Voyage of the Vikings Redux - Bar Harbor, Maine

Cruise Day 2

Sunday, July 23, 2023

We slept in a little this morning, but were up and ready to go a little after nine and had our breakfast in the Neptune Lounge.  We had a customs form to fill out for our upcoming visit to Canada, so I took care of that and by then we were sailing into Bar Harbor.  It had been quite foggy, but by the time we arrived, it had cleared and was a beautiful day.

The town of Bar Harbor. It's not very big, but bigger than can be seen in the picture.

Bar Harbor is a small town on Mount Desert Island on the Maine coast.  We visited here back in 2016 and I’ll link to that here.  Bar Harbor is very picturesque and that, along with its proximity to Acadia National Park, makes it a very popular tourist destination.  The large number of tourists, which of course makes the local businesses very happy, is not so popular with the local population because of all the traffic and congestion, so they recently voted to restrict the number of cruise ships visiting which I believe goes into effect next year, but I’m not really sure where that stands right now.

We sailed overnight from Boston (bottom) to Bar Harbor, Maine.

Bar Harbor (red marker) is located on Mount Desert Island which is connected to the mainland by a bridge.

Bar Harbor is a tender port which means we won’t be docking but ferried to shore in tenders (some of the ship’s lifeboats).  Val and I had no plans for the morning, so we waited until around noon to tender ashore.

The larger lifeboats serve as tenders.  Here is one waiting to take its place at the ship's tender platform to take on passengers to be ferried into Bar Harbor.

We wandered around town for a bit looking in some of the shops and then started looking for a place to eat lunch.  Val had read about a place called Geddy’s which was supposed to have good food, so we looked around until we found it.  It was very crowded, but we were seated right away despite that.

We had lunch at Geddy's.

Geddy’s is a kind of funky, casual, friendly seafood restaurant, with a varied menu serving pizzas, sandwiches and of course lobster (we are in Maine after all).  I chose a lobster roll and Val had a lobster stew and they were both very good.  For desert Val had the "Classic Maine Blueberry Pie" with ice cream and I had the "Blueberry Whoopie Pie Sundae" that was very chocolaty and huge.  They were both very good, but but mine was huge and I couldn’t finish it.

Val is enjoying her lobster stew.

Val's blueberry pie.

After lunch, we continued our walk around town and found a bench in the shade to sit on with a nice view of the harbor.  The day had gotten quite warm with a temperature in the high seventies, so the shade was nice.

We had a ship excursion planned for 4:00 PM so after relaxing a bit, we made our way back to the tender dock where we joined our tour.   

The tender dock is directly behind where I'm taking this picture from.

Our tour is called the Victorian Homes of Mount Desert Island and will mostly be a bus tour.  Mount Desert Island is the island that Bar Harbor is on.  Mount Desert Island was and is the home and/or summer home to many wealthy people and they have built very large homes or “cottages” as they like to call them.  The Rockefellers were one of the very rich who lived here, and they did a lot for the island and the establishment of Acadia National Park.  We also learned that Martha Stewart has a 35,000 square foot “vacation” home here.

As we drove out of town, we could see our ship in the harbor.

One of the contributions of the Rockefellers was the carriage roads.  From 1913 to 1940 John Rockefeller Jr. had 45 miles of carriage roads built that allowed carriages and horses to get around the island without being bothered by automobile noise or traffic.  They are now used mainly for hiking and bicycling, but I think they are still also used by horses.  The bridge in the picture allows the carriage road to pass over the highway rather than having to cross it.

Besides driving past some of the beautiful large “cottages”, we also drove through Acadia National Park.  Val and I had toured the park when we were here in 2016 so we were already familiar with it.  We ended up touring around most of the island stopping at some scenic sports along the way.  One of the stops was the small village of Southwest Harbor where we had some time to walk around a bit.  Our driver recommended a bakery that had blueberry doughnuts so Val and I each got one and I have to admit, they were delicious.

This was a short tour as we had to be back to the ship before 6:30, but we really enjoyed it.  Besides visiting many scenic spots, our guide was very knowledgeable about the history and life on Mount Desert Island and entertaining to listen to.  Val and I really enjoyed this tour.

We got back just in time for the last tender back to the ship and were in our cabin just after 6:30.

The inside of the tender as we head back to the ship.  It was the last tender so there is hardly anyone on it, but at the peak times they are filled up and quite crowded.

We went out on the balcony to watch us sail out of Bar Harbor, but that was cut short as it was time to get ready for dinner.

Dinner was again quite good and then it was time for our first visit to the casino for the cruise.  Val had a very good night, but me, not so much.  We called it a night around ten and went back to our room and relaxed until it was time for bed.  We’ll have a time change tonight so the clocks will be set forward one hour meaning we’ll lose an hour of sleep.  Tomorrow is a sea day, so we be able to sleep in and make up for it.