Luna

Are you actually staying in Boston or somewhere outside of it? What are your plans? Are you planning on visiting sites in Boston itself, or in the surrounding area? If you're staying downtown and planning on seeing the sites in town, you won't need a car. Indeed, I only live 5 miles north and used to work in the financial district and you couldn't pay me to drive in Boston (except directly to the cruise terminal :p) Boston is known as a walking city and almost everything is in walking distance. And for the stuff that is a tad out of the way there's the T (MBTA). You can just get yourself a Charlie card with enough on it to cover whatever T rides you need and you're good to go.

You can get your Charlie cards at the machines that dispense them. When you get off the Amtrak train (at ground level), go inside the building and ask an employee where they are located. Also ask where the elevators are (which, thanks to the ADA are at all T stops now).

Our experience, in January, when we used this service was, we put our luggage outside our cabin door, as usual, with the tags given us. We didn't see our checked luggage again until we arrived at our destination (Logan Airport).

I never travel without my earplugs - DH is sometimes a very loud snorer. Now, earplugs don't really eliminate sounds. They muffle them so if the noise is fairly soft, you won't hear it. But if the noise is loud, they muffle it enough so you can sleep. You should be able to hear any emergency announcements in your cabin.

That is how is always worked for us each time we did that cruise b-to-b. Sometimes it flowed much faster than other times but it all depends upon how cooperative and responsible our fellow guests are. :rolleyes:

 

Worked for us that way, too last August on VoV.

kqcallahan - It's quite a distance from Black Falcon Pier to Faneuil Hall. Even though Boston is touted as a "walking city" (and in most instances, it is). It's not a walk I'd care to take, though some wouldn't have a problem with it. It would be quicker to grab a taxi. If you do a search for Faneuil Hall or Quincy Market, you'll get a nice list of what's there.

YouMissedPost#4

 

Oops :eek: Sorry 7. I speed read your post and completely missed your mention of Faneuil Hall. Sorry. :p

All wonderful suggestions. And yet, no one mentioned Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market. kqcallahan, it's right next to the North End and has many unusual shops and pushcarts for shopping and many food stands and restaurants. It's also a great place for people watching - when I worked in the financial district, I used to wander over to Faneuil Hall, grab a bite to eat and sit and watch the locals and tourists wandering around. :D

We did the 35 day Voyage of the Vikings last year. Eastbound, we were unable to stop in Greenland due to too many icebergs and bergie bits. We had 3 stops in Iceland, eastbound, and crossed the arctic circle. Each port was different and had beautiful scenery. Westbound we had 3 more stops in Iceland, each as interesting as the last. The only time we had bad weather (rainy) was in Reykjavik and Nanortalik, Greenland. It didn't stop us from seeing what we wanted, though. You really don't need all that much time in Greenland as there's not much to do. I do recommend seeing the church and taking a stroll around town. When we were there, there was a christening and the church was open to everyone, even us tourists.

I would not take that chance. If Mr. Murphy makes an appearance, you'll be up a creek without a paddle. How 'bout flying into BOS the day before but staying at a less expensive hotel away from the port? You might have a longer drive but at least you can get a head start on embarkation day

As a local, I'm here to tell you that said Mr Murphy loves to muck around with our traffic and public transit. On that tight a schedule, even a taxi could be a risk. And Boston to Bar Harbor is a very long drive. There are many hotels in the area with fairly reasonable rates. If you're a AAA member, you can get a Boston book from them and check out the area hotels. Good luck, whatever you decide.

And that would be the very reason that I would NEVER book a lanai stateroom! :( That, & the fact that you may very well have to 'encourage' someone to 'vacate' the two loungers that are reserved for your lanai stateroom! :mad:

Only once in 30 days did I find someone sitting in one of our chairs. I politely asked, "May I sit in my chair, please?" The man said, "sure" and got right up. As far as smoking goes, I observed that the smokers tended to stop at the ashtrays to smoke. Now, those ashtrays are moveable. Every morning I looked to see if there were any ashtrays nearby. If there were, I would grab it as I walked by and placed it somewhere else. Problem solved.:D

 

Wonder if there would be another solution such as being able to store the cushions for the lanai chairs in your cabin, perhaps on a special shelf installed above the sofa...

 

cheers..Betty

That's what we did on the Rotterdam on our Hawaii/South Pacific cruise. But not to prevent people from sitting in them. We found that, while the crew always collected the cushions for the non-reserved chairs each evening, they didn't always collect ours. And they would hose down the deck very early every morning so our cushions would be damp. It mattered most on sea days, of course. So we'd check the chairs before we went to bed each evening. If the cushions were there, we brought them in and tucked them behind the curtains. There's plenty of room there for them.

Another incredible advantage to the lanai cabins - a couple of times while we happened to be in our cabin, I looked out and saw dolphins. I kept my camera out and on the small table in the cabin so I could just grab it and run out and get pictures.

We were just there from Jan 4-6. There was no evidence of any construction.

And, by the way, when we booked, we requested a non-smoking room as we both have asthma and the 3rd hand smoke (that which remains on your body and fabrics) can trigger an asthma episode for me. There were no ashtrays in our rooms and no evidence of anyone having smoked there.

I have a couple:

This January, on the Noordam, we were on one of the elevators, taking it from deck 10 (as high as it went) down to deck 3. A woman got on at deck 8 and complained that the light outside the elevator didn't indicate whether it was going up or down. "I swear," she said, "These elevators aren't working properly!" I'm sorry, but I just couldn't hold it in so I replied, "Well, they DO seem to be going up and down okay." Some guy behind me chuckled.

This past summer, on Voyage of the Vikings, we were scheduled to visit Qaqortoq, Greenland. That morning we awoke to a plethora of icebergs and bergie bits surrounding us. Looking toward land, all you could see were ice floes and bergie bits. The captain announced he would try to find a way around them, if possible, as, according to the reports from the shore, it was free of ice. He announced he didn't want to get us iced in, so he was going to be very cautious and wouldn't go in if there was a chance of that. By lunch time, we still weren't in port, but the captain had already made a couple of announcements as to his intentions. DH and I went to the Lido to eat and I overheard a woman sitting behind us complain to her husband, "The bridge isn't doing a very good job keeping us informed as to what's happening!" DH just rolled his eyes. I said to him (loudly enough so this woman could hear me), "Does she not see all this ice floating around us? Doesn't she think they might be just a tad busy keeping us safe by steering us around all this ice?" They left, leaving us to quietly enjoy the view.

Just start talking alternatives to him going, like either a single for her or getting a lady friend to share the cabin ... in his presence of course ... and he may just decide he doesn't want to be left home!

Back in the mid 90s, after I'd taken my first cruise (with a dear, long time friend), I was trying to convince my DH to go on a cruise (2 years later) for our 25th anniversary as we'd never had a honeymoon. He hemmed and hawed and gave me all kinds of excuses and "what ifs". After a year of that, I told him, "here's what's going to happen - I'm going on a cruise for our 25th anniversary. You can come or not. I'm paying." Another year later, as we were walking off the ship, he said, "I'm ready to go again." :D Maybe she should try something like that.

361 loooooooooong days, but then, we'll be cruising for 35 days. Wahooooo!

:D Funny thing to be reading about at 9:30AM. I haven't been on the Serenade so I haven't experienced those seats. But we were recently on the Jewel repo cruise out of Boston and on day 3 our toilet seat broke! Day 1 I noticed it was very "wobbly" and thought, "Uh-oh, this isn't going to be good" We went to breakfast and figured we'd notify maintenance when we got back. Well, our very efficient cabin steward did that for us when he was making up our room. He let us know he'd reported it. At 11:45PM maintenance showed up! Needless to say we asked them to come back the next day (a port day). We figured they'd be able to fix it while we were ashore. Nope. When we came back on board it was still broken. But a quick call to maintenance and 15 minutes later they were there. Ten minutes aftr that, it was fixed. But, let me tell you, it was very uncomfortable that one night, getting up in the middle of the night. I can't imagine a whole week of that!