The sun is smiling on us again today, the sunrise as we sail into Bar Harbor is stupendous…
…and it’s quite a bit warmer. Just beautiful. We have immigration today. Yuck! We also have a 10:00 tour booked and the immigration schedule for our deck doesn’t really work. We ask reception and they tell us the schedule is just for organizational purposes. If we need to be off earlier than our schedule, just go with the first group. Ok – we can do that! We watch from our balcony as the Immigration Agents come aboard….
…then hoof it downstairs to go through the process. In the end, the immigration is a breeze – but to be honest, it is the first unorganized thing we have seen on this ship. To date, after almost 2 weeks, we can honestly say that these guys are a study of efficiency. Everything has been spot on, organized, done right, from organizing the tenders, getting off the ship (even with gangway issues), Latitudes club parties where there are servers constantly refilling your drinks (as opposed to most other lines where you are lucky to get your one drink and nothing more), and customer service who is always happy, courteous and helpful. But this was a little bit of a miss – only in terms of set up. It was impossible to figure out where the immigration line started and where you should be. We circled the ship once before we figured it out – once we were there – it was fine – just frustrating trying to find it.
We breezed through within minutes and were on one of the first tenders to leave the ship. So no complaints at all, in the final analysis. We were so early that we got a chance to explore the town of Bar Harbor a bit before our 2 hour Trolley tour. On the trolley tour, our itinerary has been changed – because of course the tour was supposed to focus on Arcadia National Park, and well, that’s not going to happen during the shut down. But instead we spent a lovely 2 hours driving through the park (on town roads), learning why Bar Harbor got its name (because of a sand bar that you can walk across at low tide, but that disappears and leaves you stranded on the other side at high tide!) and visiting two small villages where the “wealthy folks” have settled and have summer homes (including Martha Stewart).
The colors are wonderful and the town is really quite nice for a tourist destination.
After the tour we are planning on lunch and our trolley driver/tour guide says that the West Café is the best place for lunch – all the trolley drivers recommend it. Well, yeah, and all the trolleys disgorge their passengers right across the street. Thus there are hordes of people in line waiting to be seated. We sigh, and decide to search out another place for vittles, until we spy the “lounge door”. Yeah – that’s us. We walk in and are seated at 2 empty spots at the bar – immediately (as opposed to the 45 minute wait for a table)! We’d rather be here anyway!
And true to the recommendations, this place is great. I end up with the lobster combo special – chowder (which we change for lobster bisques), full lobster, coleslaw, french fries and a piece of local blueberry pie (which is really highly recommended!). Ed has Haddock au gratin which is excellent as well. and they have Leaf Peeper Ale! Cute!
Now stuffed to the gills (excuse the pun!), we head out to wander the town, hitting the Brewery tasting room, exploring the touristy shops and then settling into the Cottage Street Pub which is a narrow little pub right up our alley. We hang out there for a bit, talking to everyone and enjoying a relaxing afternoon with Leaf Peeper Ale and a bartender who really knows how to pour!!
We meander back down to the tender pier, hop our ride and spend the rest of the afternoon on our balcony in the sun.
No comments:
Post a Comment