July 4, 2011 – Day 4

What a beautiful day it was and we first took the subway to Fenway Park, the home of the Boston Red Sox. We had a great 1 ½ hour tour of the park just as they were getting it ready for a game.

Fenway Park

Then it was a short subway ride to the Otis Mansion, one of the oldest mansions in Boston and a tour of that home.

We then walked across the old section of town to see the Colonial Theater but it was closed
By this time in the afternoon, it was time to take the subway to the docks and watch Catamaran races, which were fun but it was very hot so we walked over the our hotel and changed for the fireworks.

Catamaran Races

We arrived at the Community Boat Docks at about 6 and found seats along the dock and again met new friends for the evening. The Community Boat Docks is a non-profit organization that has docks for sail boats and also teaches a wide range of sailing and they use their dock space for a VIP July 4th party. We were very lucky to find this organization because the rest of the areas along the river were very packed and it would not have been fun.

While we had all the food, soda, water, fruit smoothies that we could consume, we watched thousands flock into the rest of the land to see the Boston Pops and watch the fireworks.

The seating, food, etc. was one of the best we have ever had for a fireworks show; however, we have seen better fireworks.

Sitting on the Dock

They announced that 500,000 were in the park and thousands more lined the river banks!

We only had to walk about 4 blocks and we got lucky and found a cab to take us back to the hotel.

Tomorrow we leave after having a wonderful July 4th vacation. Boston has been the best town and we wish we had a couple more days but we will be home tomorrow.
We hope to go to the JFK Library before the plane so good night from Boston.

Food at the fireworks

July 3, 2011 – Day 3

The Trolley

We were up and out of the hotel by 9 and caught the trolley to the first stop which was a 1 hour tour of Boston Harbor.

We sat with a couple who were from Switzerland and enjoyed the start of the morning on the water sightseeing and talking with new friends.

After the boat ride, we took the trolley to see the USS Constitution in the Charleston Navy Yard. This 3-masted sailing ship is still an operational ship in the US Navy and it was fun to tour it.

Then it was on to Trinity Church for a tour. The church is built on thousands of trees that are buried in the ground vertically to form the foundation. As most of Boston is on man-made land, that is how the older building were built.



The Boston Skline



We then took the subway to Fenway Park to tour the home of the Boston Red Socks but it was raining when we got there so we took the subway back into town to Quincy Market which is a huge downtown market made up of lots of food stands and lots of shops.

We ate lobster and shrimp again at a really neat restaurant.

Back to the hotel to change for the dress rehearsal of the Boston Pops.

We had purchased special VIP seats so we only needed to arrive about 2 hours before the start of the concert, which we did and there were supposedly already 100,000 people there.



USS Constitution

When we tried to find our seats, they kept sending us to different gates until at a backstage gate the police office said that we had been a victim of a $200 scam and there were no VIP tickets!!

Were we crushed; however, we went back to a special seating area and met a really nice guy named Jim who was operating the gate.  Jim called one of the organizers staff over to get the information from our tickets, which we bought on line. I later called AMX and the canceled the charge so we haven’t lost any money.

To make a long story short, we ended up sitting in the 10th row with Jim, his wife Tanya and daughter Sophia and had a wonderful concert and what started out so badly ended up fantastic thanks to the generosity of one person who just happened to be controlling the gate that we went to for help.  What an amazing thing they did for us.

Boiling Lobster for dinner

Tomorrow is the fireworks and early on we will to make sure that our tickets for July 4th are valid.  Night - Night



The Boston Pops







Thanks Jim, Tanya and Sophie for making our trip so special!!!

July 2, 2011 – Day 2

Cheers

We may have caught up on the sleep we had been lacking the past couple of weeks and then were out of the hotel by 9am to catch the Trolley for a guided trip around the city. The trolley makes 21 stops in its 21 mile trip and the total trip took 2 ½ hours. You can get on and off at any stop; however, we decided to see the entire city first before making a choice on what to see.

As the trolley tour is a two day ticket, tomorrow we will get off at a number of places.

We finished the tour at 9:30am and took a cab from our hotel to Haymarket Square in the North End, which is home to the largest market in the city. We found a neat pizza place in the market selling pizza by the slice and split a vegetable slice.

North Church - we climbed the bell tower

Then it was on to a 90 minute walking tour of the North End, which is Boston’s oldest neighborhood and it includes Paul Reveres home and the North Church. The guide book said “it is a delightful labyrinth of narrow streets and exotic market places” – which it is and filled with wonderful looking restaurants. It is also a very Italian neighborhood.

We then took the subway to a restaurant called the Barking Crab, which was named one of the top 10 restaurants in Boston. Ed promised Barb that she would have all the sea food she could eat this trip and for the second day, we ate a lot of sea food. Barb had crab cakes and Ed had about 40 – 50 cold boiled shrimp and were we stuffed.

Our last stop for the evening was the old court house to listen to a 1 ½ hour concert by the Middlesex County Volunteers Fife and Drum unit and the were really entertaining to hear an see in their original style uniforms.



A snack!!



Then it was the subway back to the hotel to rest up for tomorrow – which will be full dress rehearsal of the Boston Pops.

Sleep tight!!

Fife & Drum Concert

July 1, 2011 – Day 1

The bedroom area

The view from our room

 Boston – Both of us have read about the city but neither of us have been there so it was this years Fourth of July trip.

We left Illinois under a heat advisory and we arrived in Boston to 70 degree, wonderful weather.

We checked into the Renaissance by Marriott and it is a beautiful hotel. It is the first time we have stayed at a Renaissance, and won’t be the last. Very upscale and we have a room that is 365 sq ft with a great view of downtown and the harbor.



Lunch

For lunch we went to a local restaurant/wholesale fish market call Yankee Lobster and ate ourselves silly. We had a lobster roll, fries, cold slaw and 21 cold boiled shrimp.

After lunch, we walked along the dock area by our hotel seeing what was there – a lot of docks, fishing boats restraurants and water!



Then we took the subway to Boston Commons. We visited a very old church and then walked about 20 minutes through that area to Trinity Church were we met our guide from the Boston Society of Architects for a 5:30pm tour of the sites and homes of Beacon Hill – a very exclusive area of almost all expensive row houses. It was a 90 minute tour and a lot of fun. In the entire area of Beacon Hill, the street lights are the old fashioned gas light.


Beacon Hill house

After the tour, we took a cab back to the hotel and went to a local restaurant on the dock of the major fish market called “No Name Restaurant” which opened there in 1917.

Then back to the hotel were Barb has crashed already. Se is out like a light and really needs her sleep as she has been working virtually day and night since Bloomington Gold getting the house ready after the kitchen remodeling.

I am tired also, so good night from Boston

Day 10

Our only day at sea without visiting any island was today and it was very hectic, but enjoyable. 

Going out for our last evening



First we laid out in the sun for 2 ½ hours and may have come close to burning – we’ll see how we feel when we wake up.

The massive celebration buffet was today from 10am – 1pm so we went there at noon for a huge lunch. This had to be one of the biggest and best brunches we have every experienced.

Then it was onto the Black Jack tournament where Ed came in third and won his entry fees back plus a little more.

Then we both played in the slot tournament but neither of us won. We then picked up the last of our pictures that the staff had taken and headed up to the room and packed.



Dinner with our new friends

Then it was a wonderful but sad farewell dinner, the show and then to the casino to play a little and say goodbye to some really good friends that we had made.

This casino staff is, no question, the best of any casino staff we have every sailed with. We left the casino and some old and new friends at 12:30am and finished packing for tomorrow.  Our Host Andrea is amazing and this was the second time we have sailed with her.  Oana, the Casino Manager led a great staff and we had a wonderful time.

Our dinner partners, Bob and Victoria (on the left) and Robert and Charlotte were really great fun.  We laughted, drank wine, ate good food and shared stories every night.  We could not asked for a better table.  Hopefully we will meet again and it not, we have memories that will last a lifetime.

Saturday we will leave the ship at about 9am and go to the Marriott for the day and our plane departs San Juan at 5:30pm and arrives in Bloomington at 11:00pm.



Oana, the Casino Manager and our Host Andrea

It was a great spring trip and thanks to everyone at home and at work for our being able to go on this trip.





Day 9

Part of the falls

And then there was Tobago, the last island to visit on our cruise. Trinidad and Tobago are linked together as a Federation and we were in Tobago, which is the smaller of the two islands.  It is the most fought-over settlement in the Caribbean and there are some interesting forts on the island.

Tobago also has a traditional rain forest and the island is very volcanic in nature with very steep mountains but the beaches are wonderful fine white sand.

We walked off the ship early and found a delightful young man with his own car to take us around the island and to several places we wanted to see.



In the plantation house

We started out by visiting Fort George, an 18th century fortification – a huge fort guarding the original main harbor.

On the way to the rain forest, we stopped a man’s home who had beautiful gardens, lots of wildlife and a wonderful restored house.

Then it was a one hour drive through the country-side to see Argyle Falls – a 600’ series of falls coming down the mountain. We had to walk about ½ hour through the rain forest to get to the falls, but it was well worth it.

After the tour of the falls, we stopped at the only remaining plantation house on the island and had a tour by the caretaker of the grounds. It is also a bed and breakfast and had amazing accommodations. We also had a very enlighting discussion from the caretaker about slaves and slave owners.

Pigeon Point Beach

Then it was onto Pigeon Point Beach, a private beach resort with all kinds of services and we spent the rest of the afternoon on the beach until our guide drove us back to the ship.

At 5pm we left port and headed north to Puerto Rico.

Tonight is our second formal night and everyone looked great in their formal wear.

The show and casino were also great and it is 2:30 am and time to pick our pictures, post it and go to bed.

Ready for formal night

Tomorrow is our last day and a sea day.

Night for now.

Day 8

Well we are getting farther and farther south and today arrived at Grenada. Grenada is known as the spice island and they primarily produce vast quantities of cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg and other spices. Grenada is also volcanic in origin and has lush green mountains and spectacular white sand beaches.

At the falls

It is only 21 miles long and 12 miles at it widest and has a population of only 100,000 with virtually no crime.

We started the day off the ship at the shops that were built for the cruise ships right at the end of the pier. Then when we went into the city, we hired a private guide to take us on a tour of the country.

We stopped at a very old fort and then went up into the rain forest to view a very beautiful waterfall. Along the way, our guide stopped and explained different types of plants to us – it was quite an education.

The people on the island live a very long life due to the fact that they eat mostly locally grown fruit and vegetables and fish that have been caught from the seas around the island.



The ship over shadows the town



The tour ended at a beautiful beach with great white sand; however for the next two hours, the sun hardly was out; but, we had fun. That is two days in a row when we went to the beach the sun was behind clouds – no good for tanning!!

Then we were picked up and taken back to the pier where we went into town and shopped at the local market for a little bit.

The show was before dinner this time and the musician was a piano player by the name of Antonio Salci and wow was he good. He was backed by a 7 piece orca straw and they put on quite a show.

Making Barb a new bowl

Then it was onto dinner for another great dinner and we spent most of the night talking about how each of us had met and we really laughed a lot. Then it was the casino and finally to bed. We don’t get a lot of sleep on the cruise but it sure is fun.  We are not doing as well as we would like in the casino, but it is a free cruise so that is not too bad, hopefully the next couple of days will bring good news from the casino.

Tomorrow will be Tobago, our last stop before heading back to San Juan.