Canada, Greenland, & Iceland 2022

  Our day in Bar Harbor started out with a mandatory US Border Immigration inspection with a face to passport comparison.  This went fairly fast despite a line that stretched half the length of the ship. We then boarded a large local tender that whisked us to shore.  The Zaandam was hovering nearby, but they were using their own tenders.   To get oriented, we took a $20 trolley tour that was really valuable.  Bar Harbor was once the playground of the rich and famous like Rockefeller, Chase, Guggenheim, and the like.  They all built "cottages" which are really mansions.  Nowadays those that survived are boutique lodging or other businesses.  Other smaller houses built in later times filled in the gaps and now it's a "middle class" area per our guides. We then walked Main Street in a light rain before stopping for a lobster roll lunch.  It was yummy, but I liked the Halifax version better. We then walked some more until our 3:15 bus excursion to see Acadia Nationa

  Today's stop in Halifax was another nice stop, but there was not near enough time to take much in. We reviewed the options in our walking app, GPS My City, and there were two walks.     We settled on one that involved walking up to the Citadel fortress.     Along the way we visited St. Mary's Catholic Basilica.     It's a pretty simple church inside, but has magnificent stained glass windows.     Upon reaching the Citadel, we paid the admission fee ($10.75Cdn each for seniors), and watched a changing of the guard before entering the courtyard.     We spotted a platoon of 'soldiers' carrying sticks so we followed them up in the wall where they drilled the procedures for firing the cannon.  Later at noon as we were walking down George Street, they lit off the cannon. We both jumped as did a nearby worker.    Back at the fort we watched a bagpipe and drum presentation and toured the Army museum and the regimental museum.  It's an easy walk up there from the port

  With an hour time change backward last night, we easily rose in time to attend BettyAnn's 9am coffee chat.     Only this time it was hosted by her boss, Benny, the entertainment director.     The big take away from this session was her description of how the Cruise & Travel Director has changed.     Now the Cruise & Travel Director reports to the Entertainment Director.     Her principal duties are to make public announcements, introduce World Stage entertainment, & read the teleprompter during the EXC talks.       In the next hour she presented the EXC talk on Finding Happiness.  Then she hosted the ASK THE CAPTAIN session.  The big take away from that session was that there was only one Covid case among the crew this cruise.  He refused to provide statistics on passenger Covid case counts other than to indicate the case numbers were declining currently and that they had peaked during our time in Iceland.   After lunch, there was a short Meet the Artist session with

  Today we visited the third new country for us on this voyage: St. Pierre & Miquelon.     It's a group of 3 major islands that are nestled below Newfoundland.     They are not part of Canada, are French speaking and heavily subsidized by France. It's France's toehold in the Western Hemisphere.   We tendered to shore and did a 10 minute walk to the ferry dock where we had a chartered passenger ferry to Sailor Island. This small island was once home to  the fishing industry and cod fish were dried on the island.  The island now is an open air museum with well curated paths, houses and other buildings, and signage.   We spent a couple hours there before taking our chartered ferry back to St. Pierre.   Back at the dock we walked to the nearby park and boarded a chartered coach for a couple hour island tour.  After the tour we walked around the town and chatted with Ann & Frank a bit before walking back to the tender area.  There we listened to some local musicians and

  What wonderful day this day turned out to be!     We arrived in St. John's Newfoundland after passing through a VERY narrow passage into a large bay.     Fortunately there was a docking location right in the heart of downtown and right behind a US Coast Guard cutter, Bear.     We had a pre-booked 3 hour excursion with McCarthy's Party and we exited the ship and made our way to the pickup point.     There were about 17 of us on a small tour bus van and our driver, David Welshman or 'Dave' greeted us with a friendly smile and we were soon on our way.     We picked up a few people at local hotels besides our group.       We headed out of town to Spears Point where there is a lighthouse and WWII gun emplacements.  The scenic views were spectacular. Afterwards we drove down to Petty Harbour which is a quaint little fishing village and now a popular tourist and vacation attraction. From there we visited Signal Hill and the John Cabot monument.  This location has terrific vi

  Our 7am arrival came way too early on this Sunday morning. So we didn't get up until the tender operation started.     We took time for breakfast and then packed up and headed down to the tender deck.     We were last on the tender and we were sitting right next to the edge as the tender slammed into the tender platform.     Then we had rushing water pass by us as the tender plied its way to the shore.     Once on land we headed off to walk to the Fox Point lighthouse which was about 1.5?miles away.     We passed by a PBY Catalina that was displayed in a small park.     The views at the lighthouse we very nice.     There was a nice souvenir shop and the owners built it themselves as a retirement project. They come up here every summer and work the shop, live in their trailer, and then return for the winter in their home in St. John, Newfoundland.   We then walked to the other end of town and bought some sodas at a Canada dollar store before eating lunch at Tim Horton's and ac