Voyage of the Vikings Redux - Boston

Home to Boston

Wednesday, July 19, 2023

When we have to fly across country for a cruise, it is always my least favorite day of a trip, and today was no exception.  Today we flew from San Luis Obispo to Boston with one stop in Dallas.  Our flight out of SLO left at 6:00 AM so we were up at 3:00 AM, much too early for us.  Despite going to bed early, neither of us got more than a couple hours of sleep so we weren’t feeling very chipper.  Val’s friend Marsha picked us up and drove us to the airport and despite the early hour, Marsha was her usual happy, upbeat self, a real contrast to the way Val and I felt.

It takes a little over a half hour to get to the SLO airport from our home, so we arrived in plenty of time for our flight.  We were quickly checked in and through security and after a short wait, it was time to board.  The last few times Val and I have flown we have opted for first class seats, and it makes flying so much easier.

The flight to Dallas was uneventful and we landed on time, which was good as we only had an hour to catch our flight to Boston.  Our flight left from a different terminal than the one we landed at, so we had to take the sky train to get to the other terminal, but it was quick and easy.  Shortly after we got to our departure gate, it was time to board, and we were on our way to Boston.  We did get served lunch on our flight and it wasn’t very good, but it was better than nothing.

As the sun rose, we flew over the fog shrouded valleys of San Luis Obispo.

We actually got into Boston earlier than expected and we were quickly off the plane (another benefit of first class, first on and first off) and on to baggage claim where, much to our great surprise, our bags were one of the first ones off.  From there it was off to the cab line where we got a cab and headed to our hotel.  Unfortunately, it was around 6:00 PM in Boston and rush hour traffic combined with ongoing construction, made for a very slow drive to our hotel.

We are staying at the Fairmont Copely Plaza Hotel, and it was very nice, but all we could think about was getting checked in and getting some sleep as we were very tired.  We got to our room and settled in and wondered about dinner; neither of us were very hungry, so we decided to just walk to a nearby store and buy a snack as we knew we would be hungry later.

After reading and relaxing a bit, we were both in bed by 9:00 and asleep not long after that, it had been a looong day!

 

Boston Day 1

Thursday, July 20, 2023

We slept very well and very soundly last night and didn’t get up until around 9:30 so we ended up missing breakfast, but it sure felt good to get a good night’s sleep.

We didn’t have anything planned for the day, but the weather was beautiful so we decided to walk to the nearby Charles River where they have a park and walkway that runs along the river.  As the name suggests, the hotel is right on Copely Square where the historic Trinity Church is and there are quite a few other historical spots in the area as well as many restaurants.  It was a pleasant walk to the river with the weather being pleasantly warm.  We walked along the river for a bit, but we were hungry, so we decided to walk back and find somewhere to have lunch.  There were many choices in the area and we finally decided on Café Landwer, a Mediterranean restaurant.  Lunch was OK, but not great and we were a little disappointed, but it was good enough and while we probably wouldn’t go back, we didn’t regret our choice.

It was a beautiful day for a walk along the Charles River.

By the time we finished lunch it was mid-afternoon, and we decided to return to our hotel room and relax a bit.  Tomorrow, we have tickets for the Old Town Hop-on / Hop-off bus so we spent some time looking at the bus route map to see what we wanted to do.  As part of the hotel package that Ingrid, our travel agent, booked for us, we had $100 in hotel credit, so we decided to have dinner in the hotel restaurant and use that up.

We had made reservations that morning and it was a good thing we did, as the restaurant was quite busy.  The food was good, but heavily salted which spoiled it somewhat, but maybe that’s a New England thing, I don’t know.  All in all, it was still a good dinner, especially since we weren’t paying for it.

After dinner we did a short walk around Copley Square and the Trinity Church and then called it a night.  It had been a good first day in Boston.

Trinity Church

The old and the new.

Boston Day 2

Friday, July 21, 2023

We woke up this morning to some bad news.  As I lay in bed and checked my e-mail, I saw we had gotten an update about our cruise from Holland America.  It said that the Coast Guard had scheduled a full ship inspection tomorrow morning (embarkation day), and our embarkation would be delayed by several hours, instead of being in the first group boarding at 11:00 AM, we were now in the third group boarding at 2:30 PM, a big change. 

In reading some of the online responses from people on our Cruise Critic Roll Call forum, they were saying that this had happened last year and it turned into a big mess as everyone came early and had to wait in a long line outside in the heat.  The Boston cruise terminal is quite small and doesn’t have enough space for a lot of people inside.  It’s disappointing as this is bound to make for a stressful and compressed embarkation day, but there’s nothing we can do about it except go with the flow. 

Besides having the $100 general hotel credit, we also get an $80 day breakfast credit.  We didn’t use it yesterday because we slept so late, but we decided to use it today and went down to breakfast a little after nine.  Breakfast was good, but considering the high prices here, it didn’t really live up to our expectations; thank goodness we had the $80 credit to pay for it.  Before starting our day in Boston, I checked about getting a late check-out time for tomorrow and they extended the checkout time to 1:00 PM for us so we can hang around the room instead of waiting in the lobby until it’s time to go.

Today we had tickets for the Boston Old Town Trolley, a hop-on / hop-off bus so after breakfast we made our way to one of the stops that was just across from our hotel on Copely Square.  It was pretty full when we arrived but we did find seats and we were on our way.  The good weather we had yesterday was gone and the skies were gray and the temperature was cooler, so we had to adjust our expectations a bit, but we won't let it spoil our day.

We had done this same thing on our last visit to Boston, so we had already explored some of the stops, but this time we wanted to do a Harbor Tour, so we stayed on the bus until we got to the stop nearest the boat tour location.  We arrived around 11:00 AM and got tickets for the 11:30 tour.  There was a long line of people waiting to get on the boat, but it moved quickly, and the boat didn’t seem too crowded as everyone spread out.

It was only an hour tour of the harbor, but pretty interesting.  We had great views of Boston as we sailed around the waterfront and then out to the harbor entrance where there was a series of islands.  From there we looped back to the inner harbor where we saw more of the Boston waterfront including where Old Ironsides was docked.

 

Fort Independence at the harbor entrance.

Old Ironsides

An old lighthouse ship.

 

 

Back where we started.

After the cruise we were getting a little hungry and decided to have a light lunch at a nearby outdoor café.  After our lunch we walked over to the Faneuil Hall Marketplace which is a historic building where many of the meetings before the Revolutionary War took place that now hosts many small shops inside.  The surrounding area is filled with shops, entertainment and of course many places to get food.  It was a very lively area filled with people.

After walking around for a while, we decided to get back to the bus pickup spot and head back towards the hotel.  It was mid-afternoon and we were ready to do a little rest and relaxation before dinner.  It took over an hour to get back to the hotel, but it was an interesting drive and we saw many places that sparked memories of our last visit.

Fairmont Copely Plaza

 

 

 

 

We relaxed in our room for a while and then started to feel hungry.  We didn’t want to go back to the hotel restaurant, so we walked around the area and nothing seemed to interest us, and ended up just getting a hamburger and then returned to the room.

We’re still trying to catch up with our sleep, so we ended up going to bed early again and I was asleep before ten.  Tomorrow is embarkation day, but because of the delayed boarding time, we will have time to kill in the morning.

We didn't take many pictures while we were in Boston and Val just used her cell phone and I used a pocket camera, so here are links to our visit in 2016; Boston Day 1 and Boston Day 2 .