July 21, 2024 - Canadian Cruise Vacation Day 2 - Boarding the ship in Boston

My parents flew Southwest airlines to get from Oregon to Boston.  Their first flight ran late which left them with no spare time to connect in Denver and nothing to eat except Southwest snacks.  By the time they arrived after midnight they had been away from any opportunity to eat real food for about 11 hours and unfortunately, nothing obvious presented itself on our never ending walk through Boston airport to the hotel.  We did look at the few grab and go things available near the front desk of the hotel but ultimately they were pretty grim looking and my dad decided to wait until breakfast.

Breakfast started a little earlier than planned because my parents were understandably very hungry when they woke up. Brian and I joined them mid-meal at the hotel's breakfast only restaurant for eggs benedict (for me) and sticky bun french toast for Brian.  After going back and forth in my mind many times I ultimately decided to try one of Lyft's 'black car' services instead of taking 2 regular Lyft's or 1 Lyft and 1 public transit journey to get all of us and all our crap to the cruise terminal.  The experience with Lyft's professional driver, large SUV option was phenomenal.  Our driver was personable, funny and smooth.  The vehicle was a nearly new Lexus TX SUV which was gorgeous and fancy.  It was worth every bit of the 50 dollars it cost and all our stuff fit with lots of room to spare.

The arrival and check-in process at the Flynn Cruiseport Boston was superb.  As we pulled up, 2 people with baggage carts were immediately grabbing our stuff (which was all pre-tagged with Princess's clever print-at-home origami luggage tags) and directing us into the terminal.  From there it was a series of short walks with zig-zag crowd control ropes to have our passports checked, then a quick security check then a photograph and finally ushered into a very controlled orderly waiting area.  When boarding started it was done by section in small groups and again, very orderly.  The bridge between the port and the ship is very long and high off the ground and zig-zags several times before getting to the ship.  There was one last line to get our 'Medallion' scanned which I suspect was the official 'you are now on-board' demarcation for Princess.  

All through the process we heard lots of welcomes and enjoy yourself and at one point when Brian was a little harried about having passports out, a hearty 'slow down and relax'.  The vibe from the moment we arrived at the port has been that this is a fun and relaxing experience and not to feel stressed.  It's rare to have such a pleasure focused experience especially for something travel related like an airline.



 

Cabins were not ready to enter when we boarded at 11 so we went to one of the many lounges on the ship and had drinks, a light lunch and played a game and chatted.  At about 1 pm they said cabins were ready and we went to get settled in.  I wasn't sure what to expect from any aspect of the ship since this is our first cruise and a lot of times marketing materials and the reality you experience in-person are starkly different.  So far (and granted it's just the first hours of our week long vacation) it's been wonderful.  It will take me a few meals to get used to the 'all included' nature of eating and (with a drinks package) drinking on-board.  It felt so weird having a collection of food and drinks and snacks and having there be no receipt to sign or tip to leave etc.  There ARE tips that we will end up adding to the basic ones that our 'Princess Plus' package covers but it feels weird not having to tip after every interaction with every person.  We met our room attendant and covered a few simple things with him and he with us.  At this point it's just time to relax and enjoy which is what we've been waiting so long to do.







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