Sydney, Australia before the Cruise

We rode with Susie and Don Johnson to Atlanta on Friday, January 24.  Since he's a Southwest pilot, he parked in employee parking for free.  What a deal!  We flew to Houston and then Sydney, Australia on the same flights on United.  It was about 3 hours to Houston, but 16 hours to Sydney.  At least there was more leg room than on domestic flights.  Still, it was way tooooo long for comfort!  It was rough in spots along the way but nothing too drastic. 

We could watch on the screen our progress and location in flight.  This was a happy moment when I saw just 53 minutes left.  We crossed the International Date line so even though we left Atlanta at 5 p.m. Friday, we didn't get into Sydney until 6 a.m. Sunday.

The view out my window when coming into Sydney

We took a taxi from the airport to our hotel for one night.  The cab cost the four of us $75 US!!!  And it took about 20 minutes.  Part of it was a big fee for going through a tunnel.  We avoided cabs the rest of the trip!

Our room was on 15th floor of our hotel.

The iconic Sydney Opera House that we walked to from our hotel.  It was Australia Day so the area was buzzing.

Linda Kwan and Karen Gimbel got to our hotel not long after we did.  They met up at the airport.  We walked to the harbor area, about a 15 minute walk.

I loved the variety of trees in the Botanical Gardens that are right next to the Opera House.

This band was on the pier entertaining the crowds.

Monday morning we walked up York Street that our hotel was on.

City Hall behind me

Queen Victoria Building behind us

This is the Year of the Rat - so these 5 rats were hanging from the dome in the Queen Victoria Building.

An interesting bird we saw in town

Linda walked with us to the Ruby Princess Mon. morning.  Johnsons and Karen took an Uber.

the Opera House from the ship

On board our ship leaving the Sydney Harbor Monday afternoon, January 27