Day 3 New England Fall Colors Cruise

Another day another port - today is Boston.  The sail during the night was so peaceful.  This is really a wonderfully comfortable ship.  We ordered room service for breakfast so we could enjoy the views coming into port.

It took a couple hours for the Captain to maneuver the turns of the harbor.  We enjoyed standing on our balcony watching the boats guide us to the dock.  We docked around 11:00 with plans to set sail around 8:00 pm tonight.  That gave us a full day to explore the old city of Boston.

Boston is filled with so much history.  Neighborhoods are filled with beautiful 3 & 4 story Victorian row houses.  These were once single family houses built centuries ago.  Now due to the high demand of housing and the expense of one family maintaining a house this size, they are multi-family condos and apartments.  The exteriors are immaculately kept with all the charm and craftsmanship of centuries ago.  Many streets are brick or stone and beautifully tree-lined.

We saw the Hampshire House known for inspiring the Hollywood set of Cheers.  Farther down the street we passed the old post office where Cliff supposedly worked.

Boston is also home to amazing churches, beautiful parks and plenty of statues.

We spent part of the afternoon at Quincy Market.  That was quite interesting.  There are 3 long buildings set in parallel rows.  The outer buildings are filled with shopping while the center building is food, food and more food.  This is similar to Fisherman’s Warf in Seattle but on a smaller scale.  Still dozens and dozens of open restaurants from Japanese to American seafood to Mexican cuisine.  There was plenty of seating outside the building on planters and steps.

We opted for the Cheers remake traditional restaurant outside the Quincy Market.  My husband had the Coach’s Club and I had Carla’s Petite Burger.  Very fun atmosphere.  A street vendor was making beignets.  Not as good as Cafe du monde in New Orleans but a good tasty snack.

We took a trolley back to the boat terminal.  Boston drivers are CRAZY!!

Tonight we dined in the Symphony Room aboard our ship.  The service was impeccable.  It seems there are 2 waiters for every 3 tables.  They take care of your every needs

Yup, more food descriptions.  I started dinner with Seafood Terrine with dots of citrus and avocado cream.  The seafood was chunks of lobster, shrimp and squid.  This was like nothing I have tasted before - so delicious.

My main course was a side of clams and linguine followed by black mussels in white wine cream sauce.   Everything was prepared to perfection.

My husband, not being the seafood lover I am, chose the roast chicken and sautéed leek pot pie nestled in a puff pastry shell.  He said it was so wonderful he would order it again.

Dessert was burned rhubarb Napoleon with nectarine ice cream for me and traditional New York cheesecake with macerated strawberries for my husband.

Tomorrow we are looking forward to a whale watching cruise off the cost of Bar Harbor Maine.

Day 2 New England Fall Colors Cruise

Good morning Rhode Island!  We had a wonderful first night aboard the ship.  It is almost erie on how quiet our room is.  If we open the sliding door to the balcony we can enjoy the cool breeze and sounds of the ocean waves.  This room is small but everything we need.  My favorite part is the spacious balcony to enjoy the amazing views.  The Newport Harbor was filled with dozens of sailboats of all sizes and styles.  We watches as groups of 15 or so went through sailing lessons and experienced sailers sailed out to sea.

After finally getting my husbands laundry from house keeping, we ventured out to find breakfast and get our reservation for a tender to shore.  Life boats are used to transport cruise guests from the ship to shore at this particular port.

We wandered the brick streets of New Port, stopping in a few shops to browse.  Thanks to Yelp we found a lovely pub appropriately names Brick Alley Pub & Restaurant.  The wait staff was beyond friendly and helpful.

I selected a cup of creamy New England clam chowder, side salad with blue cheese and baked Georges Bank Sea scallops baked in wine with a buttery Parmesan bread crumb topping.  Simply delicious.

My husband always looks for the best fish & chips and found a Rhode Island-style breaded fried cod with fries and slaw.  Also very tasty.

After a quick tender trip back to the ship it was time to explore for a bit and walk off the tasty lunch.  The skywalk during the day is breathtaking.  This suspended walkway allows views of the shore along with heart thumping views of the ocean below through the glass floor panels.

At the end of the skywalk we found a cute soft-serve ice creams stand.  Chocolatefor me and swirl for my husband.

Late afternoon we sat in the Horizon Bistro at a table by a window.  As the ship left the harbor the Captain sounded the horn to the tune of Love Boat - so fun!  We admired the mansions on the coast.  The Captain pointed out a house that Jackie Kennedy once lived in.  We plan on eating dinner at 9:000 so we had an afternoon snack of peanut butter chocolate pie and coconut cake.  Yes, cruising is also about eating.  At least the portions are very small and there is plenty of walking on the ship to reach your desired destinations

The sunset from our balcony is pretty tonight.  So peaceful with the crashing water below.

The Captain hosted a champagne toast in the Piazza Deck.  We all celebrated with a glass of champagne or mimosa.

Well the night was not over yet, so we ventured to the Princess Theatre to see Bravo, a live Broadway style show of singing, dancing and orchestra.  

It was a good day!  Tomorrow - Boston

Day 1 New England Fall Colors Cruise

We decided to plan a cruise.  This was all new to us so we spent months researching options and talking with veteran cruisers.  We finally decided on Pricess Cruise Line’s Fall Color Cruise.  This cruise starts in Brooklyn, New Youk with stops in Providence RI, Boston MA, Bar Harbor ME, St. John NB, Halifax NS and then back to New York.

Today is day one but let me start with Day zero.  Yesterday I began my day with a relaxing pedicure followed by a fresh manicure.  I ran a couple last minute errands and then headed home.  It had been overcast and raining all morning.  Now it decided to rain like I’ve never seen before.  The 20 minute drive home was treacherous.  My rural road was almost impassable and my yard was now a river.  First thing I did when I walked in the house was check the basement - all dry.

The skies clear for about 30 minutes and then the rain started up again.  We had some of the most amazing lightening.  My son can home and we stood on the front porch and enjoyed the storm.  Then lightening struck the power lines by our house.  Sparks flew from the fuse on the pole - lights out.  With this second batch of rain and the water getting even closer to our foundation we checked the basement again.  The water had reached our tile around our foundation and was coming in on all sides of the house.  90% of the basement is finished and carpeted.  Water was splashing up as we walked.  My husband got home and powered up the generator.  We Shop-Vac’d the basement by generator power.  We carried what we could up to the living room.  We finally just had to pull up part of the carpet.  Four hours into it, Ameren’s amazing crew replaced the fuse on the pole along with one that blew in the transformer.  Great, now we can Shop-Vac to house power.  

We worked on the basement until 12:30.  I went to bed thoroughly exhausted. Two hours later we were up again to get ready for the airport.  We were hesitant about leaving the basement as it was but our son wanted us to go on this trip and already proved that he was more than capable of taking care of the mess.

The early morning storms were light and only delayed our flight by 15 minutes.  That time was made up on the second flight.  Once in New York the Princess representative was waiting near the baggage area to escort us to the cruise ship.  Our luggage went in a big box truck and we traveled in a comfortable tour bus.  The check-in process at the ship went so smooth.  With their new medallion, check-in is a breeze.  We were on the ship before 2:00.

We quickly found our room and started orienting ourselves this huge ship.  We happened across a wonderful salad and sandwich shop.  I had the shiitake mushroom and oyster sandwich with a Greek salad.  My husband had the chicken and tomato.  Both were so flavorful and just what we needed after a long day of travel.  

Now we started wondering about our luggage.  It had not been delivered to our room yet but we were assured that it was just minutes away.  Sounds good.  Time to head to the top decks and see the ship off.  This was so moving.  The views were amazing in all directions.  The New York skyline is an eclectic variety of new and old along with tall and widespread.  We stood on the starboard side and viewed The Statue of Liberty to the left in a haze with the One World Trade Center to the right in a beautiful glow of sunlight.  I am not from New York but I can’t help but to feel the souls of 9-11 speaking to me as I remembered that horrible morning.

But back to thinking about our luggage.  We checked one more time.  You just are not going to believe this one.  My luggage was delivered safe and sound.  My husband had a message on the phone asking him to come to Four Forward to identify his luggage.  What is the worst that could happen???  Keep in mind that we are operating on only 2 hours sleep so we had some crazy thoughts go through our heads.  Nope, not this crazy.  As the dock hands were transporting the cage that contained at least 13 pieces of luggage it slipped and cage and all ended up in the harbor.  They fished out what they could get to.  His luggage contained every bit of his clothes, shoes, jackets, etc.  

Princess handled it very well but this put quite a damper on our mood - pun intended.  Skipping ahead because this is just too unbelievable even for a B movie, we had the most delicious artisan pizza for dinner.  Mine was mussels, bay shrimp, roasted garlic, capers, basil and oregano.  My husband had the Pizza Hawaiiana.

We explored for a bit and found the Movie Under the Stars - Men in Black International and also the suspended walk path.  This ship is just amazing.