We arrived in Sydney a few days before our cruise on the Diamond departed on January 28. Sydney is a beautiful city and we enjoyed our pre-cruise stay there but were very much looking forward to boarding the ship. Sail-away day finally arrived and I walked over to Circular Quay on the morning to take a picture before boarding.
The short ride from the Four Seasons Hotel to the pier, provided by Princess, was a bit of a mess. There was no air conditioning on the bus (it’s summer now in Sydney) and when we arrived at the pier there was no place for the bus to park. We sat in the bus under the hot sun with just the door open for a bit of a breeze, for about 15 minutes before a parking space in front of the terminal opened up. Total time from boarding the bus until we offloaded was about 30 minutes. Given that the hotel is almost across the street from the pier, I could have walked there faster.
As full suite passengers we bypassed the other passengers waiting to be cleared by security and went to the head of the Elite line where we were the only passengers. We were through security in just a few minutes and were welcomed aboard around 2:00 p.m. Our last cruise was on the Sapphire in Suite Caribe 407 and this cruise we were in Suite Caribe 408. The two ships are twin sisters so Welcome Home!