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The Celebrity Solstice arrived back at the Port of Sydney at 6:30 a.m., right on schedule. I was booked for a 9:20 p.m. flight to Hawaii on the same day.
I had originally planned to spend the final day of my “out of country” experience seeing some additional sites in Sydney before heading to the airport, but a few days before the ship arrived back in port, I came to my senses. I realized spending the day in Sydney would mean either:
- Schlepping my luggage around town all day – or –
- Paying for my luggage to be stored for the day.
I didn’t like either option. Also, there was the issue of transportation to the airport, and, frankly, I was too tired to even think about that.
While the cruise had been relaxing, I was still struggling with congestion and cough, and the idea of public transportation and managing luggage for the day felt too complicated. I opted instead for option 3, which was to pay $30 to have my bags picked up at my cabin door the night before arriving in port and then having them loaded onto a bus first thing in the morning, said bus also transporting me to the airport straight away. This would mean passing on the downtown site seeing I was hoping to do on my last day, like the Botanical Garden, but…it had been a long trip. Unfortunately, option 3 also meant spending a full day in the airport. Fun.
When I chose this option, I thought the part about picking up bags at my cabin and loading onto the bus would be accomplished without my intervention. I was wrong.
As I disembarked with the thousands of other passengers who had also chosen this option, I found that my bags had been removed from the ship and placed along with bazillions of other bags in the cruise terminal! (I was not the only one surprised by this.)
I was to pick out my bags from one of the loosely organized, massive groupings of bags and transport them to the bus, which would be located outside the terminal. There, my bags would be loaded into the cargo area on the bus.
Turns out the reason you must pick up your bags in the terminal and transport them to the bus yourself is because there are several buses making the same trip and they are loaded to capacity and driven to the airport as people arrive, so this is the only way to keep the buses running smoothly, and to ensure that your bags travel with you on the bus. Makes sense now, but was a bit frustrating at the time.
So, by 9:00 a.m. I was on a bus and headed to the airport for my 9:20 p.m. flight! It was such a beautiful day, and I was so sad I would be spending it in an airport instead of beautiful gardens, but…
As the bus traveled away from the terminal and through the city, I caught one last glimpse of the city that had won my heart! It was with sweet sorrow that I was leaving such a beautiful city and country!
I have often thought, since my first day in Sydney, that if I ever needed to choose another country to live in, I would definitely pick Australia! It is so beautiful, and the people are so friendly and nice! You can have a conversation with just about anyone here, and they will treat you as if you belong!
At the airport, I found a great place to hang out – The Terrace Bar, Bistro and Cafe. Here I had breakfast (Eggs Benedict, of course!), then came back later for a beer and finally dinner. Between meals I wandered the airport, pushing my trolley full of luggage from store to store. I bought more souvenirs as well as some postage stamps, and then sat down to write out the post cards I had purchased on the Sydney portion of my trip. I wanted my Sydney post cards to have a Sydney stamp and postmark! (See my earlier post, Touristing in Sydney).
At about 6:30 p.m. the line began forming at the ticket counter. I was on my way home!
NEXT STORY: Hawaii Redux – or – Back to South Pacific Cruise page
Mel Erickson: Writer, Traveler, Observer, Occasional Deep Thinker 