The Captain Cook Sydney Harbour Sunset Dinner Cruise Experience

Blueboarding #

It’s been a year of working at The Trade Desk. The Trade Desk offers annual milestone rewards in many ways - one of them being a Blueboard experience. The Blueboard experience lets us pick an activity from a variety of activities. I selected the sunset dinner cruise as Jo had previously expressed interest in one of the harbour cruises and figured it would be a good option. The cruise would be a leisurely cruise along Sydney Harbour and would not be in the rough seas that are typically done for whale watching, so I wouldn’t have to be worried about seasickness.

Booking #

Once I selected the experience, a Blueboard concierge reached out to me asking for a preferred date and time for the experience. Everything was handled smoothly by the Blueboard concierge, and I was told the cruise was booked on Captain Cook Cruises. However, it turned out that I received a gift card instead of a booking confirmation. This confused me, and evidently confused Blueboard support as well, because I was initially told the booking was confirmed until later when it was not. The Blueboard concierge was very apologetic for the confusion and explained to me that due to Captain Cook’s policies of having to show the credit card used for booking on the day of the cruise, they couldn’t go ahead with booking the cruise. Thus, they offered a gift card with everything pre-paid, and I’d have to reach out to Captain Cook and book the cruise by myself.

However, this wasn’t a pain - the representative handling Captain Cook’s booking accepted the gift card code, confirmed my booking, and assured me that I was all set. I picked 5 pm as the start time from King St Wharf, Darling Harbour.

Cruising #

The booking email reminds you to be at the pickup point 20 minutes before departure - and we found out for a good reason. Prior to boarding, we’d have to pick up the boarding pass, and there was a pretty long line of people waiting to be serviced. Thankfully, another person started reaching out to the people in the line, and we got our boarding pass with about 5 minutes to departure.

We were directed to our cruising vessel, the air-conditioned Sydney 2000. The cruiser has lower and upper-deck seating, and our Blueboard experience had gotten us the upper deck seating. Unfortunately, we did not get the window-side seats and were seated on the second row. That said, the second-row seats weren’t bad by any means and offered pretty good views. On weekends, there’s live music being played. It wasn’t extremely loud and added a nice touch to the overall ambiance. The cruise takes about an hour and 45 minutes. It starts from King St Wharf at Darling Harbour, stops over at Circular Quay, and then goes off on a nice slow cruise around Clark Island, Cremorne, and back to where it started from.

Map of the cruise from Captain Cook’s website.

The sunset dinner cruise comes with a three-course menu served alternately. Beverages are not included as part of the package but can be purchased separately. We bought a bottle of Tempus Two Copper Prosecco.

While we didn’t have any dietary restrictions, the table next to us requested gluten-free options, and they were provided for. The entrees were Smoked Salmon and Garden Leaf Salad.

For the mains, we had Barramundi and Crispy Skin Chicken.

For desserts, we had Lemon & Lime Tart and Chocolate Raspberry Coconut Pebble.

The food was excellent, and we loved it. Once done with dinner, we went over to the Sky Deck to check out some views. The views, especially at twilight, are pretty stunning. Pictures don’t do justice to how pretty they are.

If you have a couple of hours to spend, I would highly recommend the cruise.