We flew from Fort Lauderdale to Houston, then to Sydney and the United Polaris flights came with great service and arrived in Sydney an hour early! We missed December 30th al together with the crossing of the international date line, and we met the Viking transfer staff at the airport at 6:15am – waiting for other guests to arrive, we made it to the Downtown Marriot hotel at 9am and as anticipated, our rooms were not ready to be occupied but they had a continental breakfast in a meeting room and we were told to room keys would be ready at 3PM – so bags were secured at the hotel, and off we went into a overcast day in Sydney.
Walking only a few blocks to the Sydney Harbor is the Sydney Quay (they pronounce it “key”) it is the central activity site for the CBD – it is where the ferries operate, the Sydney opera house and botanical gardens to the right, Sydney harbor bridge and “the Rocks” area (where early settlers established Sydney) to the left. eateries abound, and access to Sydney’s transit systems. Being
December 31st all the place was buzzing to prepare for the fireworks display and at 10 am people already camping out their spot for that night’s fireworks – we were informed that the entry to the quay is fenced off at 5pm and if you are in, you stay in, if your out, you don’t get in unless you have a pre-purchase ticket – we were not about to spend our entire day camping out, we wanted to explore and explore we did.
It was so surrealistic to be in Sydney to see the iconic opera house which I only seen in photos and TV. The Quay was preparing security and fencing for over 1 million people that evening, we walked and walked seeing as much of we could of the area – having a hamburger at Walburgers which we heard much about and gave us quick bite to continue forward. 
A walk around the Rocks gave us the historical architectural perspective of Sydney and what original settlers had established.
The area to the Opera house closed its gates at 2PM so we checked into the room at 3PM and we promptly took a nice nap to gather rest for the evening. 
We caught a nice bite to eat at at the hotel’s restaurant which was just fine because outside our window crowds of people were forming, electrifying the area.
The first fireworks show, is the “family” showing is at 9PM (so the kids can get to bed earlier and reduce the crowd) which we thought we could see from the hotel, but unfortunately the views are obscured by buildings and crowd control fences. 
We thought we would get a chance to see it better at midnight, and walked to the quay and realized that if you were not inside the quay at 5pm, the view from the outside was going to be obscured. We definately heard the fireworks, and splashes of light around us… and we were not alone. The throngs of people were an international collection of many countries, it was fun to just people watch. 
I guess the best seats were either the campers from 10am that morning, or paying over $1,000 per ticket (and they were sold out earlier.) Realizing our view was going to be obscured just like the 9PM show, we did the next best thing, went back to the room, opened the shades, and turned on the TV.
We saw excellent Australian talent on stage outside the opera house and then Harry Connick Jr. was performing right up to the fireworks. We could watch the televised views of the fireworks and see the reflections of the lights in the buildings all around us and the sounds were echoing though our windows – so we got an experience without battling all the crowds.
We went the bed very happy and a bit tired, but we felt good after the long flight. We anticipated that our body clocks were probably will adjust to the time change – but felt the walking around all day and nap helped us adjust. We were getting excited for the morning when we would rendezvous with Ian and Linda who was to meet us at the hotel and going to show us their hometown of Sydney.