LIVE: Dec 23 2019, Solstice, 12 Night Holiday New Zealand Cruise

[mahdnc]

We are currently flying over the Pacific heading to Sydney for our 12 night holiday cruise aboard Solstice. 
 

We will first spend 4 nights at the Marriott located at Sydney Harbour. 
 

I will be happy to answer any questions during our trip. 
 

David

[ipeeinthepool]

Looking forward to your review.  Enjoy your cruise.

[villauk]

Have a great cruise. You’ll love the itinerary 👍.

[scrapcreator]

What a wonderful way to spend the holidays! Bon voyage. 🛳

[cachouonacruise]

Wow! Enjoy your cruise and I look forward to read your review! 

[tcmagnum]

Wow!!  Enjoy!!

[kmhuk]

Have a wonderful holiday.  Reading your previous trip reports encouraged me to book the solstice for next year 

[macaroni]

We’ll be boarding in Auckland on February 17th....looking forward to any tips you can pass along. We sail 12 nights Auckland to Melbourne with an overnight in Sydney. Would like to know what your favorite activities in Sydney were...enjoy!

[peter1956]

4 hours ago, macaroni said:

We’ll be boarding in Auckland on February 17th....looking forward to any tips you can pass along. We sail 12 nights Auckland to Melbourne with an overnight in Sydney. Would like to know what your favorite activities in Sydney were...enjoy!

We are boarding the Solstice in Melbourne on the 29th Feb for the reverse of your cruise.

Looking forward to it.

Edited December 19, 2019 by peter1956

[youwash]

5 hours ago, macaroni said:

We’ll be boarding in Auckland on February 17th....looking forward to any tips you can pass along. We sail 12 nights Auckland to Melbourne with an overnight in Sydney. Would like to know what your favorite activities in Sydney were...enjoy!

We'll be with you on the 17th!  

Looking forward to your Holiday trip report. 

[lovedecruise]

When you disembark in Sydney, we get on.  Enjoy your trip. New Zealand is a beautiful country.  Have a few things I'd like you to check out, if you have time. Thanks.

[chemmo]

Sincere best wishes for a fantastic holiday cruise! We have cruised Solstice twice down under and really enjoyed.

 

[Suzi66]

Have an absolutely wonderful time.  Look after her for me for when I get on mid January. 😁

[vickykay]

We did this cruise a few years ago.  Wonderful cruise.  Also stayed at the Marriott which is in a great location.   We loved Sydney!  There is a free walking tour in Sydney which we enjoyed very much.  Also one in Melbourne.  Enjoy your cruise!

[jimbri]

Have a wonderful time!

[NCHPcruiser]

Looking forward to following along!  We did the AU/NZ cruise (with extra time on the front end in AU) last February.  (Also stayed in the Sydney Harbour Marriott.). 

[NemoCrownie]

Thank you for doing this review.  Have a wonderful cruise and vacation!

[mahdnc]

My wife, daughter and I flew out of chilly Chicago on a United flight to San Francisco on Wed Dec 17. 
 

We had a 12 hour layover in San Francisco which is my favorite city. A 12 hour layover isn’t ideal but it enabled us to get frequent flier award tickets to Sydney and back for the 3 of us. 
 

 So when we arrived at 11 am, we stored our carry on luggage at the airport and took a Lyft into the city.

 

We have been to San Francisco several times before, so we didn’t have aggressive sightseeing plans.  We were dropped off at the Ferry Building for lunch. 

 

We checked out the nearby Exploratorium and bought tickets to the Tactile Dome. 

 

We spent the rest of the afternoon shopping including going to Union Square. 

 

At 6pm, we went to Mourad, a fine dining Moroccan restaurant, for dinner. Our son, who now lives in San Francisco, was able to join us. He would fly out the following day to Sydney to join us on the cruise. 

 

Edited December 20, 2019 by mahdnc

[mahdnc]

Even though we are experienced travelers, we always seem to have a crisis before the cruise that forces us to spend a significant amount of time to address during the pre-cruise portion of the trip.

 

In fact, I consider us to be a poster family for why you should never fly out on the same day of a cruise.

 

There was the prescription scuba mask crisis of 2013 (my wife forgot to bring it and we had to rush to a Ft Lauderdale dive store to get it made on the day we got on Eclipse). 

 

Then there was the the famous Imitrex crisis of 2017 where my wife forgot to bring her vital migraine medication and we spent a full day navigating the healthcare and pharmacy system to get a prescribed drug in Chile before we boarded Infinity. 

 

Last year I forgot to bring my custom fitted diving camera case which forced us to shop for a new dive camera and case on the day before we boarded Reflection for our 14 night Caribbean cruise  

 

For this cruise we have experienced 2 crises and we're not in the ship yet. 

 

While we were at Mourad for dinner, my wife realized that she left her purse at the Ferry Building during lunch. Fortunately she had her passport with her when this discovery was made, so the issue was losing cash and credit cards.  When we called the Ferry Building restaurant, they told us they has found it and turned it over to security and that the security office is open 24 hrs. 

 

After we finished dinner we went to the Ferry Building security office (around 9 pm) on our way back to the airport. Well we found out that the purse was locked in a safe, but the person with the key went home for the night. Ugh. 

 

We ended up authorizing and asking our son to pick the purse up the following day before he flew out to Sydney to meet us which is what happened.  So purse and son were reunited with my wife earlier this morning. Whew! 

Edited December 20, 2019 by mahdnc

[mahdnc]

The other crisis involved my wife's CPAP machine. Last night when we went to bed, she discovered that the gasket for the water chamber was missing which rendered the CPAP inoperable. She has found that this machine greatly reduces her migraine frequency. So going on a cruise without it was not an appealing situation. 

 

This morning we found a sleep center in Sydney that had the parts we needed for her CPAP  And after she showed them her prescription, they were able to sell us the needed parts and so that crisis was deadly with. 

[mahdnc]

Our United flight (UA 863) to Sydney on Dec 17th was long (15 hrs) but uneventful. In Jan 2018 when we took our Great Barrier Reef cruise, we flew on United thru LAX which used the nice Boeing 787 for the trans Pacific flight. For flights to Sydney from San Francisco, United uses 777's which is much less comfortable. 
 

The flight landed at 9:23 am in Sydney. 

 

[mahdnc]

We took our time in getting off the plane and in collecting our bags from baggage claim. 

 

By 10 am, we had cleared Australian customs and immigration and were getting into our Maxi-taxi to take us to the Sydney Harbour Marriott. 

 

The traffic was heavy and we arrived at the Marriott at 10:35 am. The total fare was $104.22 AUD. 

 

Edited December 20, 2019 by mahdnc

[mahdnc]

We checked in at the hotel which was not crowded. Daniel, at the front desk, took care of us. He assigned us a nice corner room (2 double beds) although it was not ready yet. However the hotel gave us a key to thedoor spacious Early Arrival Room which included light snacks and showers which we took advantage of. There was no one else there except for one other guest. 

 

The front desk held all our bags and put them in our room when the room was ready while we were out. 

 

Edited December 20, 2019 by mahdnc

[mahdnc]

Last time we were flew into Sydney (Dec 2017) we spent our first day there wandering thru an open air market and we just about died from jet lag, exhaustion and heat. 

 

This time our plans called for going to an air conditioned venue. I made a reservation at The Tea Room at the Queen Victoria Building.  This was a treat for our daughter who discovered her love for formal afternoon tea while exploring San Francisco on her own earlier this year. 

 

We ordered the Traditional High Tea which cost $55 AUD per person. It was very good and was exactly what we needed to refuel ourselves. 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 20, 2019 by mahdnc

[mahdnc]

When we returned to the Marriott at around 2:25 pm, our room was ready. 

 

We had a very nice view of the Sydney Opera House (photo) but the smoke from the nearby forest fires created a haze that marred the view. 

 

Edited December 20, 2019 by mahdnc