Sailing Out of Sydney
Hidden under the clouds in Sydney Harbour is none other than the Celebrity Solstice. On that grey and cold day, we were sailing out of Sydney finally. We made our way onto the ship to begin our 12-night cruise to New Zealand. For me personally, I was glad to be out of the cold and the rain and that meant that I could finally stop dragging my luggage around.
Martini Bar OnBoard Celebrity Solstice
After making my way into the OPT (Overseas Passenger Terminal) and through the crowds, I immediately went in search of the Martini Bar. To my surprise who should I see, but Agus! He is the amazing bartender I first met on the Celebrity Reflection in 2012. I even have a video of him working in the Martini Bar on my YouTube channel.
He was still his bright effervescent self and was running around filling drink orders like the Energizer bunny. I don’t know where he gets his energy but I want some of it.
The martinis began to flow and we weren’t holding back. I have them pictured above, but I’m not completely sure on all of the names.
Regardless of the names, they did taste good if that means anything at all.
As a disclaimer, I have to admit that Mr. TSG was probably drinking two drinks for every one of mine. He’s also 6′ tall so he gets to have the extra drinks. We were on vacation after all!
Cabin 8279
With a few drinks down, it seemed only natural to locate our cabin and film my cabin tour video. If you watch it, you’ll probably hear I’m slightly giddy because of the martinis. Video will be up soon on YouTube.
Sailaway Out of Sydney Harbour
I completed my quick video and I pretty much ran out to the balcony to sit back and enjoy the view. For my last cruise out of Sydney, the ship backed into its berth so my port side cabin was facing The Rocks. This time the ship pulled into port so my view was of the opera house. How often in your life can you say you had a view like this of the Sydney Opera House? For me it’s never and as a result, I took a ridiculous amount of pictures.
For Australia Day, P&O Cruises for the first time ever had three of their ships in Sydney Harbour for the celebration. Those ships were the Pacific Jewel, the Pacific Pearl, and the Pacific Dawn. In this picture taken the day after, you can see the Pacific Pearl was still in port before her departure from the harbour for a 10-night Melanesian Discovery Cruise.
In each of the photos you’ll see in this post, you’ll definitely notice that the weather was changing from one second to the next. At one point I thought I even saw sunshine, but that was never the case.
We weren’t the only ship in town. While there were ferries running back and forth, seeing this little “Sydney Showboat” fly past us made me feel like I was sailing down the Mississippi.
No matter the angle or the distance from where you stand, the Sydney Opera House is an amazing piece of architecture. I had always wanted to visit Sydney and to see it in person, it feels so surreal that you can’t do anything but pinch yourself to make you realize you’re actually there and it’s right in front of you.
As we backed out, I had a great view of the Sydney Harbour Bridge with Luna Park just beyond.
Seriously — how good is my life? Sailing out of Sydney today and I had just run over that bridge the day before. The view was fantastic, but as the weather was chilly and I was cold, I decided it was time to head back inside the cabin and get out and about on the ship.
Passport Bar
After sailaway we decided to roam the ship and see what was going on in the world. We ended up on deck three and the Passport Bar for the drink of the day. So glad that we had a drink there as it seems Celebrity Cruises will be taking out that bar and replacing it. Not sure if it is fleet wide if and when they will do it on the Solstice, but looks like they have it planned for the Eclipse during dry dock.
OceanView Cafe
Throughout my 12-night cruise, I hate to admit that I ate at the buffet more than probably anywhere else. This was a big change from last cruise on the Solstice, but I had previously booked in Aqua Class and the difference was immense. The fresh, clean, healthy spa cuisine in Blu was sorely missed.
You know your life is good when you’re complaining about food options while on a cruise ship thousands of miles away from home. Really – what do I have to complain about after sailing out of Sydney on the Celebrity Solstice? I’ll have more about the amazing destinations I visited in future posts. Just click on Australia and New Zealand under destinations to see them. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the Travel Shop Girl website for more cruise and destination information.