Where We Manage To Board The Ship Without Incident
And Spend A Splendid Day In Penobscot Bay
Day 1 was pretty easy.
The only confusion we had was when we arrived at the specified parking lot for the cruise port. There were no signs telling us where to go or what to do, only a machine that wanted to charge us money for something we had already paid.
Eventually a guy (who’s native language is so obviously not English) who sort of pointed us here and there to park. Fortunately, the ship’s shuttle showed up a few minutes later and we were on our way.
Possibly one of the smoothest cruise check-ins ever, with not one hitch and no more than a minute wait any step along the way. We had been warned by the cruise line NOT to show up before our allotted time or we would be turned away. I seriously doubt that would have happened. But our timing was perfect – we arrived exactly at 2:00 anyway.
After boarding, we dropped off our stuff in our room, then grabbed something to eat at the buffet.
Our bags showed up around 4:30 or 5:00. We started unpacking, which is when we noticed this room has almost no storage – 5 drawers to be shared by two people for 11 nights.
At dinner we met our table mates. When I made the reservation back in March, Celebrity gave me two options: 6:00 p.m. or 8:00 p.m., so I picked 6:00 p.m. I had no idea this meant we were assigned a table with the same people for the duration of the cruise. We haven’t seen this since our very first cruise in 1980. The deck 4 restaurant is assigned seating. Deck 5 is for “come whenever” seating. If I had been given that option, that’s what I would have picked.
Good news: the people at our table are very nice, and I’m sure it’ll be fine to eat with them. It’s just…odd.
For a first day, it was pretty good. Not nearly as crazy as the first day on the NCL ship in May; of course there a far fewer people and a much smaller ship.
Day 2 Rockland, Maine
Late yesterday afternoon, we visited the Customer Service desk, which was actually very helpful. We upgrade our wifi package so as to make it useful (this was not clear when I bought the package online a few months ago). And we also asked if we could request to sit at or near the front of the bus for all of our Celebrity booked excursions.
This morning we tested this process. And it worked! It was an entertaining challenge to toddle down the steps of the gangway to the tender boat (a/k/a life boat), but I was able to do it and also climb into the tender. This is the second time we’ve seen steps to a tender gangway – the last time being on the NCL ship last may.
When we arrived at the Rockland tender dock, we had a little bit of a wait for our bus to arrive. And when it did arrive, our stateroom number was on the front seat! Yay!
It was an absolutely perfect weather day – clear skies and temps in the low 70s. We had a scenic drive up to Mt Battie, where we had a panoramic view of Penobscot Bay:
Andy wandered around a bit to a nearby tower:
After 20 minutes of beautiful scenery, we got back on the bus and drove to Camden. We bought a couple of sandwiches for lunch before we made our way to the bay to board the schooner that would take us on a two-hour sail.
The Appledore is a schooner with two masts. We were 46 passengers in total – we had no problem finding a seat. We saw the captain and two crew members; apparently there are more crew members around, but we didn’t see them.
We sailed for 2 hours in the glorious sunshine!
Once we were out into the bay, you could ask to “drive” the boat. This was Andy’s turn. I wondered why the boat was doing weird things….
It was a fantastic afternoon! I just wish I had remembered to bring my sunglasses and visor. The sun was super strong!
Random side note: this morning we realized this was the first time either one of us has been in Maine.
We’re off to dinner soon, followed by the evening’s entertainment.
So far, so good!
Tomorrow: Halifax (and I think a time change to Atlantic Time)
Maryland Meshugas 