We have witnessed some disembarkations gone terribly wrong. Usually it is due to poor management of the US Immigration at the port and passengers get backed up in long lines or can't get off the ship until the immigration officers arrive at the cruise terminal. Sometimes it is due to poor managing of a ship's staff in getting passengers scheduled correctly to accommodate their travel departures on shore. The ugliest disembarkation occurred at the end of one of our cruises in 2011. The link to that is here if you'd like to read the story. For those reasons, we always allow for plenty of time between a ship's arrival and when we book our departing flight.
To shorten this long story, let me say that the best we could do with allowing time for get to the airport and fly home was a flight out of Boston around 6 pm. As luck would have it, disembarkation went extremely well and we found ourselves with hours to kill. Anticipating that, we did a little research and decided that due to the cold weather (blame it on Fiona or Ian) we would visit the Boston Aquarium.
Checking our luggage was a bit of a problem at the airport. We had to wait an hour and a half before we could check the bags. As soon as time was up, we dropped them at the baggage check and arranged for an Uber to the aquarium. We had four hours to explore before we needed to be back for our flight.
Our Uber driver was quite excited that we were going to the aquarium. He talked about how his kids loved going there when they were little. Good sales pitch and he was right. It turned out to be fun and interesting. Have you ever seen a sea lion getting his teeth brushed?
Luckily there were lockers there where we could check our carry on. Mine is a small roller bag (can't carry a lot of weight anymore in a backpack and my laptop gets heavy) and Bob's was a backpack that we were able to stuff in as well.
With hands free, we began to explore. The center of the aquarium is a huge tank and you walk up a ramp that circles it to view the different levels and see all the varieties of fish. At the base of the tank is a very large penguin display. It was fun to watch them diving in and climbing out of the water.
Along the sides of the center tank are smaller tanks on each level as you climb that have interesting sea creatures, among them my favorite, sea horses.
When we had visited all there was to see, we decided to have lunch. The cafeteria in the aquarium didn't offer anything too appetizing so we decided to look at what else might be close. After walking around several blocks in the area in the brisk wind, we found a wonderful Irish pub called Mr. Dooley's Boston Tavern. I had a wonderful meatloaf sandwich.
Once back at the aquarium, we retrieved our stored bags and ordered another Uber to return to the airport. Despite the cold windy weather we enjoyed our day but were happy to get home and ecstatic to discover that all of the fall colors we missed on our trip due to weather were right there. It's been a beautiful autumn in Ohio.
Well, on to planning our snowbird trip and beyond!
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