Halifax, Nova Scotia

This was the fourth time we have been to this port and have always enjoyed walking along the wharf and enjoying the sights.  We really didn’t spend too much time at this port but always enjoy our stay here.  We saw our favorite places that sold “beaver tails” (unique pastries topped with fruits and/or syrups) and fish & chips but elected not to partake in any of these during this trip.  We did stop at a restaurant where Sharon had her first lobster roll.  She had another lobster roll while Greg tried a very tasty calamari dish.  Tomorrow we head to St John where we have arranged to have a Pickleball match with some local players that Sharon has talked to online.

St John, New Brunswick

We were picked up by Ray, a local Pickleball Ambassador, who had set up a match with 9 pickleball players in the area.  We spent the first few hours driving around the city and getting a tour to some areas we had not visited before.  Ray had been a taxi driver at one time before he retired and had taken cruise tourists around the city.  It was nice to have a free tour of the area by a local while having a nice conversation with him about Pickleball in the area.  He took us up to Fort Howe which at one time had protected the port and today is a good vantage point to view the city and port.  We spent some time at Reversible Rapids which is the most famous area of interest where you can see water flowing both up and down river depending on whether the tide is high or low.  The 26 foot tide is one of the largest tide changes in the world and physically forces water to flow upstream up the St Johns River for 1 to 2 miles!  It is really quite a sight.  We made a stop further up river that we hadn’t been to before to gain another perspective of this very interesting phenomenon.  On the other side of the river we saw Carleton Martello Tower built by the British to protect Canada from the US during the war of 1812.  This was a great view of our ship in the port.

We then went to one of their indoor recreational centers to meet their Pickleball players (11 of us) and played Pickleball for about 2 ½ hours.  We had great competitive games and really enjoyed the players.  We extended an invite to the group to stop and visit us in GA as many of them travel to SC, AL and FL for tournament play.  After play we went to dinner with Ray and he showed us some last minute sites around the city before he dropped us back off to the cruise terminal.  This was our last port before heading back to New York and starting our last cruise segment to Bermuda.

Bermuda

After having a short day in Bayonne, New Jersey, we headed out to Bermuda on our final cruise of our 62 day journey.  During our brief stay in Bayonne, Greg got a haircut, Sharon got her nails done and we saw the movie Sully before checking back on to the same ship (Anthem of the Seas) for our cruise to Bermuda.
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After a day at sea we arrived at Bermuda.  The weather was perfect with sunny skies, 84 degree temperatures and a gentle sea breeze.  Since our stay in Bermuda was two days, we elected to go to the beach the first day with such great weather.  We went to Warwick Long Beach because it was supposed to be less crowded than some of the more popular beaches.  It was a great choice and there were only a few other people to share this great beach with us.  The water was a beautiful blue green and crystal clear.  Rocks shot up everywhere out of the water and the surf rushed in providing picture perfect views in almost every direction.  We walked down a small path off the main beach towards Horseshoe Beach and found a small beach cove with very calm water and a little shade for Greg (who wilts in the sun) while Sharon enjoys the sun.  When the shade disappeared after staying there a few hours we decided to go down the same path and found another great beach cove that had a great shady spot for Greg with a nice gentle breeze.  While at this beach some large parrot fish came right up to the beach and we were able to take pictures of them from the surf.  Next to this cove they were setting up a beach wedding for a group from our ship.  It reminded us of Amber’s wedding 2 years ago.  This is definitely a great destination wedding area to take a short cruise to an island that has beautiful beaches.  As long as the weather cooperated you could have a great beach wedding in Bermuda.  After staying in the cove a few hours we continued our walk along the path to Horseshoe Beach.  Along the way we saw more beautiful private coves and took many breathtaking pictures of the unique rock formations.  Horseshoe Beach was much more crowded but has facilities at this beach such as bathrooms, bar, restaurant and beach chairs.   It was a nice beach but we were glad we went to the more private beaches down the road.

We caught the local bus to go back to the ship after the beach to have some dinner.  We had purchased a two day bus/ferry ticket for $31 a person.  This ended up working out really well for us over the two days we were there.  After dinner we went back on shore to check out a few shops but everything had pretty much closed for the night except for a few restaurants that were still open.

The next day we took a ferry over to Hamilton the main city on the island.  Although there are many shops in the city, it does not have many interesting sights and buildings to look at as compared to other cities we have visited during this trip.  We walked around for a while and did a little shopping but decided to take a local bus over to St George which is at the opposite end of Bermuda from where our ship docked at Kings Wharf.  St George had some nice shops and would have been a nice place to take a few long walks along the shore if we had had more time.  We stopped for a drink along the harbor before taking the last ferry back to our ship.  When we arrived back at Kings Wharf we took a short taxi ride to Glass Beach which is the primary beach on Bermuda where sea glass washes up on shore.  This glass is used for jewelry.  Unfortunately when we were at the beach it was high tide and much of the glass that is normally seen was under water.  We did look at some of the pieces in the sand but nothing really looked worth saving.  This would be a nice place to come early in the morning at low tide before other people have picked over the sea glass that has washed ashore.  Next trip we will make this an early stop.  After this we headed back to our ship for our 5 PM departure from Bermuda.

This concludes our last port stop of our 62 day cruising adventure!  It is hard to believe it is over except for one more sea day on the way back to Bayonne, NJ.  We have had a great trip and although we are sad to see it come to an end, we are ready to get back to our real lives.  We miss our granddaughter, Bella, (who we had been watching 4 days out of the week prior to our cruise) and are ready to get back into our sports (Pickleball, racquetball, aerobics and golf).  In November we will be on a short 2 day cruise on the new Harmony of the Seas when it does its inaugural sailing in the Caribbean.  This is actually a complimentary cruise being offered to travel agents that do a lot of business with Royal Caribbean and  we are sure that Royal Caribbean has many special events planned to celebrate this inaugural sailing.  We have already booked our entertainment for the ship (Grease, new dive and skating shows).  The Harmony is the newest sister ship to the Oasis and Allure of the Seas.  We will probably do a short blog after this cruise to let everyone know what is different and unique about this new ship.  In December we will be taking a short 7 day Caribbean cruise on the Norwegian Epic which will end our cruise season for the year.  Next year we have several cruises planned with the big cruises being the 15 day Grand European river cruise going from Amsterdam to Budapest and a Norwegian Fjord cruise that is combined with an African Safari.  If anyone wants to join us on either of these cruises/safari, please let us know.  We love to have friends or family that cruise with us.

Happy Cruising, 

Greg & Sharon


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Cape Liberty – Bayonne, New York

Today we boarded the Royal Caribbean Anthem of the Seas that is only 1 ½ years old.  After taking a quick walk through of the ship to re-orient us (we had previously been on the Quantum of the Seas the sister ship of the Anthem), we went to our cabin to watch our departure from our balcony.

The captain gave us a real treat and took a spin around the Statue of Liberty on our port departure.  This was such a nice sunny day and it was really nice to take some pictures of the Statue of Liberty and downtown Manhattan as we were heading on to Boston.  You get a really great vantage point looking at the city from the water side.  We could easily see our previous ship, the Caribbean Princess, on the other side of the harbor and remembered our earlier long taxi ride around New York to get to the Anthem’s port in New Jersey.  The Staten Island Ferry was cruising next to us for a while as we headed to the statue.  The World Trade Center Tower gleamed tall in the sunlight reminding us of past visits to this fun city.  This was one of the nicest port departures we have had on a cruise ship with perfect weather, perfect scenery, and a nice relaxing view from our private balcony as we sipped on a few cocktails.  Well off to Boston where we had just been two days ago on the Caribbean Princess.
 
Boston

We arrived in Boston early in the morning but took a leisurely breakfast before heading out to explore the city.  We had been here 3 days before on the Caribbean Princess but had used the time to get on the internet and catch up on emails.   Today we planned to do some walking!
We first did the harbor walk getting a chance to see all the sightseeing and whale watching boats head out filled with passengers visiting this city.  On a previous trip we had taken one of these sightseeing tours and had enjoyed getting a good view of Boston from the harbor side.  It is also amazing to see all the seafood restaurants lining the wharfs and bars catering to the very relaxed crowd of people.  You could also see fishing ships and a few lobster boats as we walked around the harbor.  There are some very nice homes lining some of the wharfs that have some great views.

The harbor walk took us to the Freedom Trail where we walked a short distance to Bunker Hill which is really the end of the trail.  We watched a brief reenactment of a revolutionary soldier telling us about the war and then we proceeded to walk the 3 mile trail from end to beginning.  Shortly after leaving Bunker Hill we visited the old warship Constitution (“Old Ironsides”).   Once again in this area there were soldiers and other people dressed in revolutionary attire demonstrating various skills from the past including firing an old musket.  Along the trail we also got to see the old North Church and Paul Revere’s house.  Although there are many buildings that date back 350 years, it is amazing on how well kept up these buildings are.  People line up and pay $12 to $18 each to visit these historic buildings.  If you went to each of these historic buildings along the trail it would probably cost you over $100 to enter and view each of these.  About half way along the trail is Little Italy where we took a quick break to sample pizza and a little arancini (an Italian rice ball that is filled with white wine risotto, gooey mozzarella and is coated in bread crumbs before it is deep fried) – delicious!  It was such a beautiful day to walk through the city and the temperatures were in the high 60s making it perfect walking weather.  We stopped at Quincy Hall along the way and had a cannoli to cap off our earlier Italian snack.  Quincy Hall is a great place to try some of Boston’s seafood specialties.  Around the hall are several shopping areas which we looked at for a while before heading on down the trail.  At this point the trail is in the downtown Boston area but you still see many historic buildings and you find several cemeteries with headstones dating back to the 1600s.  We eventually completed the trail at its starting point in the park in front of the state capital building.

From the end (or start) of the trail we headed back towards our ship visiting some of the nicer walking and shopping streets in downtown Boston.  It was a pleasant walk back to the ship and it seemed that there was a different view at every corner.  We really like Boston and would enjoy coming back to the city and getting a chance to experience it at night some time.  We enjoyed the walk and although we didn’t break our walking record we still managed to walk 15 miles during the day.  Off to Portland, Maine.
 
Portland

This was the first time we had ever been to Portland, Maine.  Every other cruise we had previously taken in this area always went to Bar Harbor, Maine where we go tomorrow.  As we got off the ship we decided we would take a walk to one of the “nearby” lighthouses.  Part of the way there a local suggested we head to Bug Light lighthouse which is the iconic picture of Portland, Maine and was only 4 ½ miles from the ship.  As we headed over a tall bridge over the harbor, we were treated to quite a spectacle.  There was a jumper surrounded by police and trying to scramble over the bridge railing to jump into the water 100’ below.  Fortunately the police were able to stop her before she jumped but it certainly added some intrigue to our morning walk.  The walk to the lighthouse was very enjoyable and most of it was on a very nice walking/bike path.  The park the lighthouse (Bud Light Park) was on was very nice although the lighthouse was not the most impressive lighthouse we had ever seen.  The walk was nice and we had a great view of our ship and city from the park.  We walked past the ship on another nice walking path and viewed a nice park and beach area.

On our trip out of the port we sat on our balcony sipping some wine and taking pictures of all the lighthouses.  We ended up getting some great pictures of the original lighthouse we had started walking towards.  We probably got better pictures from the ship than what we would have gotten if we had walked to this lighthouse.  I guess we saved ourselves a few miles and only ended up walked another 15 miles for the day.  Off to Bar Harbor.
 
Bar Harbor
We had been to Bar Harbor a few times and this trip Greg elected to give Sharon and early Birthday present – a day bike ride through Arcadia National Park.  Sharon loves biking while Greg is not as adept to this sport!  Arcadia National Park was one of the first national parks created when Rockefeller and some of his rich friends purchased land that they wanted to preserve.  Around this park they built carriage roads almost 100 years ago so that the rich could take carriage rides around the park and enjoy all of its natural beauty.  Today these carriage roads are closed to cars but are available for walkers, bicycles and horses.  After renting two bikes in town, we took the free ride into the park that is provided.  This free van ride even provides a trailer to carry your bike into the park. 

Just getting to the park and looking around was really amazing.  We started off at a lake that was crystal clear.  As we biked around the lake we took pictures of all the beautiful sights we saw.  The weather was cool and perfect for a nice bike ride through the mountains.  Most of the paths were easy to pedal but every now and then you would get to an uphill incline that certainly took some effort to get to the top.  As we got half way around the second lake, there was a large building that had snacks and food if you needed some refreshments.  Obviously we didn’t need any and kept trucking on.  Along the way we passed many bikers and walkers.  There were even a few horses we passed along the way.  It is nice to see so many people walking out through nature just enjoying the scenery and getting some good exercise.  Instead of taking the van ride back to town we elected just to ride the extra 5 miles back.  We ended up biking for 25 miles and really enjoyed our day.  Sharon certainly enjoyed it more because Greg’s butt and knees were hurting him after the ride!

After the ride we walked around town for a while and Sharon finally got to have her lobster roll (Thirsty Whale) that she had been craving for the last week before taking a tender back to our ship.    We have a sea day tomorrow as we head for Halifax in Canada.

Our next blog will feature our stops to Halifax, St. Johns and Bermuda.
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Happy Cruising,
Greg & Sharon