Fall cruising in the North East

Well its been raining for the past 3 days and that brings to mind water and with water comes oceans and with oceans comes the big ships :) and I'm back to cruising! I guess Noah was the first cruiser and Captain that we know of, and he spent 40 days! Now we spend an average of a week and come away with good memories of new and exciting places and people we have met. Sometimes we decide to go back and sometimes we decide to try someplace different. Usually I travel with my partner in crime, Liz. We started off at a travel agency and became fast friends. I had returned to the agency in August of 2001. 3 weeks later 9/11 happened. That day and for several days afterward, the travel industry was hobbled. It ran the gamut from grounding the airlines to cruise lines dropping their passengers off at the nearest port and going out of business to agencies closing their doors overnight. Our boss made the decision to cut way back on staff and laid off all but 3 of us; 1 agent (Liz), 1 accounting admin (me) and 1 computer person. I was back on the phones with Liz trying to get people's confidence back that travel was safe and life shouldn't stop because of the extreme actions of a few degenerates. By the end of the month, I had sold 9 cruises. That's not a very impressive number, but it showed confidence was coming back, and we weren't going to go under after all. Liz was the true backbone of the company with her bookings and in time, we got staffed back up. About a year later, Liz, who was top sales agent, and I 'earned' a seminar-at-sea cruise aboard Princess Cruise Lines for Canada-New England. This sailing takes place in the Sept-Nov time frame to capture the lovliness that is associated with New England in the fall. Since we lived in upstate NY and were also accustomed to the beauty, we went to learn more about cruising. And to have a good time :) We flew to NYC and took what was probably the most memorable cab ride from the airport to the pier. Our cabbie definitely needed better driving skills, but he was so entertaining we had to overlook the driving up on the sidewalks, the U-turns in front of the hotel in Manhattan, his prolific honking where there were 'NO HONKING" signs on every post, singing Gilligan's theme song with his fractured English when we told him we were going on a cruise. He definitely got us started in the right direction! We boarded the beautiful Golden Princess and were in awe of the design, the classiness, everything! We boarded and were docked right next to the USS Intrepid, so we were waving to the sailors below :) The ships have a Bon Voyage party as you are leaving port, and we set sail and passed lower Manhattan where the Twin Towers had only a year ago stood tall and proud. Now there was just an empty space in the landscape and our Captain asked that we all gave a moment of silence as we passed. We headed out into Atlantic waters and after a day of seminars, woke up in Halifax, Nova Scotia. There were several options but Liz and I took off on foot and went to the public gardens and hoofed up to the Citadel where there was a lovely view of the harbor. We walked thru the historic section, stopping in old churches and shops before heading back to the ship. We sat down at the pier to people-watch, and all of a sudden this idiot came out of nowhere from below the seawall and pops his head up like a Jack-in-the-box and shouts out "Helloooooooooo" I can't do it justice even trying to describe it here, but we watched him in total oblivion pop up and yell at passers-by. Liz and I were trying SO hard not to laugh and give him an audience, but he managed to pop up and scare a little boy out for a stroll with hid Dad, and even gave the Dad a jolt! We were almost rolling watching him, wondering if this was some kind of Canadian Candid Camera episode we were witnessing, when all of a sudden he mustered up all his strength and hurled himself over the seawall and onto the sidewalk, where he dusted himself off and walked away! I don't think I have ever witnessed anything before or since to top that! We set out for our next stop and enjoyed the colors on shore from the ship, passing the famous lighthouse at Peggy's Cove and marveling at the beauty of our world.
Next morning we found ourselves in St Johns, Newfoundland where we were met at the terminal by a group of men singing for us, barbershop-style as we disembarked. We didnt go too far since we had only a few hours' stay here and then headed to Bar Harbor, Maine. This time we took a tour and went to the Acadia National Park. To get there we rook a trolley that I didn't think had the power to make it up the mountain, but it did! It did! We got to the top of Cadillac Mountain with all its rugged granite beauty intermingled with the pines, colors of fall and the occasional pristine blue lake. We hiked a little bit of the area and then decided to take in some of the local flavor of Bah Hahbah. Everything is quaint, with the Victorian-style homes and lobstah theme prevalent but in a classy way, very old-timey stores and laid back. We still had time to kill, so we decided to go on our own on a 1 hour whale watch. It had been quite warm that day and we were in lighter clothes. (Should you ever go on this excursion, take a sweater and a pair of light gloves,,,and Dramamine). None of us realized that as you get further away from shore, the weather gets much colder, and we had to go a ways out to see the whales in their habitat. Well, we got cranking going out and it got pretty choppy and soon several people were feeling the effects, and getting sick. Combined with the on-board eatery that only fried everything, there weren't too many people upright by the time we got to the whales! Liz and I were helping people and reaching inside to grab napkins and paper towels for as many as we could. One elderly lady lamented that she didnt sign up for this! It was neat tho, we did get fairly close to a family and several of them breached as they came by and gave us a nice show. There's never a guarantee you will see whales so we were lucky. Its something I would recommend, just be prepared!
Our next stop was Boston. The weather had turned rainy so we took in a tour of the old city and walked part of the historical Freedom Trail to the Old North church. We went to Harvard campus and thru Cambridge and back to Fanueil Hall. If given the chance, do take in the Freedom Trail. It is very interesting and encompasses a lot of our early history. The next day was at Newport R.I. where we basically stayed close to the ship. Our last night at sea was spent with our group, being thankful that we had been able to take this trip and enjoy the beauty that we had seen, and share it wth prospective customers! Our highlights definitely had to be our NYC cabbie ride and the guy in Halifax. Hands down!