Pony Player

I love Megabus when I'm going to Manhattan, not sure I'd use it for a cruise. In addition to the 1-bag policy, you are going to have to get from Midtown to your cruise port. Also you are going to have to get from your cruise port to Megabus' pick up site, which is by the Javits Center.

When I ran the numbers, it made more sense to me to drive my own car, but I only had a 4 hr drive.

The Lenox Hotel has a lot of Queen/Queen rooms lenoxhotel.com. It is an older building, but well maintained. Great location, up the street from the Prudential Center, right around the corner from Copley Square, not too far from the cruise terminal. Might be what you are looking for.

Depends on what you want to shop for, and how much you want to spend? I like cruising the boutiques in South Beach on Ocean Drive/Washington St. And because of that I was going to recommend The Garden Hotel on Washington, but it is being renovated (street view from May shows it gutted). There are a lot of hotels at various price points all over South Beach, but this one was affordable and fun.

We are staying at the Sleep Inn. Their website said free parking with the package.

Website says "parking will be provided" -- doesn't say "free"

http://www.sleepinnbaltimore.com/index.php/specials-and-packages/park-cruise-package

There are several -- start with the list here (from the cruise port's website)

http://www.cruise.maryland.gov/content/hotels

IMHO you might as well stay in the Inner Harbor area, it is a fun area and you can find dinner relatively easily.

Now if I could find a hotel where I could park my car during the cruise . . . .

We're going to be driving down from Boston to Baltimore and are looking for a "Park and Cruise" package, hopefully one near the Inner Harbour so we can have a little fun the night before. So far I've found several "Stay and Cruise" packages (Room & transfer to/from the port), but we need to park our car as well. All I've found is one at a SleepInn ($150 + $15/night --where's the value there? The cruiseport parking is $15/night), and a Holiday Inn Express ($195/night, parking for more than 8 days, $7/day). Does anyone have any other suggestions/recommendations?