We woke up in Portland, Maine today. We got ourselves dressed for the day and then headed to the International Market around 8:30am for some breakfast. We enjoyed our breakfast and then headed to the Symphony Dining Room on deck 5 to check in for today’s tour. We signed up for a lobster bake on Peaks Island today. The crew member in charge was cracking jokes while we waited for our group to be called. At around 9:30am, we were sent off the ship.
Once on shore, we met our guide for the morning. He walked us over the ferry terminal and we waited for our ferry to Peaks Island to arrive. He is a retired school principal who now does tours. The ferry showed up at 10:15am. We waited for it to unload and then we boarded the ferry. The trip to Peaks Island was only 10 or 15 minutes. Our guide pointed our a few landmarks along the way such as a couple of lighthouses, a pipeline pier, and Fort Gorges. The fort was built from 1861 to 1868 during the America civil war. The problem is that the civil war ended in 1865, so the fort was never actually used. It is now in a state of disrepair. As we approached Peaks Island, we saw some people swimming from House Island to Peaks Island. They were having a swimrun competition that ends on Peaks Island. A race has sections of running and swimming.
We arrived on Peaks Island and walked up the hill a little ways to The Inn on Peaks Island. They had a room in the restaurant set up for our feast. We all found a spot and then they started to bring out our food. We started with some clam chowder. It is some of the best clam chowder we’ve eaten. After the clam chowder, they brought a platter that included mussels, a full lobster, corn on the cob, and potatoes. It was very messy, but very tasty. The placemat had instructions on how to properly dissect the lobster and get all the meat out of it. The kids weren’t fans of the mussels, but they enjoyed the rest. For dessert they brought out slices of vanilla cake with blueberry filling. The meal was very enjoyable.
Once we were done eating, we had the option of returning to the ferry or exploring the island a bit. We elected to do the latter. We walked along the road in front of the inn. It had some nice views over the water. We ended up at a greenspace where the finish line for the swimrun race was. We saw a few people cross the finish line. We didn’t see much else to do in the area of the island we were in, so we returned to the ferry terminal. We watched a couple of families and a school of small fish swimming in the water around the terminal while we waited for the ferry. We boarded the ferry at 12:30pm and returned to Portland. On the way back, we saw a large yacht docked in the marina in front of our ship.
There were some local vendors set up along the sidewalk on the way to the cruise terminal. We looked through their goods on our way back. We didn’t see much else that interested us around the cruise terminal, so we made our way back to the ship. Patrick had made some friends onboard and he was eager to hang out with them.
We relaxed on the ship for the afternoon. We explored the ship some more and found a couple of new areas. It is a pretty ship, but kind of weird to navigate. There are areas on deck and on the lower decks that are blocked, so you can’t just walk from one end of the ship to the other. You have to go to a higher or lower deck to get past the obstacle, and then return to the desired deck. There is no deck that you can walk from one end of the ship to the other completely outdoors. We also spent some time relaxing in our cabin. Darrell looked up the yacht we saw earlier. It’s called M&EM, which is a weird name. The owner isn’t public information, but it was built in Europe for the measly price of 95 million euros. It can host 12 people in 6 rooms along with 19 crew.
We headed down to dinner at 6:00 and went to the correct dining room this time. We were quickly seated. We all had beef tenderloin for dinner which was pretty tasty. The kids elected to skip dessert and abandoned the adults to hang out in the teen club.
Darrell and Amanda wandered the onboard stores for a bit until it was time for a game show called “Yes or No”. They brought people on stage and had a conversation/asked questions to them for 3 minutes. If they said “yes” or “no” or any variation of those words including nodding or shaking their heads, they lose. If they can make it the full 3 minutes without using “yes” or “no”, they win a bottle of champagne. The game was 45 minutes long and only 2 people managed to make it the full 3 minutes. The worst time was a whopping 14 seconds. It was entertaining to watch.
Once the game show was over, Darrell and Amanda went to the evening show. It was a production show called Fiera and was circus themed. The daughter of the circus owner falls in love, but Dad doesn’t approve and tries to keep them apart. The show was awesome. It is probably the best production show we’ve seen on a cruise ship.
After the show, we returned to our cabin and called it a day.