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Australia / New Zealand for Dummies!


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We've cruised a lot, Caribbean, Alaska, Hawaii, Europe but never from the down under! This one will be our 40th.

 

Have booked a cruise for Nov 2019 on the Radiance out of Sydney. It started out just my husband and I we invited one of our friends and in turn that person invited 2 more and anyhow we are now up to a possibility of 10 people in our group.... and I have ended up coordinator.

 

Please give me any advice or tips for this adventure! Would greatly appreciate any suggestions. I fear I've over my head in the down under!

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We've cruised a lot, Caribbean, Alaska, Hawaii, Europe but never from the down under! This one will be our 40th.

 

Have booked a cruise for Nov 2019 on the Radiance out of Sydney. It started out just my husband and I we invited one of our friends and in turn that person invited 2 more and anyhow we are now up to a possibility of 10 people in our group.... and I have ended up coordinator.

 

Please give me any advice or tips for this adventure! Would greatly appreciate any suggestions. I fear I've over my head in the down under!

Drop me an email.

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There’s a Australia & New Zealand forum with lots of dummies to advise you.

Spend a few days in Sydney to get over the killer flight and get on the harbour and beaches.

As said don’t try to do to much ,it’s a vast country.

What you do ,do it well.

Coming from Memphis you would probably want to see something different.

The Great Barrier Reef and Cairns.

The red Center and our desert,Uluru.

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November is a perfect time to cruise Australia/NZ. Two very different countries. Australia is very large. To get to many destinations you need to fly. Sydney is a great base with lots to do. You will need time to get over the long flight.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

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Australian here. Happy to answer any questions

 

I don’t think you mentioned where the cruise is going, or how long you plan to spend in Australia before or after - it would help to know that to give general advice.

 

One thing I will say, Australia is really really big. Lots of visitors overestimate how much they can see, so depending on how much time you have you might be able to see 2 or 3 places.

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Australian here. Happy to answer any questions

 

I don’t think you mentioned where the cruise is going, or how long you plan to spend in Australia before or after - it would help to know that to give general advice.

 

One thing I will say, Australia is really really big. Lots of visitors overestimate how much they can see, so depending on how much time you have you might be able to see 2 or 3 places.

 

So you mean my plan to see the Opera house, Harbour Bridge, Uluru, Barrier Reef, Barossa Valley, Margaret River and Broome in the three days between the cruise and flying home is enough to fill the time?

 

Sorry... Aussie sense of humour :-)

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So you mean my plan to see the Opera house, Harbour Bridge, Uluru, Barrier Reef, Barossa Valley, Margaret River and Broome in the three days between the cruise and flying home is enough to fill the time?

 

Sorry... Aussie sense of humour :-)

Well the coat hanger and the opera house won’t be a problem anyway.

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So you mean my plan to see the Opera house, Harbour Bridge, Uluru, Barrier Reef, Barossa Valley, Margaret River and Broome in the three days between the cruise and flying home is enough to fill the time?

 

Sorry... Aussie sense of humour :-)

 

Haha :D

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So you mean my plan to see the Opera house, Harbour Bridge, Uluru, Barrier Reef, Barossa Valley, Margaret River and Broome in the three days between the cruise and flying home is enough to fill the time?

 

Sorry... Aussie sense of humour :-)

This leaves no time for Sydney's famous red light district. Lol

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We did b2b, AU and NZ, on Radiance in March/April. You’ll sail so close to the Opera House that you can almost see inside. We did have a private flight over the Great Barrier Reef booked but it was raining so it was cancelled. If we ever go back, that would be the first thing we booked. We did enjoy going to a koala refuge and have a wonderful picture of us holding one.

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To get a feel of the city, get a ticket to the Hop on Hop off bus down by the Opera House. It's a city full of things to do, I have to get back down under to see what I didn't get to see. Friendly people and city.

 

I couldn't agree more. And safe. The best ever, and we travelled quite a lot:D :D

We stayed at Holiday Inn Old Sydney, walking distance to the Opera House and the "Coat Hanger". Very value for money and handy for moving around.

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I may have missed how long you will be in Sydney before your cruise, during our trip with the daughter and husbands Sister, we stayed at the Meriton Apartments on Pitt Street. There we could do our own cooking, washing and had a two Bedroom for the 4 of us. There was a market on George Street We had friends stay at the Holiday Inn Old Sydney and were close to shopping, Opera House and many things. If your there for 2 to 3 days, take the ferry to Manley. the Zoo and if you can, the Blue Mountain. My email is below in my signature. Another point of interest is Hyde Park, simply beautiful.

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Holiday Inn Old Sydney The Rocks is an amazing location! You can see, and walk to the Sydney Opera House, and bridge. There are many fabulous restaurants right there. There is a street market that takes place right there-I’m sorry I can’t remember which day. AND you can see, and walk straight to the ship!

The Opera House is fun to tour. We saw a show there....disappointing as the consensus, from our group, was that the acoustics were not so good, and the venue nothing special JMHO.

Larnach Castle in Dunedin is a beautiful place, very interesting backstory, and offers a lovely afternoon tea.

My enthusiasm for Australia and especially New Zealand knows no bounds!

Wishing you the best trip ever!

:)

Robin

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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Oh my Goodness! All of you have been so helpful! We will only be in Sydney for 3 days tops and then cruise. We both still work and so our time is very limited unfortunately. Thank you all so much and keep the suggestions coming.

 

 

Three days in Sydney.

 

1. Ferry to Zoo, get the sky car to the top, walk down, ferry back to Curcular Quay. Alternate, almost as nice a ferry to Manly, walk along the concourse and beach and a nice lunch

 

2. Train up to Blue Mountains

 

3. A look around the central city, including the Rocks and Botanic Gardens, back past the Opera House.

 

Accomodation

 

May vary by budget and where your cruise departs, there are two docks, Overseas Passenger Terminal (OPT) at the Rocks or White Bay at Rozelle.

 

If the OPT look at hotels in the Rocks / Circular Quay area, we like the Holiday Inn, many get great deals at the Park Hyatt and Marriott Pier One, if they are members of loyalty schemes, otherwise they tend to be over priced.

 

You can also look at one of the serviced apartments, Meriton are my preferred.

 

If you leave from White Bay it doesn’t matter much where you stay as you’ll need a taxi or the such anyway.

 

We like the Grace in York street, an old department store converted to a hotel, service is always great.

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We did an excellent free walking tour the morning we arrived. It was a great way to get our bearings and get some exercise after the long plane trip. https://www.imfree.com.au/sydney/

 

The Marriott Circular Quay on Pitt St was excellent and the location could not be beat. Just a few blocks from the train stop and the bus staging area, including HOHO bus if you are interested in that.

 

We walked to the port. It is also close to some good restaurants including the excellent Mr Wong, at 3 Bridge Lane.

https://www.merivale.com/venues/mrwong

 

And there is a grocery just up the hill a few blocks which had a decent enough wine selection.

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Radiance (and all RCI ships) sail from the Overseas Passenger Terminal (OPT). Agree the Holiday Inn is the place to stay for convenience although we have also stayed at the Shangri La and Intercontinental, both pricier but with great views.

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We did an excellent free walking tour the morning we arrived. It was a great way to get our bearings and get some exercise after the long plane trip. https://www.imfree.com.au/sydney/

 

The Marriott Circular Quay on Pitt St was excellent and the location could not be beat. Just a few blocks from the train stop and the bus staging area, including HOHO bus if you are interested in that.

 

We walked to the port. It is also close to some good restaurants including the excellent Mr Wong, at 3 Bridge Lane.

https://www.merivale.com/venues/mrwong

 

And there is a grocery just up the hill a few blocks which had a decent enough wine selection.

 

I’ll second the Marriott,but it’s expensive (most of Sydney is expensive)

Spend your 3 days there to get over the flight ,plenty to do in Sydney.

As said there’s two cruise ports in Sydney ,radiance should berth at circular quay.

sometimes because Sydney is congested it may anchor in the harbour.

That means it will us tenders and the tenders leave from white bay terminal.

So I would check Sydney Harbour schedule and it may help you decide where to stay.

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Radiance (and all RCI ships) sail from the Overseas Passenger Terminal (OPT). Agree the Holiday Inn is the place to stay for convenience although we have also stayed at the Shangri La and Intercontinental, both pricier but with great views.

I’ve seen radiance anchor on the north side of the harbour.

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We flew of out Detroit to Honolulu and spent 2 nights to help break up the flights and time zone. Leaving Honolulu at noon and arriving at 7:30pm the next night was perfect since we caught a cap nap on the flight and was tired enough by time we landed in Sydney and got to our hotel (Rendezvous Hotel Sydney The Rocks. it was great, opened the balcony curtains to a lit up Opera House!!) We were able to get a great nights sleep and got up in the morning to see the Voyager pulling into port. After we did our cruise to Fiji, we came back to Sydney and spent 4 nights. During that time we were able to do a back stage tour of the Opera House (highly recommend!!!) regular tour of the Opera House, and then did the Hop On Hop Off bus for 2 days. We were able to see so much!! After Sydney we took off for Cairns for 4 nights then onto Brisbane for 3 nights. Try to do so much while you are there! We are already planning our trip back in 2021 to do a cruise around Australia!! 14 nights on the top half and 18 on the bottom half which includes NZ!! can't wait!!

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During our visit in 2014, we stayed Post cruise back at the Meriton Apts for 9 days before our Transpacific. Between the HOHO we walked a lot especially over to Darling Harbour. We also stopped for lunch at the Fish Market. I would love to go back and see more of Australia. Our daughter met a lady on our NZ cruise and went back for 3 weeks driving all over. If you get to the Blue Mountains be sure and take the steepest rail that was incredible. We did it backwards.

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