Sydney II Day 7: Meriton Suites Kent Street, Sydney Opera House & Harbour Bridge

In a blink of an eye, our stay in Blue Mountains have come to an end! 🥲 After breakfast, we packed up and checked out of our apartment at 10am and drove down the mountain to our next accommodation.

We stopped by Westfield Penrith Plaza along the way for shopping and lunch. There was a small playground near the Food Court where the Littlest Girl had fun playing by herself 😀

We set off for Meriton Suites Kent Street and reached around 1.30pm. 

Our hotel was located in the CBD, which meant that we had to pay separately for parking as it was not typically included in the room rate for hotels in the CBD area. Parking cost us A$50 per day, which was expensive but still cheaper than many hotels in the area!

As you can imagine, staying in the CBD is definitely not cheap! Our main considerations for choosing this hotel were the amenities, close proximity to all the prominent landmarks in the area and the availability of 2-bedroom apartments so that the whole family can stay together.

We booked the 2-bedroom Darling Suite at S$564 per night. Although it was pricey, it was also our best accommodation for the trip! 😀

We were greeted with a spacious living and dining room on entry. The master bedroom and ensuite bathroom were on the left, while the second bedroom and bathroom were on the right. Both bedrooms had huge windows that let in the light and allowed us to enjoy the view.

The master bathroom was a generous size, with a large bathtub for long, hot baths.

The second bedroom was a little smaller than the master but had doors that allowed for easy access to the balcony.

The second bathroom, which was located next to the second bedroom, was smaller than the master bathroom and did not have a bathtub. 

A small area next to the kitchen housed both a washer and a dryer! This was definitely one of the perks of this apartment as we could wash all our clothes and have less to wash back at home!

The kitchen was a bit dated and relatively small but had enough amenities. 

The highlight of our suite had to be the huge balcony with the amazing view!

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We were staying on a really high floor! My Littlest Girl was warned not to go to the balcony without an adult's permission. She agreed and didn't, possibly because it was cold outside!

The hubby and I enjoyed hanging out on the balcony, admiring the view and chatting! Wish the weather in Singapore was cool enough for us to do this back at home! 😂

Towards the late afternoon, we headed out to explore the area.

It was just a 5-minute walk to Townhall Station, the nearest tram station from our hotel.

The streets in this area were bustling with activities, especially the area in front of St. Andrew's Cathedral. 

We visited the famous Queen Victoria Building just across the road. 

We didn't get to visit QVB during our last trip, although we did manage to visit Sydney Eye (the tall tower in the photo below).

We walked for about 20 minutes from QVB to Sydney Harbour Bridge to catch Vivid Sydney, Sydney's annual festival of lights, music and art. We were really lucky to experience it as Vivid Sydney is only available for a limited time.

By the time we arrived at Sydney Harbour Bridge, the skies were turning dark.

I love the beautiful shade of purple that covered the skies as the sun went down.

It was our first time seeing the Sydney Opera House up close as previously we got lost and didn't manage to find it for some reason.

We were lucky to have had good weather for viewing! We found ourselves a nice bench to sit and admire the show!

The show was good if you happened to be in the area but it won't be on my "must-watch" list.

After the show, we considered eating dinner at Darling Harbour like we did previously but decided to have our dinner at our hotel instead. We were tired as it had been a long day and we had walked from our hotel to Sydney Opera House along the tram route for about 4 tram stations (approximately 20-30 minutes). 

Since it was so convenient to take the tram, I enquired at the tram station for the prices. A friendly staff advised that the adults tap our credit cards so that we didn't have to get an Opal card, pay a deposit and then have to get it back at the end of our trip. It was the best advice because the difference in cost was not worth the hassle! I regretted not doing the same for my kids because we bought 2 Child Opal cards to save money (child price is half of adults) and now I'm stuck with the cards (it doesn't have an expiry though) 😔

We arrived at Townhall Station and got out dinner from Meriton Retail Precinct, the mall nearest to our hotel.

There were a lot of Asian food at Level 1! We got some Vietnamese, Taiwanese and Japanese food while the Eldest Girl had her bubble tea 😅

I'm glad we decided to have dinner back in our apartment rather than squeezing with the crowd! The food was good!

We were pretty energised after dinner and could go for a dip in the jacuzzi at the indoor pool, which was definitely another highlight of this hotel!

The kids couldn't get enough of the water, so we filled our master bathroom's bathtub and added a Minion bath bomb (cute right?) for part 2!

It was a long but fun day!

Continue to >> Sydney II Day 8-9: Last Days in Sydney City
<< Back to Sydney II Day 5-6: Wentworth Falls, Echo Point & Bilpin

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