Background: We are a professional couple...him early 40's, her early 50's. This was our 14th cruise together, 10th on Princess. We've previously sailed on the Sun Princess, Dawn Princess, Grand Princess, Crown Princess, Ruby Princess, Island Princess, Golden Princess, and Sapphire Princess. We consider ourselves to be well-traveled usually with multiple trips out of the country each year.

Pre-cruise: We arrived in Sydney a day early. We were a bit concerned about the electronic visas (ETAs) that we had paid Princess to obtain for us because we had been unable to get written confirmation either from Princess or our travel agent prior to leaving home. But, there were no issues clearing Immigration or Customs when we arrived. We had booked one night at the Lord Nelson Brewery Hotel in the Rocks area of the CBD so we grabbed a cab outside the airport. Since we arrived in the early morning, our room was not yet ready so we dropped off our bags and headed out to explore the city. The hotel is in a great location within walking distance to the Harbour Bridge, the Opera House, and Circular Quay. We walked under the bridge along the edge of the harbor around to the Opera House and took lots of pictures. Then we took the ferry from Circular Quay over to Taronga Zoo and spent about 5 hours exploring all the exhibits. It was an enjoyable way to pass the time and stay awake to adjust to the time change. When we returned to the hotel, we were able to check in and freshen up. We walked a few blocks to the Argyle restaurant for dinner and then headed back to the hotel. By this time we were very tired. We went to bed about 7:00 pm so we could be well rested for our embarkation the next day. The next morning we flagged a cab outside the hotel and it was about a 5 min ride down to the pier.

Embarkation: We arrived at the pier at 10:00 am. They opened the check in at 11:15 am and then we waited about half an hour before we were allowed to board the ship. The embarkation went relatively smoothly but they did not clearly identify the waiting areas for pre and post check-in. Many people were entering the terminal and sitting down in the area where the people who had already checked in were waiting to be allowed onto the ship. They also did not clearly identify an area for Suite, Platinum, and Elite passengers to wait separate from the general boarding area. After dropping our hand luggage in our stateroom, we headed down to the dining room for lunch. Read more