On Our Way!!

Another January has come which means another Anniversary outing!  Back before I turned fifty in September I told Rick that I would love to combine my birthday with our anniversary and do something "extra special".  I have been wanting to go to New Zealand for quite some time and so this was my designated vacation spot to plan for.  He liked the idea and so we started making plans.  When visiting a new country we generally like to go to one place and stay for a week but I thought a cruise would be an ideal way of seeing different places in New Zealand.  We started looking for cruises at that point.  Spots were filling up really fast for the type of room we wanted so by July 4th we had our reservations made.  Here it is six months later and we are on our way!

Our travel time was the longest of any we have ever taken.  Even compared to our flights to and from Uganda.  From the time we left our home to the time we set foot in Sydney it was twenty nine hours!  We few from SLC to LAX and then had a layover for five hours.  Then we had a twelve and a half hour flight to Fiji with a three hour layover there.  Next it was a four and a half hour flight to Sydney.  Luckily our long flight to Fiji was not even close to being full so we each had a row of four chairs all to our selves!  

We crossed the international dateline so we jumped from January 1st to the 3rd in one fail swoop.

This picture shows on our faces just how long that flight was.

We are staying in downtown Sydney Harbor Marriott for a night.  We have been upgraded to a suite and it is very nice.  Outside our window is a partial view of the Harbor Bridge and lots of high-rises.   The jet lag is something that we (mostly me I think) are battling right now trying to get adjusted to this new time zone.  Sydney is 18 hours ahead of Grantsville.  

Here is our hotel (the one with the red writing on it) taken from the harbor. 

 When we arrived our room was not quite ready so we walked over to the harbor for some lunch and a short harbor cruise to pass the time.  We got to see the famous Sydney Opera House as well as travel under the Harbor Bridge along with some other nice points of interest.

After our sightseeing we were able to get into our room and I took a nice long, hot bath.  I fell asleep shortly thereafter:)  One thing that's nice with our stay here is the Concierge Lounge.  It is a lounge on the second floor that serves a full breakfast in the morning, afternoon tea and cakes (for us, water and cakes :)), evening hors d'oeuvres, and then nightly fruit and desserts.  We took advantage of this perk and had our dinner of mostly appetizers: i.e., cheeses, veggies and hummus, spring rolls with chili sauce, pastrami, hard rolls, and pork rolls.  Anyway, it was a nice and free way to have dinner.

Here's Rick enjoying his complimentary ginger ale:)

After dinner we took another stroll down to the harbor to see some more sights then got back to the hotel for a good night's rest. 

We both woke up feeling refreshed!  This morning we will have breakfast then do a little more sightseeing around Sydney.  We will board our ship around 12:30.

Just a few minutes ago from the window of our room I saw our Princess boat making her way into the harbor!  That's where we will be spending our next nine days as we travel over to New Zealand and see the beauties of that land!