Family vacation continues in Sydney

There is always this special feeling I get when I land in Sydney – always something new to the city or exciting people to meet. This time, after only a short flight from Hamilton Island and our island getaway at Hayman – it felt great to re-immerse into city life. And, with the fairly new tunnel system, it was a quick 15-minute transfer to the InterContinental Sydney, where we would be spending the next three nights.

Speaking of surprises, I was quite excited to learn that the sales team at InterContinental Sydney allocated to Linda and I the incredible Australia Suite.

As soon as we walked into the suite, the kids raced each other to the Grand Piano in the foyer to play their favorite song, which sounded wonderful. The suite is massive and has commanding views of Sydney Harbour, the Opera House, Sydney Harbour Bridge and over Hyde Park, Government House the Sydney Heads. Basically, you can see all of Sydney from this one, beautiful room. We love selling this suite and the slightly smaller Governor’s Suites at the InterContinental as our clients always write to us how overwhelmed they felt by the incredible rooms and views. There really is nothing like waking up in the morning to the view of Sydney Harbour.

We all had access to the Club Lounge on the 32^nd floor, which is the best place to be in Sydney for an afternoon cocktail! Breakfast is always served their as part of the access and you can enjoy their tapas-style menu all day. On our last night, we enjoyed dinner in the lounge with the Opera House as our backdrop.

Though we didn’t climb to the top of the famed Sydney Harbour Bridge this time, we did get a great view of it as we went for a beautiful sunset cruise on the harbor aboard one of our charter boats. We cruised to Rose Bay and visited this delightful 100-foot, newly-built classic motor yacht, the Cambria II. This will be another addition to the fleet of yachts we use for our client charters.

sydney-harbour2 — Sydney in the backdrop

sydney-harbour-3 — Ian on the front of the boat

After the sun set, we cruised back and walked around Circular Quay until we found a great restaurant called Eastbank where we enjoyed great Italian food and gourmet pizzas.

The next day we set off on a small adventure. I have never taken the family to Manly, so we set off to the ferry terminal (just a 5 minute walk from the hotel) and headed to the northern beach suburb of Manly. Only a leisurely 45 minute ride across the harbour and we were there. We walked down the main street with all the shops to the Corso and onto the beach. The surf was up and the waves crashing down, but still the Sydney Surfers were out in force. Dilan and Ian 2, being the men they are, chose for us all to eat at The Manly Grill! Dilan ordered the Surf and Turf with a full slab of ribs and some locally caught fish. Ian went all in for the double ribs. The rest of us, chose salads. The ribs, well let’s just say the large plate was overflowing, but they conquered the challenge.

That night I had arranged a special dinner for us all at Sokyo’s, in the new Darling Hotel complex. A superb Asian restaurant with some exciting and cultural infused dishes. Linda ordered the sushi platter, which just wasn’t enough – so we went for another. All of our meals were delicious. Sokyo is certainly one of my new favorite hot spots for dinner.