Purchasing Wine in Sydney

[Karynanne]

We are planning a cruise that embarks in Sydney, and wanted to know if there was a good place to purchase Australian wines to bring onboard.

 

Thanks!

 

Karyn

[doyleb]

We are planning a cruise that embarks in Sydney, and wanted to know if there was a good place to purchase Australian wines to bring onboard.

 

Karyn,

 

If I recall correctly there was a wine store in Circular Quay - there also may be one or two in the Rocks area. I'm sure some Sydney-siders who monitor this board can make a recommendation. We actually stopped in Melbourne and picked up a few bottles to bring abord on our Diamond cruise in March. With all the luggage to bring abord in Sydney we felt we could (and did) manage for the first day at sea.

 

Enjoy!

 

Brendan

[Flipper133]

Hi Karyn

 

You will find that there is an abundance of "bottle shops" around Circular Quay - however you will pay tourist prices !

 

Best option may be to wait until you get to Melbourne. There is a mini supermarket at the end of the pier that has a reasonable bottle shop area. I found some great value there - certainly better than some of the so called quality wines sold on board Sapphire for extraordinary prices.

 

Princess cruises allow you to take wine on board for special occassions. As far as I am concerned the whole cruise is a special occassion and my wife and I stocked our stateroom fridge at every port (we sailed on Sapphire Princess Auckland - Sydney in January 2005 and are booked on reverse sailing Feb next year)

 

You will find Aussi wines superb and right now there is a glut which has driven down prices. A bottle of Aussie wine (red or white) for A$10 is comparable to almost anything from the rest of the world. I prefer a good Chiraz and my wife drinks Chardonnay (and bubbles). Also be prepared to check out some NZ wines - they make great Sauvignon Blanc !

 

cheers

 

Flipper

[Karynanne]

Thanks Brendan and Flipper...we sailing with Celebrity, and they usually have a policy that no wine or liquor can be brought onboard in each port. We have brought our own wine at the embarkation port, so maybe we'll try in Melbourne and see what happens!

 

Karyn

[SheilaNC]

Karyn,

We bought wine in every port on our Mediterranean cruise with no problem. Some we drank in our cabin and other bottles we had our steward bring to the dining room ($15 corkage fee). I know that there are many threads saying you can not do this, but no problem for us - brought it in our carry on....