Lobsters, New England scenery and getting away from it all on Royal Caribbean

I was recently on a cruise aboard the Royal Caribbean vessel Serenade of the Seas, and even though most passengers were American, and even though it was just 10 days before the cray-cray US election, can you guess the total number of political discussions I heard during the week at sea? Zero. The most heated argument I heard among passengers was not about Hillary vs. Trump, but whether or not Bob Dylan deserved the Nobel Prize. Or whether to go with Dark Chocolate Swiss Miss or Regular Milk Chocolate.

It tells you that passengers aboard a Royal Caribbean cruise leave all their mental baggage behind. The things that cause angst and friction in everyday life are cast overboard; these people are here to let go, let loose, and enjoy themselves.

Now, if only the cruise could last four years…

For the Royal cruise passenger, “duty-free” can have several meanings. Sure, it can mean goods purchased onboard or during excursions without tax; but it can also refer to a certain cruise state of mind, drifting from port to port, disengaged from social media if you desire; mapping out your day from a printed Cruise Compass schedule, or just kicking back with a glass of wine or mug of cocoa, enjoying a deck chair at sunset. The attraction of knowing you’re not scheduled for any “active duty” in the immediate future is, psychologically, very hard to come by in this modern world. And it can be very rewarding.

Royal Caribbean has been offering such duty-less voyages for almost 50 years, and recently they and Cathay Pacific sent a group of seven Manila travel agents (plus media) on a seven-night Atlantic cruise up the East Coast from Boston, through Maine and New Brunswick, ending up in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.

Cathay Pacific is an informal partner with Royal Caribbean International, offering travel agents the best ticket deals possible to connect with their cruise departures abroad. With a plethora of in-flight viewing options, nonstop food and beverage service and time enough for a restful flight, the CX long-haul to Boston is as close to a second home at 35,000 feet you can get. (We also explored the four Cathay Business Lounges at Hong Kong Airport. See sidebar.)

October is definitely the month for Filipinos to take in picturesque New England. Nature offers a vivid spectacle as autumn’s changing leaves dapple the landscape with rich colors. For the IG and FB crowd, each photo is a must-like.

And did we mention the lobster? Whether it’s the variety of seafood havens from Portland to Bar Harbor, Maine, or the lobster tail offered aboard ship during Formal Dinner night, you’ll definitely get your fill of red crustacean bliss.

Onboard the 2,139-passenger Serenade of the Seas, part of the Radiance class, I stayed in a Balcony Stateroom: the perfect vantage point for each port arrival. With either twin beds or a Royal King, a stateroom offers cable TV, a safe, and sitting area with sofa bed. Not to mention that perfect view: the balcony has a couple chairs ready for chilling out and enjoying the scenery with a glass of wine or mid-afternoon coffee in hand.

There’s a steward assigned to your stateroom, available to deliver drinks, 24-hour room service, or to assemble your fresh towels into the shape of an elephant for your amusement when you return. The same goes for the crew people assigned to your nightly dining table — a wonderful mix of people from about 60 countries working the ships. Whether they’re serving you a classic butter-and-garlic-drizzled escargot appetizer, or gathering together at the Reflections dining room (naturally, our group quickly tracked down the Filipino chefs onboard, and we were treated to Filipino dishes, including kare-kare, sinigang, beef tapa and tinapa during the cruise).

For the active, Serenade of the Seas offers two pools, a wall-climbing facility, a waterslide for the kids, a mini-golf course, saunas, Jacuzzis and a fully stocked gym facility (try as I might, my 30-minute daily treadmill run could not keep pace with the calorie express that greeted us at each sit-down dinner). There’s a private club onboard for kids aged 11-17 called Fuel with Foosball, a special juice bar, and endless boy band and rock videos playing. Another surprise for the health-conscious was Park Cafe, offering vegetarian soups, sandwiches and sugar-free dessert options for merienda.

Because you do tend to eat a lot on cruises — it’s just human nature. Nobody wants to pass up the chocolate soufflé, the lobster bisque or the premium Angus beef sliders. Drinks are another matter: beverage plans for sodas or alcohol are offered onboard to enjoy as many cocktails as you like for a set fee, or bill each drink to your Seapass ID. (The Seapass is your all-in-one room key, billing mechanism and identity card for leaving and entering the ship.)

Royal sales manager Renata Sarmago explained how the cruise experience is now becoming more like a theme park: “We always try to give passengers something new, whether it’s the Flow Rider wave simulator, Riptide sky-diving simulator, Virtual Golf or the Ultimate Abyss,” a slide that offers a 10-deck drop, all available on larger vessels. “Passengers can even try the Bionic Bars on some ships. You can have a robot make your cocktails.” It won’t call you by name or remember your favorite drink, but still.

Since Miami is the home of Royal Caribbean, you can see how a party atmosphere prevails: the cruise industry is always trying to up the ante with bigger casinos, more extravagant Cirque du Soleil-style entertainment. Onboard, we saw Vegas crooner Earl Turner, a joke-telling, singing dynamo who climbs down onto the seats to work the crowd, and Lance Ringnald, possibly the only juggling, joke-telling, memory-improving, piano-playing ex-Olympic gymnast in cruise entertainment history. His version of Yesterday (“Yesterday… Why did I hit the second buffet? Now I’m twice the man I used to be…”) was a standout.

According to Renata, the Boston-Maine-Nova Scotia route is becoming more popular with Filipinos looking for new destinations with five to 10 Filipinos booking on most cruises. Also popular are Caribbean cruises, trans-Pacific routes (Seattle to Sydney, with ports in Hawaii and Fiji) and Dubai-based voyages aboard some of the most lavish Royal Caribbean ships, like Oasis of the Seas and Harmony of the Seas.

Millions watched Jack Dawson sink down into the cold Atlantic in James Cameron’s Titanic, but did you know Jack actually existed? At least the model for his character did, and his tombstone stands among 200 or so other Titanic victims that went down on April 15, 1912. The bodies recovered by local fishermen off the Atlantic coast were first taken to Bay of Fundy in New Brunswick, but no facilities existed to bury such a number; so they were laid to rest in Fairview Lawn Cemetery in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Joseph Dawson was actually a young trimmer, helping shovel coal into the furnaces on the Titanic; Cameron was apparently inspired by the tombstone to invent a love story for his film.

You’ll notice, too, in this eerie cemetery section that all the stones bear the same date — April 15 — and that very few are women. It’s because most women and children on the Titanic managed to survive on lifeboats. Bigger tombstones were paid for by private loved ones; the rest are generic blocks, paid for by the White Star shipping company.

A trip to Halifax also takes you to stunning fishing villages like Peggy’s Cove, where only 100 or so people make a living until the end of fishing season, when they lock down the lobster traps and shutter up the gift shops until spring. It’s the stuff of perfect postcards: beautiful coastal granite plates stacked up against a wave-swept shore; a perfect lighthouse on the pier, still offering a beacon to fishing boats. A place that seems unchanged by centuries.

If you love taking photos, Peggy’s Cove is picture-perfect. But so is Bar Harbor, Maine, with its pretty seaside town square, popular lobster restaurants like Geddy’s, and tourist trolley car that whisks you up into Acadia National Park: there you’ll see a coastal view that’s spectacular — if you can manage to haul your camera out in the brisk winds.

From picturesque seaside towns to postcard-perfect lighthouses to rocky coastlines, the seven-night New England and Canada cruise aboard Serenade of the Seas offers an inside look at the rustic charm of the Atlantic seacoast and its quaint villages. Local color is a main attraction. That, and plenty of lobster. Try Portland, Maine, where the fare at dockside Dimillos includes “Lazy Lobster” (200 grams of lobster meat conveniently removed from its armor, sautéed in butter), juicy lobster roll and New England clam chowder (can’t get enough).

What are New Englanders like? Warm and friendly, whether they’re telling you about the local pumpkin festivals or serving up a pint of Alagash White, a prized craft ale in the Maine region.

(If I’m starting to sound a bit pampered here, then, well, that’s pretty much the purpose of a cruise. Di ba?)

A bus tour through Portland to one of the most-photographed lighthouses in America, Port Head, reminds us that this is a place where Bette Davis summered, as well as Dave Letterman and the Bushes in nearby Kennebunkport. (Our driver points out Barbara Bush is very charming and low-key, driving around town in her tiny energy-efficient Geo... trailed by two black secret service limos at all times, of course).

Maine is a place frozen in time — a better time, it seems. With the motto, “The Way Life Should Be,” its tourist-friendly coastal towns, festooned with explosions of gorgeous fall foliage, do not fail to enchant. Neither expressly Democrat nor Republican, it’s a New England state where people “keep their own counsel,” with occasional bursts of dry wit. Our driver on the Bar Harbor trolley mentioned how Paul Newman used to come to this seaside town to visit his daughter while she was attending college. He once checked in at a local inn run by a sharp old Maine woman and told her, “It must be quite exciting for you to have someone so famous and handsome staying at your inn.” Not missing a beat, the wry innkeeper said, “Oh, that would be absolutely wonderful if Robert Redford ever came to stay here!”

If you want a taste of the quaint charm of old America — a place seemingly free of electoral distress — you will enjoy an escape to New England and upward to New Brunswick and Nova Scotia through Royal Caribbean cruises.

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To book a Royal Caribbean cruise, contact Royal Caribbean Philippines at (+632) 894-4017 or (+632) 892-2701 to 03. Visit www.royalcaribbean.com or their Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/royalcaribbeanPH/.

To view Cathay Pacific booking options, go to www.cathaypacific.com/lifewelltravelled.