Okay, okay, I know that with a title like THAT you’re probably thinking that this is where I’ve stepped into some sort of fairy tale to be whisked away by magic, and settled into an enchanted kingdom to become a princess or something. I wish. But no, this is going to be about something that could possibly be even better… I went on a cruise! Me and my family hopped aboard this beautiful ship, and sailed away from Brooklynn, New York off to faraway places. (Again, just for clarification, not a far away enchanted kingdom 😔👍🏽)

The Enchanted Princess of Princess Cruises is by far the biggest cruise ship we ever went on. It can carry 3,660 passengers and 1,346 crew.

I should probably start where this cruise was a very last minute booking. Five days beforehand to be exact. So we had to frantically pack our things and head off to New York! Yay! We drove down to New York from Saint John, New Brunswick, the oldest incorporated city in Canada. We actually got to see this ship in the Saint John port before! Saint John is one of the cruise stops for Canada & New England route in the fall. On Sept 29th, the city welcomed its 3 millionth cruise passengers since 1989, so there was an amazing firework show to celebrate.

In Saint John, I live right across from the cruise terminal. And I mean right across, like as I’m writing this the Enchanted Princess is in for the last time before the season ends and it goes to Florida to cruise in the warm and tropical places. I can look out my window right now and see it. It’s really cool.

This was actually our third cruise since Dec 2021, so I guess you could say we missed cruising. 😝 If you are interested in doing the Canada & New England Cruise, there are many other routes to choose from. You can even start in Quebec City, Canada and go as far as St. Johns, Newfounland & Labrador Canada. But you’ll have to wait until next spring, unfortunately. 😫

The cruise sailed on Saturday so we left Saint John early Friday morning and drove to Brooklyn, New York. My dad doesn’t mind driving. He drove from Saint John, NB to Orlando, FL non-stop. So from Saint John to New York was easy. We stayed at the Libertyview Hotel, a brand new hotel beside a NYPD police station. We were kinda like all scared and stuff, like “Oh, New York City is not so safe, you can’t leave valuables in the car” and stuff, but it was safe where we were.

The check-in on the cruise was very easy, we showed our vaccination papers and we were good to go. The ship’s piazza was beautiful and grandiose. (Trying out fancy new words over here). The ship was completed in September 2020, but due to the pandemic it’s inaugural sail was in November 2021. She’s a brand new ship. We made ourselves comfortable in out Veranda (that’s a fancy way of saying “balcony”). Then we had lunch because… all you can eat buffet all day everyday, and we walked around the ship. We walked up the top deck to see the NYC skyline and the Statue of Liberty, but it was so windy and it started to rain so we didn’t stay too long. Hurricane Ian was on its way to the North Atlantic. That night, the Captain announced that the first stop, Newport, Rhode Island was cancelled due to gale force winds. So the first stop ended up being a sea day. The ship was rocking, but it didn’t bother me so much.

Instagram Reel of my amazing trip 😛

Missing one port was not a big deal because we wanted to explore and enjoy the ship. The ship prepared activities and performances to entertain us, and on sea days there are afternoon teas which may parents and I love to go to. We love many things about Princess Cruises, but one of the best things is the food. The food is so good and there’s so much variety, and dishes from different parts of the world. We mostly ate at the buffet for lunch and breakfast, and the sit-down restaurants for dinner.

When on a cruise, you gotta have at LEAST 7 meals a day. 😌

I want to show you some of the food. This was only a portion of what was served on the cruise.

Besides food, the service is great, the ship is beautiful, the shows and entertainment are awesome. We loved everything about it. There’s movie playing all the time on the top deck, and at night they serve fresh popcorn.

I’m going to add the links on the landmarks I mention here. So just click those blue words! Here it goes…

First stop of this cruise is Boston, Massachusetts. We’ve visited Boston before, and we took the hop-on hop-off tour. This time we were revisiting the places we’ve been to. There is so much history in Boston. Many crucial events occurred in Boston or near Boston that lead to the American Revolution. By the way, if you want to try the original Boston creme pie, or donuts, you should go to Omni Parker House. Boston creme pie is Massachusetts’ state desert. It was created by the chef of the Omni Parker hotel! We decided to walk to the city from the cruise terminal because ✨exercise✨. The weather was cloudy and windy so it was very cold to say the least. We made our way to Boston Tea Party Ships and Museum. If you’re familiar with American History, in December 1773, the Sons of Liberty threw the chests of tea into Boston Harbor to protest British Parliament’s tax on tea. The famous throwing of the teas happened here. 😛 At the museum, you can reenact the throwing of the tea chests, watch a documentary film, buy souvenirs, and drink tea at Abigail’s Tea Room. You can also drink unlimited tea and try the five flavours that were originally on the ship. After having tea and scones, we walked further to Quincy Market. Quincy Market is the place where you buy more souvenirs, go shopping, and get food. You can buy hoodie with MIT (I always read that as “mitt” like… gloves) or Harvard, the famous universities in Massachusetts. Across the Quincy Market there’s another historical building called Faneuil Hall. There’s different vendors inside selling fancy products. Fanueil Hall was a market before. There’s merchants, fishermen, meat, and produce sellers.

I’d be surprised if you didn’t find anything you wanted to eat in Quincy Market. They have EVERYTHING!

We walked and walked, until we reached the New England Holocaust Memorial. My mom got a dramatic photo of meeeee with all of the steam. I assumed you know the story about Holocaust.I’m

After hours of walking (and reading the historical plaques on EVERY landmark we passed by 😒) we grabbed a light lunch at Saus, the best fries in Boston. Honestly, it’s not as good as what we have in Saint John. I might be biased, but I have also traveled around the world, tasting all kinds of different fries take it from me. Then we went back to the ship where it’s nice and warm! Boston is a beautiful city and I think you should visit it. You will learn a lot of history for sure! Just check the Boston website to see the full list of things to do and to visit.

At night some cruise passengers dressed up for dinner, but we didn’t!

Second stop of the cruise is Bar Harbor, Maine. The weather in Bar Harbor was quite the opposite from Boston. It was pleasant and sunny. It was beautiful, the colors of the leaves were changed to red, yellow, and orange. The air was cool, and crisp, making you want to get a nice warm drink to hold in your two hands, trying to get all of the warmth you can from in. But then your hands are still freezing cold because when the wind blows you’re hands are freezing and you can’t do anything about it because you’re holding your pumpkin spice latte and the warmth is only coming from that one side of you hand? You feel me? (I don’t drink pumpkin spice lattes, but my mom does)

Bar Harbor was a tender port, that means we have to take a smaller boat to get to the town. The lifeboats are dual purpose, they aren’t only reserved for emergencies, because those are what we used to go to shore.

But what to do in Bar Harbor? Well, on the main street, it’s full of souvenir shops, specialty shops, restaurants, bookstores, and more! The bookstores though—

My personal favorite souvenir has to be the shirts that say “Baa Habaa”, get it? No? Okay. Moving on. When we visited Bar Harbor years ago, we stayed at Harborside Hotel. It’s located on the bay so it has a beautiful waterfront view. Some highlights in Bar Harbor are visiting the Acadia National Park to see the fall colours, whale watching tours, and eating lobster (obviously). There’s a trolley tour and you can even rent an electric side-by-side to drive around town! My excitement went down when I realized that it was essentially just an electric golf cart and not a off road ATV thingy. I thought you could go off-road with it. But it’s really just made for streets.

After walking around town, we walked to a nearby island called, Bar Island. (Wow, I wonder how they came up with that name—) There is a land bridge that forms when it’s low tide, so when it’s high tide that land bridge is gone! It’s actually really cool when there’s a bridge that only appears at a certain time of day. Kind of like magic. There’s also a notice on the island to warn hikers to make sure they are aware of times of tides so that they’re not trapped on the island. But if you are, there’s a water taxi that you can call if you do get stuck.

Bar Island and the Enchanted Princess all in one! See it behind?

For the third stop of the cruise, we were extra excited.

Its because the third stop is…

Get ready for this, y’all.

Saint John, New Brunswick Canada.

It’s crazy! I know!

We crossed the street from the cruise terminal and went to out condo. I crashed there and did some school, while my mom did some laundry. We didn’t pack everything that we needed when we went to New York, because our plan was to pack some, then drop some off and pick up more when we arrived in Saint John. Brilliant plan, I know :D. So that’s what we did in Saint John. I did school because the cruise’s internet isn’t very good so when you have internet you gotta take advantage of it. I wanted to take a tour, y’know, like all the other cruise ship passengers, but instead I worked on some school work. Mother rules the house with an iron fist, so whatever she says goes. LOL

I’m going to take this time to promote Saint John, because you should totally come and visit me!

In Saint John, there’s a hop-on-hop-off bus tour. It’s an antique double decker bus. As I mentioned earlier, Saint John is the first incorporated city in Canada, established by royal charter on May 18, 1785, during the reign of King George III. It means Saint John has old and fancy historical buildings, especially after the Great Fire in 1877. That took out two-fifths of Saint John. The city lost 1,612 structures.

What else? Oh, well I’m glad you asked. Port Saint John is also very pretty because the colorful container village welcomes cruisers. You can buy local made products and enjoy some locally made treats and snacks. They also bring the cruise passengers to the Reversing Rapids, and the City Market, the oldest market in Canada. (It’s where mom and dad walk everyday do their grocery shopping.) There’s Loyalist House-1817, and many more historical landmarks. Outside Saint John, passenger has a choice to visit Hopewell Rocks, Sea Caves, and St. Andrews By-The-Sea.

Here are the other attractions in Saint John that I wrote blog posts about. Hopewell Rocks and St. Andrews & Algonguin Resort.

Well, after visiting our house, we headed back to the ship and this night is a formal night. My parents and I don’t dress up every night because we travel light. If you want to dress up at night, it means you have to bring two sets of clothes to wear everyday. Yeah… that’s a no for me. But since mother packed me a nice dress, I decided to wear it. Along with fancy shoes.

The last stop of the cruise is Halifax, Nova Scotia. It wasn’t an awesome day because it was pouring rain when we docked at Pier 21. Guess who forgot a rain coat. ✌🏽 The Canadian Museum of Immigration is at Pier 21, and there’s a craft market at The Pier. At least the cruise passengers can buy some Canadian souvenirs to bring home. There’s a hop-on-hop-off bus tour same buses in Saint John. You can get off to see the Halifax Waterfront, Public Gardens, Halifax Citadel National Historic Site, Maritime Museum of the Atlantic— it has a large collection of Titanic memorabilia, Fairview Lawn Cemetery, so called Titanic Cemetery. One hundred fifty bodies aboard the Titanic were buried in Halifax. Since I didn’t take any pictures from THIS trip, you can look at my pictures from my LAST trip.

This is from when we visited in August 2021. It’s nice to hang out at the waterfront. They have a container village there too.

Outside Halifax, Peggy’s Cove is one of the popular shore excursions. It’s a small fishing village, and Peggy’s Point Lighthouse is arguably the most photographed lighthouse in Canada. Another place is Lunenburg, it’s a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It offers the best example of an 18th-century planned British colonial settlement in North America.

When we visited Hailfax on the cruise though, we just took a taxi to the mall. Sad that the day was wasted because of the rain 🙁 I hope the other passengers went out though…

Peggy’s Cove blog post.

Then, soon enough the cruise came to an end. On the last day it was a sea day so we could enjoy the ship before going back to New York. It’s good to shop on a cruise, because there’s no tax! Not that I care about taxes though, daddy and mummy handle those. But if something is cheaper then it’s a good thing, right?

We also went to the acrobat shows, comedy shows, dance performances, and concerts, as well as afternoon tea on sea days, and of course more shopping, and I went to the teens hangout center, where I watched movies and did arts an crafts and played games, and swimming. Though, it was a bit cold because the weather so we just stay in the hot tub.

Overall, we had a really fun trip! I enjoyed getting to have the experience that the other passengers got to have when they came to visit where I live! It was nice to get a different perspective on things. When we got back to New York, we got our car and drove down to Florida. Yeahhh, we went from New York down to Florida. It was another last-minute decision for the better 😀

Well, that’s all for today! I hope you consider taking a Canada and New England cruise! Come visit me! 😀