Holland Canada/ New England Trip Review - Day 6 - Friday - Bar Harbour

8 random facts on Bar Harbor:

1. Most restaurants are only open from spring to fall, and closed for the winter.
2. They had a catastrophic fire in 1947, that lasted for 10 days and burned down 5 hotels and 170 homes (nearly half of the eastern side of mount dessert island).
3. Prior to the fire, the town is a famous summer playground for the super elites, including the Rockefeller family and the Vanderbilts.
4. No need to rent a car- free shuttle buses are available with a variety of routes to choose from.
5. There are no Starbucks or MacDonalds near the port.
6. The mascot for Maine is… a lobster!!!  You can see lobster signs and souvenirs everywhere.  Yes, the are a bit obsessed. You can see lobster traps everywhere when you're tendering to the shore.  Not surprising, given that more than 90% of US's lobster supply is caught off the coast of Maine.
7. Lobster used to be cheap food.  Settlers could gather them at low tide along the rocky shores.  They used them as fertilizers, or food for prisoners.  Prisoners actually got sick of them and complained about having too much lobsters!
8. It takes 7 years for lobsters to reach their legal catch size.

8:00am

Everyone on board had to go through customs.  Luckily, the customs officers come to the ship and are stationed in the library.  You are assigned a time (based on your stateroom level), and when  you hear your deck number called, go to the library.  The whole process is simple and smooth.

9:00am

After going through customs, we had breakfast at Rotterdam dining room.  Not bad!  I ordered the "Japanese breakfast", which is rice & salmon with egg and miso soup.  Didn't realize Japanese people have salmon and rice for breakfast?  In any case, I enjoyed this meal over room service breakfast or the *shudder* Lido buffet.

10:00am

Unlike the other ports, tendering is required for Bar Harbor. What this means is that the ship is not docked at the pier, you have to take a tendering boat (in this case, the motorized life boat) to the shore.  There is a long 40 minutes wait.  We just sat in the musical hall and waited for our number to be called.

11:00am

Walked along Main Street.  Not much to do.  Family went on the free island express shuttle while I had a drink at Hound Coffee.  $10 for both drinks.  After drinks went to Gladyn's for lunch.

• Drinks @ Coffee Hound Cafe
• Lunch @ Galyn's

3:00pm
Back on board.