This is Part One of my “An East Coast Experience – My Cruise from Boston to Canada and New England” trip report.
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Friday, October 21st 2022
On Friday we drove from home to Salt Lake City the day before our flights that were very early in the morning on Saturday. I have always enjoyed travel, but I still get a little anxious when that trip gets closer and closer. Not that anything major will go wrong, but mostly that I am excited to try something new, new city, new cruise line, new destinations, new anything. I am super grateful for all this journey has taught me, one of which is that our world is massive, and I have just began exploring what it has to offer.
The hotel we stayed at was the Radisson Hotel Salt Lake City Airport. The hotel was okay, clean enough for this quick overnight pit stop. We did run into a few issues, namely the ice machines. I tried 3 floors ice machines before I finally found one that would work… the bartender at the lobby bar. He was really helpful and filled our ice bucket with a smile. We also found out our phone was not operational as well, we weren’t really worried about it, but did report it to the front desk when we checked out the next morning.
Saturday, October 22, 2022
Flights began early in the morning, so we were up before the hotel breakfast was offered. We booked these flights on American Airlines as we had a credit left with them from a previous trip that was canceled due to Covid. If you have not explored the new Salt Lake Airport, it looks beautiful, very modern and open, has a lot of potential. One of the downsides is the trek across to the B concourse, its about a half mile… no joke. They are working on finishing Phase 2 of the rebuild which will add a quicker walkway and eventually a tram… yay!
American Airlines 3282 Salt Lake City to Chicago Canadair Regional Jet 900 Depart 7:47am Arrive 12:01pm
Once in the B concourse, American operates several gates on the lower level. Once passed the gate counters, you walk through a hallway where you exit onto the ramp area outside to board a bus. This bus takes you for about a 10 minute ride to your plane. I took this image of the plane walking up the boarding ramp. I could not believe this was real, that sunrise was completely mesmerizing.
The flight was uneventful.. we landed in Chicago on time, thankfully, because we had a short layover before our flight to Boston boarded. We grabbed a quick lunch… I think it was a Mickey D’s, but can not remember for sure.
American Airlines 2269 Chicago to Boston Boeing 737-800 Depart 1:06pm Arrive 4:32 pm
Once landing in an destination airport… you begin that hurry-up-and-wait routine once you leave the plane… hurry to the baggage claim, wait for an eternity and eventually your baggage will show up… probably. We did that too, but didn’t have to wait very long for our baggage to be delivered. We shuffled around a little bit attempting to find where our hotel shuttle would pick us up. Eventually we asked an airport employee and she kindly pointed us in the right direction.
We stayed at the Courtyard by Marriott Boston Airport. It was the most reasonable we could find for the dates. While we were riding the Hotel’s airport shuttle to the hotel, I completed our check in on the Marriott App. It was AWESOME. We bypassed the front desk and went right to the room! 10/10 experience!
The hotel is nice, fairly quiet, mostly of business travelers holding meetings in the city or the airport. The hotel area is lacking food options within walking distance, being near the airport the area is mostly commercial. We ate that night in the hotel’s restaurant named Brinkley’s. It was okay, it felt like they had a breakfast area and converted it to a restaurant. We sat in chairs you could find in a lobby, ate on what felt like coffee tables. Very weird and would not recommend. Rest of the night was uneventful… mostly catching some sleeps.
Oh, quick story, while we were on the airport shuttle to the hotel, we met this group of gals, maybe in their 60-70’s, they were a hoot. They had just came from the city exploring and were having trouble taking the subway back to the hotel. Well they decided to just go back to the airport and call for the hotel shuttle, the same hotel shuttle we were on. During our ride we heard them talk about a cruise tomorrow, and we piped up that we were on that cruise as well. We talked about cruising on the way there and we even saw that same group in the restaurant that night as they were making plans with several other cruisers for a group shuttle the next day. We later saw them getting back on the ship in… Sydney or Charlottetown… can’t remember. What a small world.
Sunday, October 23, 2022
Its Cruise Day! When i woke up around 8am, we had some breakfast from the hotel… oh, the hotel doesn’t offer an included breakfast?.. sad. I ordered some donuts and breakfast sandwiches via Doordash from Dunkin. They were actually pretty good. This was my first experience with fresh donuts, they were good and left me on a good sugar high for about a day.
We were ready for checkout around 9am and ordered out Lyft, it arrived quite quickly and we headed to the cruise port. From the hotel to the cruise port is about a 15 minute ride, or about 2ish miles. Very close. We drove through the south part of the city and watched several building pass by. I love modern skyscrapers, the metal and glass combo is awesome.
We arrived at Flynn Cruise port and after a long, long walk the wrong way, we dropped off the luggage at the porters, left them a tip, and found ourselves a spot at the end of the line. The wait wasn’t too bad, I read on the Facebook group for this cruise the ship arrived a little bit late into port and so boarding was delayed. Delayed it was, it was around 11am and boarding had not begun, it usually begins
around 10 or 10:30. Once the doors opened, the line went quickly though security, and then to check in. I presented my passport and my Royal Caribbean app with my boarding QR code, they scanned it, and we were done. Following the line to the ship, we entered the catwalk boarding ramp and walked on the ship.
Walking onboard a cruise ship is very comparable to walking into a grand resort. Each ship is decked out with shops and restaurants, entertainment venues, staterooms and pools. I will say that once onboard, the first 20-30 minutes on the ship can be confusing. I suggest you find a comfy place to sit to chill and take it all in, grab a drink if you have to and start your muster process. The muster drill is a maritime required drill instructing passengers what to do in case of an emergency. Its something that each and every
passenger must attend before the ship can leave the dock. Many cruise lines do their muster the old fashioned/pre-covid way of taking your life jacket from your stateroom to your muster stations, usually in a dining room or lounge, sitting through a 5-10 minute demonstration of how the life jackets work, the siren sound and then present your cruise card to the staff when you sign out to be check off their muster list. Thank goodness that is not the case on MOST cruise lines now. On Royal, much like we did with Carnival in March, we watched a 10 minute video on the app, listened to the siren sound, walk to our muster station
and they scanned our cruise card and DONE. It is a lot simpler and a long time coming.
That night we choose to eat dinner at the Windjammer, the buffet style restaurant. The selection was really good and while I don’t recall specifics on what we ate that night, the buffet is large, and had a nice salad bar, dessert bar that would cause me a sugar coma, and a wide array of international and American dishes. They have several stations throughout the buffet that repeated, which was nice because if one section was busy, sometimes the other was not.
Cruise ships offer a wide variety of dining options to suit every taste and preference. From casual buffet-style eateries to fine dining restaurants, there is something for everyone on board. Many ships, like ours, feature a main dining room, where passengers can enjoy a multi-course meal in a formal setting. These restaurants offer a rotating menu of classic dishes, as well as options for special dietary needs. In addition, many ships have specialty restaurants that offer a unique dining experience. These could include a steakhouse, sushi bar, Italian trattoria, or even a tapas bar. For a more casual option, many ships have a buffet-style restaurant, like the Windjammer, that serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Here, you can find a variety of dishes from different cuisines, as well as a salad bar, a dessert station and a soft-serve ice cream machine. With so many options, dining on a cruise ship can be one of the highlights of your vacation.
We spent most of the night in going to different trivia and other games. This is where we discovered one flaw with how Royal Caribbean designs the layout of their decks. The venues they chose to host the trivia contests at were quite small and didn’t have much seating. We attended a Harry Potter trivia held later in the cruise, it was held in the Schooner bar, a small venue with a grand piano in the center, that took up a large portion of the room and left only seats for about 50 people… I swear this Harry Potter trivia attracted almost the entire ship. Royal had a much larger venue that is perfect for large trivia contents like this called the Star Lounge and they choose to host that trivia in a smaller venue. I only have two issues with my first cruise with Royal Caribbean and this was one of them, but they made up for it in other ways.
That night we felt very few effects of being on the ship. When at sea, you can feel the ship moving gently forward and rocking slightly with the waves. That night, and for the most of the cruise, it was very smooth, one of the smoothest I have been on. I explored the ship and found myself on the Lido deck being in the moment and enjoying my first night on the cruise.
This first part covers mostly the pre-cruise portion. The following parts will focus on the excursions and what we did at each port. Look for part two in a few weeks.