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Sunkissed Adventures Family Travel Blog

Boston Tea Party Ship & Museum

10/19/2014

So next on my agenda was to walk over to the Silver Line. Something made me believe it was a subway, but no, it’s the bus. We planned to take it to the Courthouse and then walk to the Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum. So we get to the bus stop. I am digging around for my Charlie Card. I can’t find it anywhere. The bus arrives and all I have is a $20. The driver says we won’t get change back. So I walked off the bus. I think the encounter back at the curb-side check-in rattled my brain. I was frustrated. So I told my husband I want this trip to start on a good note and so far, nothing is going right. We decided to skip the ship & museum and just get on the ship. There is a certain comfort for me once I get on the ship. I’ve made it. We’re here. Time to be happy!

So we walk back over to the terminal and ask where an elevator is because we have a stroller. Meanie Weanie comes over and barks at us that “they aren’t even boarding yet” and to hold my horses. The cop I was originally speaking with pointed us in the direction of the elevators. We were on the ship in under 10 minutes. So much for “not boarding yet.” So we finally boarded the ship and, of course, headed to the Windjammer. This would become a second home for us this week.

Attempting to Board the Brilliance of the Seas

10/18/2014

So we get out of the taxi. Unload our bags. Immediately a police officer tells us we need to clear the area. He points me in the direction of a line of people and a lady who works for the port. We head over that way. They woman throws her arm in my face and yells “Stop! Where are you going?” I explained that the officer told us to take our bags (3 suitcases, a car seat, stroller, a diaper bag, and 2 backpacks) over in this direction. I also explained that I needed luggage tags. Her response was “Only people with luggage tags can pass this line.” So I ask where I can get luggage tags. She says “Not here.” Okay. Thanks for being specific lady…

So I walk back in the direction I came from and asked a baggage handler. He tells me that there is a booth, behind the lady who had just yelled at me, where I can get tags. So I turn around again and walk toward the booth. The woman stops me again and berates me for trying to go past her. She muttered something about me not listening and being young and stupid, then asks me if this was my first cruise ever. I didn’t even respond to her. I walked right past her to the booth. Of course she is yelling at me the entire time that I walk away from her.

I asked him where I need to go from there. He tells me to have a baggage handler take my bags. Okay, so I walk over to the curb area. Mean lady yells at me again. “What are you doing, where are you going? You can’t go there with bags!” Ahhhh! I finally turned to her and said “You tell me I can’t go here. You tell me I can’t go there. Where would you like me to go? You don’t seem to know what you are doing and you work here. So who is the stupid one?” I generally don’t lose my cool with people, but this woman was just plain irritating. A baggage handler took our bags. As I walked away from the chaos two other guests came up to me and said she did the same thing to them. Okay, so I wasn’t the only person, phew!

As it turns out, I was supposed to wait in a line for the next available baggage handler to take our bags. The line was very long too. I felt really bad for essentially cutting the line. But between being yelled at and told I cant do this or that I wasn’t able to concentrate!

The best laid plans...

10/17/2014

Our original plan for Sunday was to sleep in a little, grab breakfast, check out, drop our bags at the port, head over to the Boston tea Party Ships & Museum, then board the Brilliance. The Best Laid Plans of Mice & Men Often Go Awry…

We slept in for a bit. I called the front desk to find out what time we had to check out. I was pleasantly surprised to hear NOON! That was great. We left our bags in the room and headed off to the other restaurant that the concierge has mentioned for breakfast. Elephant & Castle. It was less than a 5 minute walk from the hotel. It was a cute pub style establishment, but very clean. We had a nice hearty breakfast there. I was looking through their dinner menu and decided that we should have eaten dinner there the previous night. Lots of yummy dishes. I would have ordered the Shepherd’s Pie. Service was good, food was good, and our son cooperated!! I could not ask for anything more.

Back to the hotel we went. Gathered up our bags. Check out. Hopped in a cab to the port. Upon arrival to the port I kept thinking, “Wow, this is really industrial!” We unloaded our bags and I began to search for a place to get luggage tags. Now I am going to step away from my review for a moment to tell you a little bit about what happened the week leading up to our cruise. Yes, it’s related.

Exactly one week before the cruise my Crown & Anchor account was deleted. I was able to get it straightened out. If you’re interested in the details you can view my panic post here: http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2107793

Then four days before the cruise I received a call from Royal offering me a complimentary upgrade. We were originally booked in a Cat G Oceanview. 3606. They offered E3. 7646. I checked a deck plan and accepted it. There were staterooms above us, no big deal. Yay. Happy news. An hour or two later I get a call from Royal stating that if I do not pay my $700 balance by 5pm my reservation will be cancelled. I freak out. After an hour on the phone, they fixed the problem. The person who upgraded us must have made a mistake. Thankfully the reservation was noted with the info and we still had the free upgrade.

Now at this point I did not have luggage tags for the new room. My docs/set sail pass updated with the new room, but not the tags. No biggie. We’d do it at the port. hahaha. Silly me thinking this would be no problem!

Saturday Night Dinner

10/17/2014

At this point my husband said that we should probably find dinner. The sun was starting to set and it was still a bit damp outside. We walked for a while stopping in to a few places to check out the menus. Again, we wanted something easy and kid friendly. I do not have a reputation of being easy when it comes to picking a place for dinner. My husband gets annoyed with me when we want to go out. I either know exactly what I want or I say “no” and “I don’t know” to every option my husband names. So we wandered through the theater district toward our hotel. We decided to ask the concierge about a few places. He recommended a couple places but let us know that there would be a significant wait because it was Saturday night. He also said that we were more than welcome to eat in the Hyatt restaurant. I asked if we were dressed okay or it we needed to go upstairs to change. He said we were dressed fine!

In we went to Avenue One. The hostess did not seem too happy to seat us. Maybe it was because we weren’t “dressed up” or maybe because my son was with us. Everyone in the restaurant was dressed nicely. We felt very out of place. We requested seats in the middle because there were big chairs and we figured my son would be confined in one and cooperate a little better. Unfortunately I was tired at this point and didn’t take any pictures of the restaurant area. I grabbed a photo off of Google, hopefully I don’t get in trouble for that…

My husband and I both ordered the “Chicken Cuban.” Now we are from south Florida, I don’t know why we thought we would get a good Cuban sandwich in Boston. It was bad. A Cuban sandwich usually consists of Cuban bread, yellow mustard, ham, and pickles. THIS Cuban had ham, chicken, Dijon mustard, and no pickle. The chicken was VERY thick (think an entire breast). I give them credit for trying but it really failed miserably! We ordered the Gluten Free chicken fingers for my son. No, we don’t keep gluten free, but that was the menu option. Everything on the kids menu was very healthy. Fries were not a side option, instead they offered broccoli or carrot sticks. I liked that! My son, very quickly, began to act up. Our food took forever. By the time it arrived my son was near meltdown. I took him to run around upstairs in the meetings room lobby (it was empty) while my husband ate his sandwich. Then I came down, my husband took our son up to the room, and I ate my meal.

That ended our Saturday night!

Boston Common

10/16/2014

We slept for 2 hours, all three of us! We woke up around 4ish and my next plan was to explore Boston Common, a few steps from the hotel. So we freshened up and headed back out. The sky was looking pretty miserable at this point but I had a mission and no amount of drizzle was going to get in my way. As soon as we stepped foot in the park, the skies opened up and it rained. We walked through the rain and paused every once and a while to snap a photo. We walked through the main area, then crossed Charles Street to the side with the ducks and gardens. I wanted to find the “Make Way for Ducklings” area. It started raining even harder at this point. We saw a shelter that is used to the Swan Boats and hid under there. A band was playing (violin, keyboard, etc). At first I thought it was odd. Then I spotted this cute couple under the shelter snuggling. The girl had a huge grin on her face and she swayed along with the music. All of a sudden the guy asked her to marry him! He had asked the band to be there and play her favorite song. It was sweet, probably didn’t plan for the downpour, but she was still overjoyed!

Once the rain let up a bit, we continued on our journey through the park. We walked over the bridge and toward the garden area. Then we headed over to Beacon Street. I wanted a photo op by the Cheers bar. Thankfully it’s right on the edge of the park, so we snapped a few photos then headed back in to the park toward “Make Way for Ducklings.” I had finally found it, in the corner of the park by Beacon Street and Charles St. My son loved petting and sitting on the bronze statues. We spent a good 20 minutes there letting him run around.

The Freedom Trail

10/15/2014

We woke up somewhat early. I wanted to start the day as soon as I could because I had very ambitious plans for the day. We asked the concierge for something family friendly for breakfast. He explained that because it was Saturday in the financial district not much was open. He recommended Elephant & Castle or a small diner. We started our walk and came upon the small diner-style place. I don’t even know it’s name, but I think it was on Arch Street just past Downtown Crossing. We had scrambled eggs, potatoes, and toast. Not the greatest food I’ve ever eaten, but it gave us something to go on for the morning. From there we headed back toward Boston Common and began the Freedom Trail. Just as we approached the park it began to drizzle. I came prepared though. Before the trip I bought a rain-proof cover for my son’s stroller. This turned out to be a life-saver for this day. We kept it on him all day. There were vented sides so he could get fresh air, yet protected him from the rain.

I won’t bore you with the details of how the Freedom Trail went for us. No, I don’t think it was boring, but we didn’t do anything spectacular. We basically walked the trail. Stopped at a few of the landmarks for pictures and to explore. The rain somewhat limited how many place we went in to because we’d have to take off our rain jackets, stroller cover, etc. We did spend the most time in the Granary graveyard. We searched for all the “famous” names buried there. We found them all except Paul Revere. We really wanted to find him because he was the one to alert the minutemen of the coming troops. My husband owns a franchise location of Minuteman Press, so we always get a kick out of minuteman related things. I will include some of the pictures from our walk for you to enjoy.

Boston Children's Museum

10/15/2014

Once we woke up from a nap, around 5pm, we headed off to our next adventure. The Boston Children’s Museum. Target sponsors a program on Friday nights where it costs $1 to get in! I found this lovely tidbit of information a couple months before our trip and made it a point to visit. I wanted something for my son to enjoy and this really seemed to fit the bill nicely. So we set out toward the museum on foot. It was a 20 minute walk for us. Not too bad. The weather was nice (for us) so we didn’t mind it. I don’t think I’d ever walk that far at home with the heat and humidity we have in south Florida. It was a nice leisurely walk that gave us the opportunity to see the city. It had started to “mist.” I don’t know the correct term for it, it wasn’t quite rain, but it was misty out! My son loved it. We arrived around 6pm, grabbed a quick dinner at Au Bon Pain? (There aren’t any of those near us back home, but it was like Panera). It was located in the lobby area of the museum. Sorry if anyone expected us to be showing up at fine dining establishments in Boston. The 19 month old would never allow for that on this trip!

So we went in to the museum after soup and sandwiches . There are multiple floors with a variety of exhibits. We went to the toddler area on the 2nd floor. We spent the next two hours there. My son was fighting us when we decided it was time to go. There were so many sensory, play, and exploration style things for him to do in the toddler area. I highly recommend this museum for anyone with children or grandchildren that may live around or visit Boston! Click the photos to view them larger.

My original plan was to take a taxi back to the hotel. My husband and I were not tired, so we decided we’d brave the streets of Boston at 8/9pm. Some people think I am nuts, but I’m pretty brave when it comes to exploring on my own. I once walked from Vondel Park to Dam Square/ Royal Palace of Amsterdam, with just my friend and my mom, at night. Call me silly, call me stupid, but I’m pretty good with directions and keep quite aware of my surroundings. I stay in well lit places and on main streets. The walk from the Children’s Museum back to our hotel was nice. We got to see the city a little less busy. The big buildings were all lit up, the mist made it look mysterious! Upon arrival back at the hotel we gave our son a bath and put him to bed for the evening. Hubby and I watched a little TV and crashed soon after. Remember, our day had started at 2am!

John F Kennedy Library

10/14/2014

Once we dropped our bags in the room and took a moment to relax, we set out for the day. We needed to get some lunch in our bellies but didn’t want to take up too much time. There was a Chipotle less than 5 minutes walk from the hotel. When we arrived the line was down the steps and out the door. We contemplated what to do and decided to just stay in line. 95% of the people in line were getting it to-go and the seating area was empty! After a 20 minute wait we got our food, chowed down and headed to Downtown Crossing T station. The kid meals are served on cardboard trays. This reminds me of school lunch. As a former teacher I recognize these trays anywhere. I thought it was funny to see Chipotle using them for the kids’ meals! As we got down stairs we had to figure out how it all works. There was a lady at a booth who explained it to us. She gave us a Charlie Card and instructed us to put $2.10 per person per trip (not including our son). So we added $8.40 to the card and off we went!

We took the Red Line T to the JFK /UMass stop. We got off and walked over to the sign that gave instructions for the Kennedy Library. It runs on Route 2. The bus came after about 10 minutes of waiting. It takes you through UMass campus and drops you off right in front of the Library (2nd stop). It was a free bus. I have previously visited two other Presidential Libraries: George W Bush (Dallas) and Jimmy Carter (Atlanta) so I was a bit let down by this one. I felt like it was smaller and provided less information than the other two. It’s not terrible by any means, but I think I had expected more of it because of JFK’s whole legacy with being assassinated and all. When you enter there is a 15 minute movie in a theater that you watch and then head downstairs to see the exhibits. My son fell asleep during the movie (which we were thankful for because this was normally nap time for him.) We walked through the exhibit section somewhat quickly. The building was very neat looking. I loved that it was on the water. Unfortunately it was a chilly and cloudy day so I didn’t get any great shots of the building or view. My son and husband had fun plane spotting, as the flight path toward Boston Logan was right overhead. We took the bus/ T combo back to the hotel and the whole family took a nice warm nap!

Shipping up to Boston!

10/13/2014

The morning of the trip started very early in our house. We originally had planned to wake up around 5am and get to the airport at 6am for our 8am flight. Coincidentally, my husband and I woke up at 2am and neither one of us could get back to sleep. So both of us got up and got busy around the house. I emptied the dishwasher and ran a load of laundry, he spent time on the computer obsessing about something he ordered and was going to be delivered while we were away!

My father in law arrived at about 5am and we loaded up his car with 3 large suitcases, a car seat, a stroller, a diaper bag, and two backpacks. I didn’t think it would fit, but we managed to squeeze it all in! On the ride to Ft Lauderdale airport I was checking the weather. Friday (arrival day) looked like clear weather. Saturday (the next day) was supposed to rain all day. The temps were ranging in the mid to low 60s. I had planned for us to walk to Freedom Trail Saturday. I was getting worried that it would dampen our plans!

We had an extra guest coming along with us on this trip. Thankfully he didn't cost us any extra money. Flat Stanley joined us for our adventures throughout Boston. So you may see him in his blue jeans and orange shirt in some pictures!

Airport check-in was uneventful. I've gotten pretty good at flying with a kid, this was our 4th time. We were the first to our gate and waited patiently while chasing our son around the terminal. The flight crew arrived early and so they let us board a little early as well. We were flying JetBlue direct from Fort Lauderdale to Boston. My son has flown three times previously- Southwest, United, and American. I would rate JetBlue as being equally child friendly to Southwest and WAY more adult friendly (I love what they INCLUDE!!) If you’re unaware of what comes with JetBlue flight, they allow one free bag per person, by January all of their planes have free wi-fi, more leg room than other airlines, Dunkin Donuts Coffee, and a variety of decent snacks! Let me explain why I say that JetBlue is child friendly. They allow families to board before general boarding. This gives me the time to get my son’s car seat installed. Two other airlines I have traveled on would not allow this and I struggled to carry a car seat down an aisle without hitting other passengers. On JetBlue I was able to install the carseat without being in a rush. This means my son was safer on this trip because the airline gave me the chance to get everything situated. The extra legroom also helps prevent the car seat from pushing up against the person in front of him. Now my son is hit or miss on airplanes. This leg- he cried, not terribly, but he wanted out of his seat. I was not going to let that happen because the next thing would have been him running up and down the aisles! I gave him a snack and he fell asleep for about half the flight. Once he woke up we played the distraction game- magazine, stuffed animal, tickles, etc.

We landed at 11am. We hopped in a taxi that was nice enough to allow me to install my son’s car seat. It was a $26 cab ride from the airport to the hotel. We did have a mini-van taxi and that resulted in an additional $6 charge for the ride. I wasn’t sure we’d fit in a regular taxi. I had planned for us to go to our hotel, have them hold our bags while we explored, and come back later to check in. We booked the Hyatt Regency Boston. I still can’t figure out if we were in the Theater District, Financial District, or Chinatown, lol. Making a right out of the hotel led to theaters, a left led to financial/business buildings, and another direction was Chinatown. Regardless of that, it was a nice location for us based on what we had planned to do while in town. So we arrived at the hotel and I asked them to hold our bags, the receptionist told me our room was ready! So we were able to drop our bags and spend a few minutes getting situated. We had a room on the 15th floor with a nice view! They came quickly with a pack n play for my son and even added a nice padded mattress to the bottom. The room was spacious and just what we needed. Good location, clean, and a great deal (Boston can be just as expensive as New York sometimes).

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