Taking a sea cruise to Maine, to anywhere on the planet can be a whole lot of fun.

Sometimes the little boat ride is a short one on a ferry to says Cranberry or Peaks Island Maine for biking, hiking exploring. But other times when you are in Bar Harbor Maine you see a large ocean sea cruise boat. That empty their 3000 to 4000 cruise boat passengers ready to play tourist inland at a Maine town or city. To come ashore, to ply the streets of a deep water port in Maine. Searching for local food or gift items, a t-shirt, souvenir with Maine written across it.

What are the cruise ship destinations in Maine?

You want to take a sea cruise to Maine. To shake life up and to see what is missing. Well the ports of Portland, Rockland, Bar Harbor, Eastport, Freeport, Kennebunkport, Portland, Rockland, Bath, Boothbay Harbor, Camden, Belfast, Searsport, Bucksport, and Bangor all get visits from the large cruise ships.

The Canadian member ports of Campobello Island and Saint Andrews by the Sea in Downeast Maine get visits from the huge floating hotels. That are like gigantic, piled high resorts riding the waves around Vacationland.

So what is the magic of a cruise Vacation? I have been on seventeen cruises and can throw in my two cents of the subject. First, travel is never a waste of time or money. To experience how another part of the World lives, how other areas rock and roll broadens your life perspective. The poverty of a third world island community is sobering. But the rich pride in the blue green waters surrounding it, in the often hard fought independence from an Imperial force makes the sand and sun island life shines brightly.

Have had my kids notice something very important from the settings beyond just around the cruise ports on an island. Where the locals put their best foot forward for marketing their goods and tourist services.

From my experience, instead of booking a tour on the boat that are more expensive and involve longer tedious days herding the other cruisers packed in like sardines. It works better to do those excursions from the cruise boat from a different approach.

In a cruise ship stop in say Jamaica, it is better to wait until all the cruise ship passengers on those large excursions crowd the hallways to get to deck zero and exit the boat. Then take your time getting up, eating your breakfast and packing the snorkel gear, sun screen and beach towels for the day in port ahead of you.

You get off the cruise ship boat without any pushing or shoving, looking for a taxi van to hire for the day.

Scanning the dashboards to see a well worn bible and then having a chit chat to spell out what you would like to accomplish on the day in paradise that the cabby calls home. You explain you want to go to a beach, the one he would take his family to, not the tourist trap nearest the cruise ship. You want him to come back to the beach in about three hours, and to line up his cousin who has a small boat and will take your family snorkeling where the fish are most colorful and plentiful.

Then on the cab driver’s return to beach, to take a guided tour of the island he knows so well as a local native.

Show us the Fern Gully, take us to Dunn River Falls for the trek up the waterfalls one rock at a time with a hand holding side to side attack up the eight hundred foot course.

Then to take us to a compound protected from the pan handlers to shop in peace. To go from shop to shop and dicker with the merchants. Where your kids learn to walk away from something they want but not at the sticker asking price. So they get a better deal, or two for one in the simple business exchange.

Then before the cruise ship blows the loud low fog horn warning passengers to climb back on before the captain pulls back the gang plank, to wrap it up. With a combination of sun and fun and trinkets from the island visit as you prepare for a day at sea or another island stop tomorrow. And ding ding ding of the dinner bell. It’s time to eat because every twenty minutes you are pretty much grazing on something good to eat all served up by folks from all over the World. Your service providers on the boat can be a cabin steward from the Far East, your waiter from Colombia, his assistant from St Vincent. The cruise director from New Zealand, the drink lady from Latvia or Serbia or another Baltic country.

The cruise ships are big, efficiently laid out, have lots of entertainment options from live music dancing to piano bar small and intimate settings.

They are floating hotel resorts parked off another West Indies island jewel. The boats float all around the globe and sea cruises to the Alaska, Hawaii, through the Panama Canal or over to Europe and everywhere in between.

The kids in the island stops go to school long days, wear uniforms of bright white to contrast with the wicked tans and bronze skin. Your own kids will see flapping sheet metal roofs peeled back from the last hurricane. The poverty of the inner regions of many island stops that the four color brochure does not display are educational.

The folks with little are happy, connected, need and work with each other. And if they are poor, they don’t know it. They are rich because they are grateful. They appreciate what they have. What a lesson to show your kids while growing up to expand their vision and to know how lucky we really are and the difference of third and first world problems.

Taking a cruise on a very big ship. There are lots of boat brands to pick from… I am partial to Carnival Cruise Lines. Heck bought stock that is doing well from the line that owns more than the 25 whale tail boats.

Family oriented, kid friendly and they have the water slides, all the bells and whistles that keep all the ages happy. The kids are on vacation too … the Carnival cruise lines realizes that important factor.

Unless you’re a major drinker or down and dirty gambler, everything is paid for on the boat cruises. The shore excursion are up to you to add to the fun when you are not on the ship and heading inland.

From the live shows to the heavy duty array of all kinds of food to the sleeping staterooms with or without balconies. Sea cruises are one highly efficient way to vacation. Unpack once, leave the driving to the skipper as he tools around the islands on your cruise itinerary.

Maine is one pretty state with four seasons to explore and discover the magic of this hidden location.

But moving around the crystal blue green water with palm trees and local fresh fruits and the colorful people of an island can transport you to  Margaritaville.

Have you cruised on the open seas, been on a boat ride and to where?

Have you ever stopped in Maine on a cruise ship vacation? You might want to come to Maine by sea and not a highway or touching down on an airport runway.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com | 

MOOERS REALTY 69 North Street Houlton ME 04730 USA