lx200gps

+1 for sure. I'd love them to start sailing to Bermuda.

Montrealer here. As stated, you should have no issues making that late a flight, barring any major accidents, weather events etc. If you are lucky enough to be doing it on a weekend morning, the drive would be even easier. In recent years, Highway 20 between downtown and the airport has been heavily re-built with the addition of dedicated bus/taxi lanes, which greatly eases the drive time. Keep in mind that you will be clearing US Customs/Immigration in Montreal before boarding, so unless you have NEXUS/Global Entry, give yourself plenty of time for boarding.

We've become huge converts to booking, with refundable deposits of course, as early as possible, since fares generally seem to rise with time. Certainly every single one of our four booked trips is more expensive than we we booked it. I just checked the price for the few remaining selectable (i.e. not Guarantee) balcony cabins for our C/NE trip out of Boston this July. If we booked the same category cabin near ours, it would be a staggering $2000 more than what we paid. And we only booked this trip last year.

Fair enough. In our particular case, an easy 5-6 hour drive south to Burlington, MA then a short drive on embarkation morning to the terminal (early on a Saturday morning) will beat flying or trains any time. Given where we live, it will be much cheaper, and actually take less time and be far less stressful to drive the same distance, but I'm sure for folks who live near an airport or a train station, those modes of transport can work well too.

Pardon the ignorance, but what is the problem in driving to Boston for a cruise? We've driven to and through Boston MANY times and have had no issues with it whatsoever. Sorry, but an easy six hour drive beats flying 8 days a week.

I didn't even know there was a Titanium level ;o) The RI was great, no issues other than it's a hotel with in-room, rather than central, A/C. The room was huge, separate living room/kitchenette and bedroom. You can also look into the adjoining Envue, which is confusingly in the same building as the RI, on different floors. Seems a slight bit more upscale than the RI and was a bit more $$$ when we stayed at the RI. Either hotel is great. and the huge parking garage in the same building serves both hotels and the ferry passengers. There's even another parking garage, slightly cheaper, a block north for overflow.

Quite correct there are plenty of options now. Heads up on the Tiles, there are multiple models available, in different sizes, capabilities etc. The Mate is a basic model with a non-replaceable battery, so basically disposable after a few years. We have Tile Pros in all our bags, longer range and a replaceable battery. Working perfectly with our Sammy phones, we went with the Tiles and not the Smartags in case we ever switch phone brands away from Samsung.

We were very pleasantly surprised at the whole process. Granted we took the ferry, both there and back to NJ, at off-peak times early on a Saturday morning so there were no crowds at all. The ferry terminals, ramps and the ferries themselves are quite flat and easy to navigate, and clearly others had the same idea as us, because there were other folks with suitcases on board as well. There are lots of Youtube videos out there on the while NY Ferry system to give you a good idea of how it all works.

Same around here as well. They moved the Passport Office a few months ago from inside a Cadillac Fairview mall to a dedicated Service Canada building nearby. Since I well remembered the massive lineups when the Passport Office was in the mall, I decided to absolutely not go to the office they moved to, hence my suggestion to find as obscure a Service Canada office as possible. The one I went to was virtually a ghost town when I arrived for a 2PM appointment on a Friday afternoon.

Very good point. With our credit cards having a chip/PIN, we almost never have to even insert the card into a machine anymore, probably 95% of the time it's a simple tap. I can't even remember the last time I used cash for anything, even the smallest charge.

Before our last trip out the the MCT, we stayed across the river in Weehawken, almost directly opposite the MCT. There are two Marriott properties in the same building, a Residence Inn and an Envue, both across the street from the huge ferry terminal, many rooms having great Manhattan skyline views. A large parking garage attached to the hotels was around ($25?) per day, far cheaper than at the MCT. Rather than drive through the Lincoln Tunnel or cross the GW Bridge, we parked for the week at the ferry terminal and took the ferry across the Hudson. From the ferry terminal at W 40th, it was an easy 15 minute walk north up the pedestrian-only walkway to the MCT. We will do that again whenever we sail out of the MCT. The ferry system is very conducive to traveling with suitcases, getting on and off the ferry was dead easy, and as it was around 8AM on a Saturday when we did it, the ferry was pretty much empty.

We stayed at this very property before our trip last year out of Brooklyn. Worked out great, relatively inexpensive, large, full service hotel, and as you say, right off the GW Bridge and an easy drive to the MCT (though of course we drove right by it on the way to Brooklyn). Far less expensive than any Manhattan or Brooklyn hotel I could find.

I don't know if it's new or not, but it was a very easy and painless process easy. I went to: https://eservices.canada.ca/en/reservation/ made all the selections for a passport renewal and selected my desired time, date and location from the offerings that came up. Knowing how slammed the passport system is these days, I made a point of selecting the most out of the way Service Canada office I could find near me, correctly assuming that it would not be as busy as a main Passport office. It sure wasn't, the office was almost empty. Note that you don't have to go to a busy Passport office, I went to a basic Service Canada outlet and they handled everything. Once I checked in at the front desk and sat down in the waiting area, it was no more 5 minutes until the lady called me in to her office, went through my application paperwork and photos, and took my $168 fee. I was in and out of the office in about 20 minutes total elapsed time. She handed me back my now cancelled old passport and confirmed I should have the new one NLT the end of April. Sad side note, we got to chatting about NEXUS and she told me that, as a new applicant, her application has been in the system for a YEAR and she was told it could be another year before she gets her NEXUS card.

Perfect, thanks. I'll get on it as soon as the new passport arrives.

I just came from a wonderful sit-down at a Service Canada office where I submitted my passport renewal paperwork. No waiting, in and out in 10 minutes. All's well, I should have it by the end of April. The new passport will have a different number than my old one. How will this affect my NEXUS card, which presumably is linked to my old passport? Since my current NEXUS card (expiring next year) has an "old" passport number linked to it, what would I have to do to ensure my two documents are properly linked?

No worries, by all means investigate them further. We've used them only about two years, on half a dozen flights and cruises and they have worked perfectly for us, they had no issues showing exactly where our bags were. The only issue, and I don't know whether this is a common issue with other trackers, is that sometimes they might take 10 or 15 minutes to "lock on" to our Tags and show us their location. It's always a bit nerve wracking to fire up the phone after landing at an airport and waiting for the app to show us the bags are still with us ;o) But they've worked perfectly.

Montrealer here. Admittedly I've never taken the train from here, but Amtrak uses Central Station (Gare Centrale) which is probably 2km at most from the port, an easy Uber or taxi ride or an easy walk if you don't have luggage ;o). An 11AM train should be very easy to make provided all the usual caveats are understood. What if the ship docks late? What are the later trains like, is it easy to get on another later one, or is that the only train that day?

Thanks for the heads up. Much appreciated. I certainly looked at Woburn as well when looking for a hotel. I chose Burlington because the Residence Inn was quite cheap (relatively speaking; forget downtown ;o) and was physically in the big Burlington Mall near to restaurants restaurants. As we will come in from the north down the I89 to the I93, it's on a direct line for us. Woburn was also a good bet but I got a particularly good deal with the RI with my Marriott status. As to the train, my wife never travels light on a cruise so public transport isn't an option when dragging 475 suitcases behind us. We have no choice but to drive right down to the port and hope we can find easy parking near the pier.

Sorry for the contrarian position, but twins all the way. The queens are far too tiny for comfort for us. I am a very light sleeper at the best of times, and SWMBO uses 3 times as many blankets and comforters as I do, so having separate beds for a week is fine with us.

Sorry, don't think that's correct. We use Tiles in all our bags and they work perfectly. Available for both Android (not just Samsung) and IOS. It's a great feeling to land at an airport and see that all your bags have landed safely with you. https://www.tile.com/en-ca

Any idea when this started? I ask because there was a thread here on CC from last year, where some folks actually parked at this very convenient covered garage and had no problems at all. They even asked the management at the garage whether it was OK to park for a cruise and were told no problem, just to park on an upper floor. We're planning on using this garage in July, otherwise one of the surface lots like C-1 nearby.

I've been researching the best options for our mid-July trip, and as the others have mentioned, Boston hotel prices, particularly mid-summer, are massively expensive. The two hotels right next to the pier, for example, are over $800/night for our dates. You may want to investigate a Park and Fly package from a Logan area hotel, as they do offer the option of staying one or two nights but leaving your car parked at their facility. From what I am seeing, the incremental cost of the extra week's parking isn't bad at all. The problem with those hotels is that they are far from the tourist areas and would require an Uber ride. That being said, I can't speak to the quality of the airport hotels and the relative safety of their parking lots. In our case, we are planning to stay up north in Burlington, where hotel prices are less than half of downtown, then drive down and park at one of the parking lots near the terminal, probably the covered garage one block north. Best of luck, have a great cruise (and welcome to Cruise Critic ;o) https://www.parksleephotels.com/Park-and-Fly-Hotel-Packages-Near-Boston-Airport-BOS.html

Heads up for the new cruiser, but there are a very few ports where a photo ID is actually needed to get back to the ship, i.e. past the port security gate. It's a local port requirement, not a Princess requirement, as once you are back to the ship, all you will need is the Medallion to get back on board and go through the scanner.

Uber would probably be easiest and cheapest. There are always a herd of them circling around 17th St waiting for calls on embarkation mornings, we've never waited more a a minute or two while watching the driver approach our hotel. No sitting in a crowded van while the driver visits all the terminals before dropping you off because yours was his last stop ;o)