WorldTravelReynolds

Sydney Opera House – when the rain let up enough to capture a good picture. Such beauty!

It has been raining for at least 3 days toward the end of the week after our arrival in Sydney. We were able to get out and about on the first two days and explore a little. Sunday morning, we were to board the ship, the weather was horrible. Raining, windy and cold. We had to checkout of the hotel by 10 am and not scheduled to check in to the ship until 12:30. We had planned to walk to a pharmacy and pick up some cold and flu medication and some sunblock but it was just too wet and although we were able to drop our 3 large suitcases off, we still had two backpacks, my camera bag and Chucks computer bag.

At first we thought these were wrapped in plastic due to the virus precautions. Later found out it was due to the expected rough seas. It was a good call!

Walking around in the pouring rain was bad enough but carrying those too? It wasn’t going to happen! So, we arrived at the ship around 11 am. And so did a few hundred of our shipmates! We were told this was a sold out cruise. We stood in line for about ½ hour that didn’t move, and Chuck overheard someone say something about being diamond and they walked them to the front of the line. So, Chuck went to the front and asked if we were in the right line for our status and told the young lady we were diamond level. She motioned for us to follow her and they put us at the front of the line!

Their welcome cakes are usually pretty good. We never eat them, just admire.

Or at least to the back of the line of the other diamond, diamond plus and pinnacle levels. It was awesome! Due to the pouring, blowing rain it was pretty much chaos for a while. It was great to get out of it and move along. We were under a large open building, but it didn’t block the wind that pushed the rain in sideways. The weather was so bad, the captain delayed our trip by 4 hours. We should have left at 4:30 but due to the weather he extended it to 8:30. Then at 8:30 we receive another message that we will be spending the night in Sydney harbor and leave at 5:30 am.

Very artistic watermelon carvings.

The wind and rain was so bad, we couldn’t go outside even just to walk from one side of the ship to the other. One side of the ship by the pool had a drain that couldn’t keep up and a large pool of water was forming. It was pretty crazy. The captain said it was raining cats and elephants. Before the coronavirus raised its ugly head, we had talked about how we can keep from getting sick on the cruises.

The rain is just relentless!

On the last two cruises we were sick on or after the cruise. And that’s such a miserable feeling. First, we picked up some vitamin C and some Immune System boost tablets which has zinc. We started those as soon as we arrived in Sydney a week ago. We also talked about purchasing some plastic gloves and some medication for cold and flu just in case. The rain put a damper on getting to the pharmacy so we’ll see if we can go in Brisbane which is our first stop.