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New England and Canada Cruise – Day 6, Halifax, Nova Scotia

October 22nd, 2009

Photos from Day 6 have been posted. Click on any of the photos in this post to see the full set.

Once again, we had a morning excursion, this time in Halifax, Nova Scotia. We had originally planned to take Maddie with us on our tour, but after our experiences on the 2nd day, we decided against that idea. We offered my parents to go along with one of us or stay behind with Maddie. They had a great time with Maddie in St. John, so they decided to babysit her again in Halifax. Maddie woke up in time for breakfast, so we went to the Windjammer with my Mom where Maddie ate 3 boxes of Cheerios (and half a donut!).

We left Maddie with Mom and headed to our tour. We were very glad that we decided to leave Maddie with my parents because the tour bus was very full. We had to sit in the very front seats and were not able to sit together. Gabe actually sat in the tour guide’s seat. I would not have felt safe with Maddie at the front of the bus (and holding a wiggly toddler on a bus for almost 4 hours is not my idea of a good time). This time the tour only had one stop, though it was an hour long, so that was good. This tour was called Famous Peggy’s Cove and Fishing Village. It turned out to be our favorite one from this cruise.

Once again, the day started out very foggy. We weren’t sure we were even going to be able to see the lighthouse up close! It cleared a little bit when we got there, but it was still a little misty. I was concerned about the camera, of course. When we arrived at Peggy’s Cove, the tour guide gave us a walking tour of the fishing village and a memorial before we had time to explore the area on our own. We learned about the history of the area (and more about lobsters!).

Peggy’s Cove was a neat little area to explore and very picturesque. They had an unusual number of cruise ships in Halifax, so I think that the area was more crowded than usual. It was impossible to get a photo of the lighthouse without a ton of people milling around the base. Even with the overcast conditions, it was a pretty place to explore.

We loved climbing around on the rocks, though we were careful about it. The area has tons of warnings about avoiding dark rocks that may be wet and slippery. The ocean is pretty rough along those rocks, and we enjoyed watching it from a distance.

We didn’t have too much time to climb around the rocks, but it did remind us of Red Rocks near Vegas (well, except it’s much cooler and not in the middle of a desert!).

We tried to go into the gift shop, but it was so packed full of people that we couldn’t even get inside. We found a secret back entrance to an upstairs part of the gift shop which didn’t have very many people. I found some maple cream cookies which were quite tasty! I wish I had bought two boxes!

We searched for our tour bus in the sea of buses and headed back to Halifax to rejoin with Maddie.

Maddie started her morning with Bapa and Nana at the Royal Tots playgroup. Then they took her to Halifax which involved a short bus ride to town since we were in a secured area in port. It was a bit wet out, so she mostly stayed in the stroller and took in the sights. She had another great day with her grandparents! We met them at their cabin on the ship and went to lunch together at the Windjammer. Gabe had just enough time for lunch before his next adventure with Dad, Kristin, and Chad. They were all signed up for the Halifax pub tour.

Chad, Kristin, Dad, and Gabe enjoyed the pub tour (maybe a bit too much according to those of us who stayed behind!). They were forced to wear silly yellow hats and parade around town with a bagpiper. Very amusing! They received a lot of attention everywhere they went. They visited three pubs. Kristin was happy to drink the beer that the tour provided, but Chad, Dad, and Gabe went above and beyond to truly enjoy the Halifax pub scene. We heard all about the Jameson whiskey that Chad and Gabe seemed to really enjoy.

Mom and I had planned to go into Halifax while Maddie napped in the stroller, but we decided to just stay on the ship. Since we had to take a shuttle bus to get there, it wasn’t going to leave us with much time for Maddie’s nap before we needed to return and get ready for formal night. We walked around the ship with the stroller until Maddie was asleep for a little bit and then spent a little time on the balcony in our stateroom. I decided that it was a fabulous time for a nap and slept until Maddie woke up after about 2 hours.

Maddie and I woke up just in time to go to Rock’n'Roll trivia. She had her snack while I joined a team to Name That Tune. The trivia game was great! Our previous experiences with the Rock’n'Roll trivia involved all songs from the 50s, mostly. This one was real classic rock and actually just the right bit of challenging. We only heard short clips from each song, and the guy on our team was quite good. I felt pretty good to contribute a few answers that he didn’t know.

Maddie and I headed back to the room afterward and started to get ready for our second formal night. Gabe returned from his tour and was quite talkative. Mom and I were ready to send them away and go to dinner by ourselves! They threatened to wear their hats to dinner. Dad actually walked into the dining room with the hat, but at least he refrained from wearing it at the dinner table (whew!).

Maddie and I stopped to get our photo made before dinner while Gabe finished getting ready. He had a bit of trouble with his tie…

We were able to catch the sunset that evening, though Gabe and I had to go back to the room to change a dirty diaper while my family took some nice photos on the outer deck.

It was a very pretty sunset, and we could see several lighthouses in the distance. I think we could even see Peggy’s Cove.

Too bad that Gabe, Maddie, and I couldn’t take advantage of the photo opportunity!

After we got Maddie into her pajamas, Gabe, Maddie, and I headed up to Deck 13 to play some minigolf with Kristin and Chad. That night we could see the other two ships that had been docked with us in Halifax. They were traveling a bit faster than us, so we saw them pass all lit up for the night. We have rarely seen other ships on our other cruises.

Kristin won both rounds of minigolf. Maddie watched us play and seemed content to sit in her stroller with her buddy Jojo. After our minigolf game, I went with Mom and Dad to the Majority Rules game show. I think that this one is relatively new as we hadn’t encountered it on previous cruises. Everyone had a team, and you submitted answers for each round. You would get points if you had the most popular answer, and he would read out all the answers which was usually great for a few laughs. Questions varied and included things like, “what is the first feature that men notice about women” (the answers did not vary widely on this one, as you can imagine) and “what item from your stateroom would you grab if we had an emergency evacuation” (lots of very funny answers on this one!). We had a good time.

The next day would be our last on the ship and a sea day. We were looking forward to taking advantage of the activities on our final day!

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Posted by kerry on Thursday, October 22nd, 2009 at 5:16pm.
Categories: life.

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