each local village indigenous language. Their main sport is soccer.

We have been driving on the left side for a number of different countries/days but today we were cautioned that we were driving on the right and to be careful when exiting the bus.

There were very few dogs here, no scooters and no speed limit. The roads have potholes and speed bumps which effectively reduces vehicle speed.

They get 3-5 cruise ships a month and were happy to see them return after a 7.4 earthquake in December 2024 stopped them for a few months. I didn’t notice much damage but the road to/from the main dock was damaged and not passable so we anchored off shore and tendered into port. They had a 4.8 earthquake a few days after we left.

Many countries now have agricultural inspections even for cruise ship passengers. They are realizing how much damage imported pests can be. Here imported beetles are destroying their coconut trees.

Our first stop was a blue hole/lagoon. It was pretty fun swimming in the bright blue, clear water.. They had a platform 15 or so feet up that folks were jumping off. I didn’t but it reminded me of the kids jumping off the rocks in Hawaii years ago.

After swimming, we drove to a cultural village. We were dropped off at the entrance to the cultural village and were wandering around trying to find the right path to the main section when our guide directed us to an entrance that was blocked with a rail across the path. We were milling around trying to figure out what to do when warriors with spears ran yelling into the clearing. They hit a fence pole with their spear and it made a huge cracking sound- we were surprised and scared and all jumped back. But very quickly many had their phones out and were videotaping.

Our last stop was a chocolate store/factory. We were given one-inch squares of about 10 different kinds of chocolate they make. I started making notes of the ones I liked but really I liked them all except one or two.