Serenade Boston - Bermuda 10/21

[euphscott]

I don't see this got discussed last week, so I wanted to relay our experience from last week's 7 day Bermuda out of Boston cruise.

 

It was brought to our attention that a big Nor' Easter was headed in our path (Bermuda back to Boston).  Our scheduled arrival was Sunday morning.  But had we maintained that, we would have experienced a pretty rocky road.  Initial ideas floated (no pun intended) were to take off and hide in the Bay of Fundy for it to pass, but the conditions of the storm changed such that staff decided to get home to Boston early and tie up at the pier.  

 

So...this allowed us to miss the uncomfortable and potentially dangerous passage to ride out the storm safely at our final destination a day early.  So then what happened was brilliance (nope - we WERE one the Serenade, I promise) on the part of customs and Royal Caribbean from our standpoint.  We passed through immigration on board our ship Saturday morning.  For us - we joined the line when called, showed our papers and moved on for a total of 10 minutes (so quick, the four year old was not yet unbearable!).  Once complete, passengers had options: 

If you were local, you could just leave.  

You could check off the ship and visit Boston like it was a port stop until midnight 

You could stay on board as if it was a sea day.

 

Sunday morning, having already gone through customs, once our number was called it was a short walk off the ship, collection of baggage and we were on our way.  Genius!  And by far the easiest debarkation day in all of my 25+ cruises.  Hats off to Royal for making a good and safe call and for the staff of Serenade that turned a potential pitfall into quite the positive from my perspective.  Due to a large population of Boston natives on that sailing, we did notice a smaller crowd around the ship Saturday night and Sunday morning.  So, all in all, it was unique, but very pleasant!

[pjlee3333]

I was watching activities in the centrum while people were getting off I'd guess at least 200-300 people left.

 

Also instead of starting self assist at 8 they called the last group before 7:45.