Relaxing at Sea on Majestic Princess

THE ENCLAVE® 

AT LOTUS SPA®

We continued our exploration of Majestic Princess with a tour of the Lotus Spa.

The highlight of the spa is the Enclave, home to Princess’ largest-ever thermal suite and a dramatic hydro-therapy pool with a cascading rain shower and therapeutic air jets. Here you can relax on heated stone beds or soothing water beds.

Features include: The Hammam – a Turkish-style steam bath, and from Roman times, the Caldarium –a light steam chamber infused with herbal aromas and the Laconium – a heated, dry chamber to help with purification and detoxification of the body.

At the conclusion of the tour, we booked a couples hot stones massage for the next day and use of the Enclave for the entire cruise for the two of us. Except for embarkation day, we spent time in the Enclave either before or after dinner.

Tip:  Take advantage of first day discounts at the Lotus Spa.  You should book your treatments early so that you get your preferred dates and times.

In addition to the time we spent at the spa on Majestic Princess, we spent time relaxing at the Hollywood Pool Club and the Hollywood Conservatory.  We'll share more details in another post.

Additional photos can be found on our Australia & New Zealand Shutterfly page

Lotus Spa


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Welcome Aboard Majestic Princess

Exploring the Ship

Thirty minutes after arriving at the Sydney Overseas Passenger Terminal, we were checked in for our cruise and in our cabin.   We dropped off our hand luggage, took a few pictures of our cabin, and Sydney from our balcony, and headed to get something to eat.,

This Welcome Aboard sign and characters made from fruit and vegetables, greeted us on the buffet line.  Since we had early seating dinner, at 5:15 PM, we just had something light to hold us over until then.

Throughout the cruise, the buffet line was decorated with #CruiseFruitArt like these.  The crew is very talented.  We've seen decorations like these before, but none that were as elaborate as the ones on Majestic Princess.  We'll post some more of these pictures as we continue our blog posts from this trip.

After lunch, our next stop was the Lotus Spa for a tour of the facility and to book our spa activities for the cruise.   Hot Stones massages and pass to the thermal suite, Enclave, were the two spa activities we booked.   It is a good idea to book as soon as you get onboard the ship so that you can get your preferred date and time for your spa appointments and so that there is still availability in the thermal suite.  See the next post for more about the spa.

Additional photos can be found on our Australia & New Zealand Shutterfly page

Transfer to Pier
Cabin B201



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Majestic Princess Embarkation

Prior to our departure from home, we arranged a shared transfer from our Sydney hotel to the pier.  Checkout time was 11 AM at our hotel, so we waited for the shuttle in the lobby.  Our pickup time was scheduled for 11:45 AM.   The driver arrived 15 minutes early and we were on our way.  He had picked up 2 other couples already and he had two more stops to make before we arrived at the pier.

Once there, we checked our bag and went inside the terminal.  We showed our boarding passes and passports and were directed to the line for Platinum, Elite, and Suite guests.   It didn't take long and we were on our way through security and onto the ship.  For security reasons, there aren't any pictures inside the terminal area, but suffice it to say this was a quick embarkation for those with status or high-end cabins.  There were lines for the general embarkation, but even that seemed to be moving efficiently.

View from Our Cabin

The second recognizable landmark in Sydney is the Harbour Bridge.   It's seen in this image captured from our balcony shortly after we got onboard Majestic Princess.

We dropped off our carryon bags and then went up to deck 16 for some lunch in the buffet.  It was then time to explore the ship before the mandatory safety drill.   In our next post, we'll cover more about our first few hours onboard Majestic.

Additional photos can be found on our Australia & New Zealand Shutterfly page

Transfer to Pier
Cabin B201



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Greetings From Sydney

click images to enlarge

View From The Royal Botanic Garden

We arrived in Sydney, Australia around 8:30 am and waited to deplane.  It takes awhile when you have a full Boeing 787 jumbo jet.  By the time we went thru customs, got our luggage and went thru the final customs checkpoint, it was almost 10:30 am. 

We had prearranged shuttle transfer from the airport to our hotel in Sydney.  Unfortunately we had just missed one shuttle and would have to wait for about 45 minutes or so for the driver to return.

We weren't in a hurry so it didn't really matter to us, but our advice to you if you don't want to be waiting around, is to call an Uber instead.

By the time we got to our hotel, Intercontinental Sydney, it was almost noon.  The first thing on our mind was food, so we headed out to explore the neighborhood.   There was an interactive directory on the corner so we plotted our house to a nearby food court.   It was a great find.   We had BBQ brisket, chips & drink for 16 AUD each.

After lunch we headed to The Royal Botanic Garden where we spent several hours walking thru the gardens.   At 3:00 we headed to the Opera House gate where we caught a Choo Choo train around the gardens.   It costs 10 AUD for adults and 5 AUD for kids.

Sydney Opera House 

The train ride takes about 40 minutes and returns to where it started at the Opera House entrance. We walked over to the Opera House stairs and asked one of the workers where we needed to go for tours. He directed us around the corner and downstairs to the ticket counter. Tours go until 5 PM, so we still had time to take the tour. The tour costs 40 AUD per person for the basic tour, which lasts for an hour.

After purchasing our tour tickets, we purchased some bottled water from their cafe and waited for our tour time.   The guide passed out audio headsets and

The Opera House was designed by Danish architect Jorn Utzon. The architectural marvel is perhaps one of the most recognizable landmarks in the world. It has become one of the busiest performing arts centers in the world, putting Sydney on the map forever.

The behind the scenes tour was very informative.  Please not that picture taking is allowed except in designated areas which your guide will point out. We went inside two of the theaters but were not allowed to take any pictures inside. There are many diverse performances held at the Opera House - not just operas. The first stage we saw was being setup for a children's performance.

They also take your photo when you start the tour and offer a souvenir book with photo at the end of the tour. We purchased the souvenir book for another 40 AUD. There are two options, postcard or photo download. The postcards would have been another 10 AUD, so we just took the download option.

After our tour we headed back to our hotel for the evening to get some rest.  It had been a long couple of days for us.   We had left home on Wednesday and it was now 6 PM on Thursday, due to the time zone difference.   We are glad that we forced ourselves to keep going since we got a lot of our sightseeing accomplished this first day.

Additional photos can be found on our Australia & New Zealand Shutterfly page

Intercontinental Hotel Sydney
Sydney Opera House
The Royal Botanical Garden


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