Touch You Last

One of the downsides to travelling on cruise ships frequently is that you’re likely to dismiss an entire city based on your very limited window of experience. If a city isn’t screamingly unique right off the bat, or if the last city was amazeballs and this city is noticeably-less-amazeballs, it’s easy to check out mentally. In my head, I briefly wrote off Portland. Probably because we started with a long walk through all the rubby-dub sections of town -- areas where heavy construction had been started but them seemingly abandoned. Sarah needed to find a TD Bank and then she wanted to visit a Trader Joes, and this dictated the path we took. I remember checking the time on my phone thinking we still have seven hours to spend in this damn port! But then we took a Lyft back to our ship, dropped off the 15 pumpkin-spiced somethings we bought at Trader Joes, and effectively rebooted our visit to Portland from there. Sarah arranged a foodie tour for us. There were I think 12 of us o...

We’re in Bar Harbor, Maine, which is a brand new state for both of us. Disembarking goes smoothly, and we’re off and wandering the town soon enough. It’s just after eight so there’s not much open, but we stroll around, getting a lay of the land and hitting various Pokestops (because we are sad adults who make Pokemon Go a priority whenever we’re in a new place.) Eventually we stop for coffee at a place called The Independent, which happens to serve the hottest Americano that the world has thusfar managed to create. I can barely carry it to our table, and I tell Sarah, “I’m gonna drink this… tomorrow.” We soak up free wifi and I manage to get the coffee inside of me, and then we head over to church because it’s Sunday. I’m hoping for a super baa-haa-baa-ry accented priest, but this one just sounds exactly like Ray Romano (who is not from Maine, so far as I know, but I’m entertained none the less.) After mass, we walk over to the water – to where the bar of Bar Harbour will later ...

Our first day at sea. We sleep in a little then try the Windjammer for breakfast and it’s a horrible mistake: just rammed. We console ourselves with nice coffees at the Diamond lounge. A little later in the day, the climbing wall opens. I go up twice and it is hard. The wall slants steadily outward and there’s fewer firm handholds than the last ship. But I make it to the top both times so hurray for me. The Flowrider is open again, but this time it’s surfing. There’s an older Australian couple on the trip (either in their late fifties or very early sixties) and they’re just crushing it while surfing. They take turns doing about eight runs a piece, looking like absolute heroes, then they notice me and apologize for hogging the ride, but I tell them not to worry because I’m totally divided about trying it. I watch for probably 20 more minutes before working up the courage to try. I know I’ll suck and my goal going in is to last four seconds by cruise end. I get to maybe three and a h...

We fly into Newark on a totally pain-free flight: breezing through security and immigration, board quickly, and snooze a lot on the plane. It’s usually disconcerting when you’re travelling without the kids because you always feel sure you’ve forgotten something, or that you can’t 100% relax because you have to scan around and make sure everyone’s happy. But we ease into our solo trip pretty naturally even on the flight. It looks like a pile of yuck for everyone at Newark trying to fly out, but we waltz on out of that airport and onto a Lyft that takes us to the cruise port. Because we’re Diamond status, we get to be among the first to board, which I have to admit is a really great perk. It’s our second trip on Royal Caribbean and our first on a Voyager class ship, the Adventure of the Seas. Key differences include the Promenade – which is a boardwalk with shops, a pub, an ice cream parlor, and other stuff; there’s also the Flowrider (a surfing simulator); a skating rink; and water...