Retirement Cruise

To celebrate my retirement, we decided to go on a cruise.  We chose one out of Boston so we flew to Boston on Sat. Oct. 1.  It was conference weekend, so we watched conference at the airport in between flights and at our hotel when we arrived, on Mike's tablet.  (I love technology!)

Sunday morning, we took a shuttle to the ship Serenade of the Sea.  We got there just in time for lunch and then watched conference on the ship.

The first night there, we sat down at our assigned table to eat and found that 5 of the 6 people at our table had our same last name. Whaaaaat!  We sat across from Norman and Janice Cline, and next to them was Sherrie Cline, and then her mom Lynn Cox.  How fun was that, we tried to find a relative link, but weren't able to find one. 

Monday morning we arrived in Portland Maine, a beautiful little town.  

Monday, we went to the Portland museum of Art where we spent much of the day. This town is the home of Winslow Homer, one of Mike's favorite artists.  They had a room with lots of his oil paintings in it.

We enjoyed walking around the town, we loved the old buildings and the brick roads and sidewalks.

Portland is a BEAUTIFUL place!

Tues. we spent touring Bar Harbor Maine

We spent most of our time in Acadia National Park.  I think this was one of my very favorite places we visited on our entire trip.

We took a hop on hop off tour and were able to see so many gorgeous sites.

We were expecting to see all the beautiful fall colors, but they were just barely turning.

Lots of pine trees at Arcadia.

We couldn't leave Maine without stopping at the Seaside Grill for some Lobster,  Yummmm!

Wednesday we were off to explore St. John in New Brunswick Canada.  

They must have lots of moose there, because there were moose on all the t-shirts and moose statues all over the place.

There were beautiful parks and tons of pigeons.

very, cool buildings,

Fun homes, that we just wandered around and looked at.

Thursday was a day at sea.

The weather was beautiful so we sat out on the deck and read for part of the day.  We also got in a couple of games of shuffle board.

Mike had lobster again for dinner.

I had an amazing marinated chicken.  All the food was delicious, and we should know, we tried it all!

Thurs. was a formal dinner so we got dressed up.

Friday we spent the day in Halifax, Nova Scotia Canada.  

We did the 3 hour walking tour and saw so many cool buildings

A cemetery where lots of the people from the Titanic were buried. 

They had an incredible International Garden

So many beautiful flowers

awesome gazebos, 

More pretty flowers,

They shot off a cannon at 12;00 and we were right there!

We got to see the most photographed lighthouse in the country. 

A selfie as we were leaving.

It's always fun to come back to our room and see what they have turned a towel into.

A cute elephant one of the nights.

This was pretty much my breakfast for most of the mornings, their waffles were amazing!

The entertainment was great, the Serenade of the Seas, singers and dancers put on several programs.

We saw Jim McCue, a very funny guy.

Lance Ringald, a two time Olympic gold medalist for gymnastics, also an amazing singer, piano player, comedian, and memory whiz guy!

And the Las Vegas Tenors, AWESOME singers.

Sunday morning we got off the ship in Boston and there was a tour bus waiting to take us on a tour of Boston.  It was a rainy day, so we didn't get to hop off and see lots of the sights, the tour guide just told us about them as we viewed them from the bus.  (I grabbed pictures from the internet, because my pictures looked like this.)

We saw the statue of Paul Revere

We drove around Fenway Park where Babe Ruth got his start.

We did get out and see the beautiful Trinity church

The John Hancock building, (tallest building between Boston and Europe) The tour guide told us a crazy story about all they went through to build that building.

We saw the Old North Church, oldest church in Boston.

After our tour, we were dropped off at the airport.  It was a wonderful trip!!!