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New England and Canada Cruise – Day 4, St. John, New Brunswick

October 19th, 2009

More photos from the cruise have been posted. Click on any of the photos in this post to see the Day 4 albums.

Our 4th day on the cruise meant another port stop, this time in St. John, New Brunswick in Canada. I was excited to add another Canadian province to my list (and Maddie added another country to hers!). We had to set our clocks forward an hour and had another early morning shore excursion. It’s a tad bit exhausting to have so many port days in a row to start the cruise.

My parents have been to both St. John and Halifax, so they offered to babysit Maddie while we went on a shore excursion in St. John. After our experiences on the previous day, we gladly took them up on the offer (and hoped that maybe they wouldn’t mind hanging out with her during our excursion in Halifax!). Since Maddie was peacefully sleeping by the time we needed to get breakfast, we decided to have Nana come down and watch her while she slept. It seems quite wrong to wake a peacefully sleeping toddler.

So, we all went our separate ways this morning. Mom and Dad stayed on the ship for a little while with Maddie, and then they ventured around St. John and spent some time in a park. Kristin and Chad went kayaking in the Bay of Fundy and then explored a bit on their own. Gabe and I went on the Covered Bridges and Murals of Sussex shore excursion. We didn’t have very many stops, so it turned out to be a very good thing that Maddie wasn’t along for another long bus ride.

The day started off very foggy, so we were concerned that we weren’t going to be able to see anything on our tour. The further that we got from the shore, the better the weather was. By the time we got to Sussex, we had another clear, beautiful day. We made only a few stops on the tour and only stopped at one of the covered bridges. We did get to see about 5 different bridges and even drove through two of them. I was surprised that we could drive our tour bus through the bridges. We were able to get some decent photos at the one bridge, but I was again disappointed not to have more photo opportunity stops along the way.

The covered bridges were really neat. We traveled through some very pretty countryside and had nice views from the bus. Again, it was difficult to take photos through the bus windows. We saw a good number of osprey nests and learned a lot about the area. I didn’t know much about New Brunswick and hadn’t realized that it was the only truly bilingual Canadian province. Most of the road signs and other signs were in both French and English.

We made a quick stop at a large mural on our way into town (seen above) and then another pit stop at a mall where we had a restroom break. I was thankful to have a restroom break on this tour that didn’t involve port-a-potties! Unfortunately, this stop turned out to be much longer than intended as one of the members of our tour fell and hit her head. We thought that they were calling for an ambulance, but she felt well enough to get back onto the bus after being checked out by some medics. She did not look like she felt well! When our tour guide told us about what happened and asked for our patience while we waited for them to resolve the situation, one resourceful lady asked if she had enough time to go to the Dollar store to buy some postcards. Gabe and I were amused by her inappropriateness (and she was happy with her postcards).

The murals were all over Sussex, and we saw quite a few. We walked around the downtown area which offered us nice opportunities to take photos and learn more about the local history. Lunch was at a local cafe and our sandwich choices were smoked chicken, smoked meat, or egg salad. Most of us were a little unsure about the unidentified smoked “meat.” Many of us on the tour made a side stop at The Cream Puff Bakery for desserts – yum!

After lunch, we got back onto the bus for the long ride back to St. John. I snoozed a little bit on the bus. Meanwhile, Maddie was having a wonderful time in a park with Bapa and Nana. She had a great time running around the park and chasing pigeons with Bapa. When we arrived back at the dock, Maddie was incredibly excited to see us. It was a great feeling to be greeted with such exuberance. I love that little girl. I was just as happy to see her. We enjoyed our tour, but I couldn’t help thinking about what Maddie was doing and worrying a little bit about whether she was ok. It’s a little scary being in a foreign country with no way to contact my daughter! Everything was great, and Maddie had a wonderful time with her grandparents. I think that her grandparents enjoyed the extra Maddie time as well.

We took Maddie to lunch and walked around St. John a bit where we were also able to get our passports stamped. It’s harder to get your passports stamped these days. They just don’t do it in customs anymore. You have to hunt for the proper place to do it. Maddie fell asleep while we were walking, and we took her back onto the ship while she was sleeping. Fortunately, they did not require us to take her out of her stroller to get back onto the ship. She ended up taking another 2 hour nap in her stroller. We have been very thankful that she naps so well in the stroller since it allows us to be out and about while she gets her much needed snooze. We walked around the ship and spent some time in the casino which eerily was one of the quietest places on the ship (it is closed while in port).

Maddie was not in the mood for dinner again tonight, and we had to remove her from the table and get the stroller once again. Fortunately, this was the last night that we had to take her out of the dining room. This was a big improvement over our cruise in May when she didn’t make it through any of the meals! We had ordered baked beans for Maddie the night before, thinking she would love to eat those. The waitstaff had pureed the beans, so of course Maddie wouldn’t touch them. It was nice and thoughtful of them to prepare the food in this way and good to know that they will puree foods if needed. Of course, Maddie hasn’t needed pureed foods in almost a year. She’s not crazy about the unfamiliar, and I don’t blame her for not touching the bowl of brown mush.

Maddie did enjoy the music and dancing at the end of the meal, at least! After dinner, all of us went to the Crown & Anchor Society Welcome Back party. Everyone (well, except for Maddie and me) had a different type of champagne. The captain usually attends but was navigating the ship through the fog. Maddie did pretty well at the party, and we all went to play pool on the self-leveling pool tables in the Safari Club. I blamed all my missed shots on my growing belly and inability to bend. We played some regular games as well as some games of 9-ball.

Gabe took Maddie to bed, but she was not being terribly cooperative, and we decided to try the stroller. We hoped that maybe she would fall asleep and we could all go to the Love & Marriage show together. Unfortunately, that didn’t work too well and Gabe opted to go back to the room instead of going to the show. This was the first time that I witnessed the Love & Marriage show in person. It was amusing, and I enjoyed our British cruise director and his humor. The questions were different than they had been on the previous two cruises – we’re learning that a lot of the ship’s activities vary based on the cruise director. We had had the same cruise director on the previous two cruises (odd coincidence).

We spent a little time in the casino before and after the show. I watched Mom and Dad play a little video poker before heading to bed. I was very glad that our next day was an at sea day!

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Posted by kerry on Monday, October 19th, 2009 at 5:32am.
Categories: life.

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