Cruise Journal: One Last Look At Boston

 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!

Boston, No Beans About It

 What a cruise is all I can say! I would have posted daily as I usually do when we take a trip but the WIFI was iffy at best most of the time. Was it because of Fiona? And then Ian? Hard to tell. We chased Fiona north and met Ian as we headed back to Boston. This was a twelve night cruise that was to go from Boston to Quebec City and back to Boston with port stops in Maine, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and Prince Edward Island. But before I get ahead of myself, let me start at the beginning.

Bob had originally booked a flight to Boston the day the ship was to sail. As it got closer, I got nervous. Too many people were experiencing cancellations and delays that were ruining their travel plans. He was finally convinced to change our flight to a day before we sailed and book a room for the night. The good news, we saved $19 on the flight change. The bad news, we couldn’t find a hotel room near the ship for less than $450. The good news, we had plenty of Hilton points to make that palatable.

The trip started out without a hitch. We had a private “uber” to the airport thanks to a couple of friends. The flight was on time and pleasant and after landing in Boston, we took an Uber to the Hampton Inn that was actually in walking distance to the ship. The weather was a bit chilly and cloudy but we walked around the harbor area and mapped our path to the ship for the following morning.

One long pier had nothing but fish companies that were receiving catches and shipping them out. We walked the length of it and enjoyed the scenic surroundings.

While we’d had a good snack before leaving Cleveland, we needed a warm cup of coffee and a little snack to see us through to dinner. We found a restaurant along the shoreline and ducked in. We ordered a brownie to share and couldn’t believe our eyes when it came.

 The brownie had to be six inches square topped with a huge scoop of vanilla ice cream and an even bigger mound of whipped cream. It was sprinkled with glazed walnuts and drizzled with chocolate—heaven! So glad we didn’t order two.

On our walk we passed a place called Yankee Lobster. Nothing fancy but they offered lobster rolls. When in Maine… 

We returned to our room, rested a bit and then trekked the short distance to the restaurant. After our huge afternoon snack, we weren’t real hungry and the price of the lobster roll was somewhere around $38 (market price) so we decided to split one and Bob got a clam chowder as well. I wish we’d have ordered an extra fries because they were delicious as well.

It was getting colder and windier.

Fiona was about to hit Nova Scotia and we began to wonder what itinerary changes we would find once we boarded the ship in the morning. We were familiar with itinerary changes as you know if you followed the story of our shortened World Cruise in January. 

Who would expect a hurricane to hit so ferociously this far north?