Day 1 and 2

Flight from Santa Ana to Newark was uneventful. The taxi ride from airport to Manhattan pier took an hour though Google said it was 24 minutes. Our bad cabbie went the wrong way. Departure was right on time and the weather was beautiful so we got fantastic views of the Manhattan skyline and a good narration from the “destination director” who is originally from Alabama. As far as we can tell, most of the higher level crew is European (the captain is Italian from Naples), others are British, and the service crew is mostly from the Philippines and India. At dinnertime, we opted to join a big table and got very lucky because our dinner companions were interesting and fun --- a couple from Melbourne who have traveled to the most unusual places, including the Khyber pass in Afghanistan, an American couple who live in Utah and Montana, and two female friends, one of whom is a Brit living in Palm Springs where she cultivates an English garden and bought herself a Bentley for her 80th birthday (she doesn’t look more than 65). The next morning we were supposed to be in Newport all day, but the weather was bad and it was too dangerous to operate the tenders. The captain decided not to stay and went on to Boston. The good news was that we traversed the Cape Cod canal in daylight instead of at night. The scenery was beautiful. We arrived at Boston in the evening and went to the city at night. We walked and had a dinner in a small place in Haymarket. We returned at 9 for a drink and the 9:30 show.