RachelG

A contraption to hang your purse off the table in a restaurant, so you don’t sit it on the floor or the back of your chair.

We were finally off at about 5 pm. Our Uber was at a totally different area but we connected, had dinner in Little Italy and got to our hotel.

I didn’t actually purchase the tickets. My friend we are traveling with bought them for all of us, and I paid in cash. But I don’t think that would be reimbursable anyway.

They are reusable and metal. Not great insulation, and we don’t like the ship’s still water.

Since I have nothing else to do, a few Newport pics

October 1, 2022–disembarkation in New York City, New York Another things don’t go as planned day. We were supposed to be in port with disembarkation to begin at 8 am. I set my alarm to get up at 7 am as we were in the last (9am) group. And when The alarm went off, I immediately noticed—the ship was still moving, and not just a little. We were in open ocean. A look outside showed dense fog, pouring rain, and no land in sight. The tv monitor said we were 120 miles from New York. At 8 am, the captain came on the speakers in the suites and announced that we had not been able to leave Newport until 4 am due to an issue with securing one of the tenders followed by an issue with getting a pilot in Newport. So we would not arrive in New York City until late afternoon. That was a problem as, though we are not scheduled to fly home until tomorrow afternoon, we had tickets to the Music Man on Broadway for 2 pm today. Nothing we could do about it though. Now, at 11:30 am, we are trudging along in pretty rough seas and pouring rain. Ray just came on overhead, and said they were working on rebooking flights and getting hotels for those who booked their travel through Regent. He also asked any guests who had made independent arrangements to go to the front desk as they would work on securing hotel rooms for them. I already have a hotel for tonight and flights tomorrow, but am pretty upset about those Music Man tickets. They were expensive, for one thing, and I really wanted to see the show too.

September 30,2022–Newport, Rhode Island We awoke to another bright sunny day with temperatures in the low 60s. Newport is a tender port, and fortunately there was no fog. Our tour wasn’t until 12:15, so we had a leisurely morning waiting for open tenders to be announced. The Newport harbor is huge, filled with mostly sailboats from super fancy and expensive to the little one person ones. It was a long tender ride to the pier. Once off, we grabbed an Uber and set off the explore Fort Adams, an old Army and Navy fort built in the early 1800’s and in use until 1950. It is huge, could garrison 2400 men, and provided defense to the harbor entrance. Interestingly, in 1917 before the US entered WWI, the Germans sailed a submarine here to show it off. The city officials and military officers at the fort were shown around, apparently to impress them with the German technology. The next day, the submarine sailed out into international waters and sank a bunch of cargo ships bound for Europe. We went back to our meeting point on the pier for our tour. There was a stand selling seafood chowder, so we decided that was a perfect quick lunch. It was so good—with big chunks of crab, clams, shrimp. We sat and ate it at the little park beside the pier. Our walking tour was about colonial Newport. We had been here before and had done the Breakers walk and tours of the old mansions, so we wanted something different. Our guide was a native Newporter and is retired but works at a vintage book store on the main square. He walked us all over and showed is a bunch of old very well preserved or restored buildings, some with a lot of history. Back to the ship, it was the most unfortunate time of the cruise—packing. We always have an issue as we seem to accumulate more stuff than we can fit in, even though we really aren’t big souvenir shoppers. But we made it work. A final win at trivia. I had enough points to get 2 nice shirts for George and a purse hook which I will probably never use. We had a great final dinner in Compass Rose. I had escargot, salad and Dover sole. George had his favorite foie Gras, a delicious leek soup, and a thai chicken curry which really surprised me as that is not a typical dish for him. It all was a great finish for the cruise.

Definitely not, but we still had a good time. Weather just was not ideal.

Great pics!

Agree completely. Gilly, looking forward to your reports. Just the perfect post cruise tonic.

Old North Church

A few Boston pics

I definitely stay away from elevators!

September 29,2022–Boston, Massachusetts When we awoke, we were already at the seaport in Boston. We had a quick breakfast then met for our excursion, a walking tour of the Freedom Trail. It was bright and sunny but pretty chilly to start off with temps in the 50s. Our guide assured us it would get better with the sun out, and eventually he was correct. Traffic in Boston is always terrible as far as my experience, and today was no different, so it took quite a while to get to our drop off point by the Boston Commons. I have done this walk several times, but always learn something new, and today was no different. We went by all the usual stops with interesting commentary. The cemetery was particularly interesting as he pointed out how gruesome some of the headstones are, with skeletons, skulls and crossbones, the grim reaper featuring prominently. We didn’t get to go inside anywhere. Since I had done this before, I didn’t particularly care, but if it had been my first visit, I would have been disappointed not to go inside the old north church. At the end of the tour, our guide took us to a spot by the aquarium and said that was where the shuttle bus back to the ship would pick us up, and that it was running every 30 minutes. George and I wanted to have lunch in the North End, so we just made note and took off. Lunch at Benevento’s was disappointing. We had a nice salad to start, but the pizza was tough and tasteless, which is weird because we were watching the guys making the crust and cooking it in a brick oven. We decided to have a look at the aquarium. Pricey but it had a lot of interesting fish and a big penguin exhibit. We went outside to catch our shuttle, and another guy was there. He told us this wasn’t the stop for our shuttle, but was for Oceania instead. Fortunately he knew where we were supposed to go, about 3 blocks away, so we headed over and found it. Back onboard, we came in 3rd at trivia, but we were missing 2 team members, so not shabby. Dinner was in Prime 7. We weren’t able to get a reservation prior to 8 pm, which is later than I prefer to eat, but George really wanted to eat there again. We were having a perfectly nice meal, everything lovely, when the man at the table next to us started shouting loudly at the waiter. Very upsetting. I don’t know what he was upset about. His wife seemed embarrassed, but it definitely threw off the evening. Perhaps he has early Alzheimer’s or something. But it was uncalled for. Our dinner was delicious. We missed the show due to the late meal and the outburst. An observation though—as of this evening, all staff are again wearing masks. We asked why. Apparently there are multiple covid cases among passengers and staff. I had heard of a couple of passengers with covid a couple of days ago. George and I feel fine and are double faxed and triple boosted, so I am not worried.

More Bar Harbor

Bar Harbor views

A few Halifax pics

September 28, 2022–Bar Harbor Maine We gained our lost hour back last night. Very smooth sailing, but the foghorn continued through the night. And when we awoke, there was still a blanket of white outside, though at least I could actually see the water of the ocean again. We were to be ready to present ourselves to US immigration officials at 8 am. Ray started calling the groups to present themselves, and we were quickly through. The captain came on overhead and said the fog had to clear some before the tenders would be allowed to run, so we went to La Veranda for a quick bite of breakfast. The fog was burning off fast, but there were still 10 people who hadn’t gone through immigration. Ray came on overhead, so politely, to ask them to present themselves. He had to make 3 announcements to lure the stragglers in. Finally, he had to call out the individual suite numbers. Then the captain came on and asked those suite numbers to present themselves immediately. What’s the deal? It was clearly announced multiple times. The ship has to be cleared before they can let anyone off. I just don’t understand. Finally, we were cleared and able to board the tenders, as Bar Harbor is always a tender port. Our morning excursion took us by bus up to the top of Cadillac Mountain then to Jordan Pond. The sun had come out, and the views were spectacular from the top of the mountain. We only had 20 minutes at the top due to the delays—I could easily have spent 2 hours there. We then drove through the forest to Jordan Pond where we were served iced tea and popovers. The popovers were very good (and I have baked a few of these over the years). We had an hour here, so George and I ate quickly, then hiked along the pond. There is a new boardwalk, which made it very easy. Back to the dock, our original plan had been to have lunch in town then do our afternoon hiking tour. But we were late for the hike. Fortunately, they had taken this into account, so we just went directly on the hike. There was only another couple and us plus the guide. I had met the lady on my walks on the top deck so knew she was fit. We told the guide we were fast hikers, and she was all in for that. So we had a great afternoon hiking the ocean view trail. We even saw a wedding on the rocks. Back to Bar Harbor, George was still wanting his lobster, so we went to Galyn’s, a place we have eaten at previously. It did not disappoint. He had a huge lobster with all the trimmings for $31 while I had crab cakes and salad for $18. It was very delicious and a bargain to boot. We went back to the ship just in time for Cruise Capers, the crew show. They did a great job. We were too full for dinner, so George went to lose some money in the casino. I went to the show, The Great American Song Factory, which was basically 50s and 60s pop music. It was pretty well done, but not my favorite.

The boarding was definitely a fail, as was your spa appointment, but everything else sounds wonderful. Glad you re making the best of it

September 27, 2022–at sea yet again We were supposed to be in St. John, New Brunswick today, but the captain had announced last evening that it would not be possible due to damage to the pier by Hurricane Fiona. So we were to have another sea day. Very disappointing, not that I had big plans for St. John, but we like to get off the ship and explore. So we slept in which was really easy because the ship was going very slowly and rocking a lot. When I finally got up and looked outside, I could see nothing except a solid blanket of white fog. The fog horn was sounding every few minutes. Then it started pouring rain—again. They had a wine tasting (included)at 10:45 which I didn’t attend, opting for another try at bingo, with no win today. Lunch in La Veranda was Indian themed, which George hates and I love, so he mostly picked at his food and complained while I ate lamb Korma, chicken samosas, raita, lentils, curried shrimp, and cauliflower. Much of the complaining today had to do with the poor quality of the internet service, which was particularly terrible. I was getting texts from my dentist office with appointment reminders, but couldn’t read emails or log on to the office. George resorted to using some of our complementary phone time, which we never use, to talk to his office. There was an afternoon show starring Stephanie Baldwin who is the wife of the general manager. They are onboard with their two young sons, who are super cute and well behaved. Apparently Stephanie was an entertainer onboard a few years back, met her husband, and now just happened to be onboard. But she is a great singer. We did terrible at trivia today—very difficult questions. And almost none in my areas of knowledge. The foghorns continued to blow all day. I briefly tried to walk outside on the deck, but it was just too wet to be safe. Dinner was in Sette Mare. Very slow service, but the food was good once we got it. George wanted more sauce for this pasta. It arrived 20 minutes later after he had just gone ahead and eaten the pasta. Not sure what the problem was. Staff seemed flustered and unorganized. The show was a guy named Jordan Bennett. Never heard of him, but he has apparently been on Broadway a lot. And he is a good singer. The show was nice. and to top it off, George won big at blackjack.

Ray says no, he hasn’t published it anywhere. He did give a copy to everyone who was in it, so maybe someone has posted it on YouTube

September 26, 2022–Halifax, Nova Scotia Another rocky night though not as much as the previous. I awoke to totally overcast skies. Everything-sea, horizon, sky-was variegated shades of grey, with fog on one side and rain on the other. We weren’t to arrive in Halifax until 11:00 am. This was our original scheduled arrival time, not a delay due to the hurricane. The weather forecast called for temps in the mid 60s and rain. But first we had a morning edition of trivia. We came in 2nd—my brain just wasn’t fully awake. When we docked in Halifax,it was still raining pretty hard. Our Lobsters and Lighthouses tour had been cancelled only a week ago, very annoying as all the other tours I had any interest in were full. This cancellation thing has only just been happening since covid, and it needs to stop,particularly the last minute cancellations. At any rate, we have been here before, so are just going to do our own thing. We walked along the promenade by the harbor in the rain. Not cold at all, just wet. We headed to Salty’s a lobster restaurant I had found. George had a 1 1/2 lb lobster while I had crab cakes. They had 2 lb lobsters on offer too, but George feels the larger ones don’t taste as good. He thought his was good but slightly over cooked. It certainly looked good to me, and I don’t even like lobster much as it is just too much work. It poured rain all the time during lunch. The Maritime Museum was close, so we headed there. It is best known for the Titanic exhibit, which was good, but also has a very in-depth exhibit on the huge explosion in Halifax in 1917 which destroyed most of the city—the largest man made explosion in history until the atomic bombs in WWII. There are also hundreds of models of every type of ship you can think of, and to top it off, the museum was free today. By this time, the rain had stopped, so we walked to the citadel. We could see lots of evidence of the hurricane with tree limbs down, leaves stripped off, and flowers destroyed. The citadel was a functioning military post until not that long ago. George loves military history, armaments and fortifications, so this was just his kind of place. We explored thoroughly. I learned a lot about Canadian military history from the two world wars. Since my knowledge of the subject was pretty much zero prior to this, it has increased by 100%. We walked back to the ship as it started to spit rain again. Entire day was grey. Dinner in Compass Rose was again a mixed bag. My salad and steak were perfect, but George got this very fishy crab dish that was just nasty. I had a bite and agreed, not good at all. But the chocolate soufflé was probably the best either of us have have eaten. And the sad news. The port at St. John is messed up from the hurricane. We can’t go there or anywhere else, so tomorrow will be another sea day. I understand weather, but very disappointing. The show was Broadway in Concert. I have seen this show many times before, but they are constantly reworking it, so a lot of things were new. And it was outstanding,

There are no hosted tables. We just had dinner with Ray because we know him.

No idea. I will ask Ray.

Miss you for trivia Rich. We have a slot available on our team.