After a pleasant evening in Chicopee, MA we made it to Boston on Friday morning. Since our appointment to drop off the car was at 11:30, we had a leisurely morning with only an hour and a half to drive. We stopped outside of Boston for gas and happened upon a grocery store called Market Basket. We recognized the name from our house sits years ago in New Hampshire. It was the nicest store, and we ended up having smoothies and hanging out in the café area there for a while.
Then we headed into the Boston burbs to find our parking garage. We were pleasantly surprised to find it in an upscale hotel-turned-apartment-building in a beautiful neighborhood. We parked the car in the underground covered garage with the help of a very nice attendant and ordered an Uber to our hotel in Chelsea…very close to the cruise port.
It was quite a relief to find ourselves safely tucked in at the Hampton hotel in Boston, with one more night to go before embarking on the Zuiderdam. While the trip from Eau Claire to Boston went relatively smoothly, it was still stressful and tiring. We were also happy to find that we were just a block away from another Market Basket, so we had wings and salads for dinner and settled in for the night.
On Saturday morning we packed up and ordered another Uber to drive us to the cruise port. Driving into the waterfront area was a pretty tricky business, with crazy Saturday morning traffic and lots of road construction. We were very happy to have a driver who was clearly comfortable in the city and delivered us safely and on time to the correct cruise port.
The lines were long, and it probably took close to an hour to get from the baggage check area, through safety checks, and onto the ship; but, we were onboard by about 12:30. What a total relief! We dropped our carryon bags off in our rooms and hit the buffet…of course! Later in the day, our checked bags were delivered so that we could settle in and unpack before dinner. And, oh my, dinner was excellent! Dave had a salmon bowl as a main course after his beet salad appetizer. I had pork medallions in lingonberry sauce over a bed of sweet potato puree with roasted Brussel sprouts. I totally FORGOT how great the food is on Holland America ships.
Tonight, we are stuffed and exhausted…but in a good way. Let’s see what tomorrow brings.