Day 36 – Feb 19 – Sydney, Australia

We have a full day here. We docked at 7:00am and leave at 10:00pm.

We went first to the Sydney Opera House for a tour. It was pretty impressive. They have 3 separate performance halls. The biggest holds 2700 people and has a huge pipe organ with 10,000 pipes. (It took over a year to tune it.) The second holds 1700 people and is more for plays and opera. Finally there is a 300 person area for small bistro-like events. All 3 can be open on a single evening.

The building was supposed to cost $10 million and take 3 years to build. It ended up taking 11+ years and $102 million. They are doing upgrades that will cost at least another $100 million (the architect has a full wish list that would be over $600 million).
The 8 spherical sections of roof are like umbrellas over the building. They are not part of the actual building , but just for dramatic effect.

We walked on the harbor bridge. We stuck to the free part that is only road level. It’s 2/3rds of the way up from the water as is the top of the bridge structure. For an extra $100 or so for each person and 3 hours of total time, you can climb up the bridge’s structural arches. We passed on this part.

We then went to the fish market. It is second in size to only Tokyo. It was amazing to see all of the fresh fish. We have lots of pictures of odd things. A friend told us we should try eating abalone. It was $50 (US) per pound for the big fresh ones, and they weighed it with the shell included. They gave us some small ones (one raw and one cooked) for free…probably because we seemed like such nice people.

I pooped out by 4:00. Kathleen and a lady friend went out again to ride the monorail and to shop. (I think this is part of a master strategy by Kathleen to obtain shopping time without me along.)

It seems like Sydney would be a good place to stay longer than one day. For any of you planning a future world cruise, here is an idea that one of our new passenger friends is doing. They booked the Tahitian Princess for the Florida to Sydney section. They got off in Sydney for 6 days. They then catch the Royal Princess for the rest of the world tour. The Royal Princess has the same ports as us for the first quarter part of the trip, but is 6 days behind us. It does have different ports in Europe. By booking this way, these folks will do the same total port as the Royal Princess done the whole way, but they can stay the extra 6 days in Sydney between the two ships arrivals. The only obvious negative is having to pack up and do the moving, but it is an interesting plan.