Yay! Yesterday was way better than the day before! Mostly, it was about getting the caravan onto a ferry headed for Newfoundland. First thing in the morning we had a danish and juice get together to send away the folks that are leaving the caravan. After that, we had a trip log meeting where our guides explained the ferry process. I don’t think any of us have ever taken a large RV onto a boat before, so we were anxious to hear how this works.
After that, we had a couple of hours in our RV before we needed to leave. We relaxed a bit and cleaned things up in preparation for the trip. We hooked up our truck and headed to the ferry terminal about 12:30. It only took about five minutes to get there as the terminal was just down the road. We drove up to a tollbooth looking thing and we were second in line. When we got up to the gate, they asked us some questions about whether we had pets and if we had propane on board. The woman who helped us was very friendly, which has pretty much been the case anywhere we’ve been in Canada. She was very happy to tell us that the new Prime Minister as one of his campaign promises, said that he would be reducing the cost of ferry travel in Canada by 50%. Well, that took affect today! We were told exactly how much refund each rig should get, and since ours is a smaller one. It was going to be $495.23. The much bigger rigs were supposed to get a refund of over $700 in some case cases. Of course we didn’t pay for the ferry directly, the Adventure Caravan tour company did it for us. The Canadian official we talked to said we should be getting refund from them because the original cost is not what it’s going to actually cost them to ship us over to Newfoundland. Of course our text message group was a-buzz with this great information, but we think it might’ve freaked out our Adventure Caravan staff. I overheard one of them talking on the phone about how they were going go about handling the refund issue. Maybe they should just offer us a credit towards another trip? We, of course, have no intention on letting that happen. More excitement to come!
So, we are now in the ferry line with the other 22 rigs. We have three hours before boarding. So what do we do? Some people pulled out a cornhole game, others put out their awnings, and we all brought chairs and cocktails. We had an impromptu tailgate party in the ferry line. It was actually really fun! The sun was shining, a cool breeze was blowing, and everyone enjoyed the time to visit and talk about upcoming adventures.
Fortunately, the ferry was on time and so we started boarding shortly after 3:30. We were lucky that we were put in the lane that they boarded first. We pulled onto the ferry, and it made all of our RVs look tiny. Holy cow this thing was huge!
The staff on board were very friendly and helpful and got us all parked. They walked us to the stairway and told us where to find our rooms . They had given us room keys when we went through the tollbooth thing. This is the nicest ferry I’ve ever been on! Once we got inside, it actually did look a bit like a cruise ship! We found our room quickly, and unfortunately, Steve and I were assigned an inside room. This room is actually smaller than our RV! Pretty funny. We don’t mind though because we don’t plan on spending much time in here.
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| The lighted picture of the ocean is supposed to help us feel like we have a window. |
One of the deck hands downstairs had told us as soon as we put our stuff in the room, grab a beer from the bar and go up to the 10th deck. He said there’s a sun deck up there and it’s a fantastic place to be when the ship pulls out of the harbor. We took his advice and found a couple of our friends up there as well. Steve was very excited, and actually I was too, to find out that the bar actually had four different kinds of IPAs! This was a shocker as we’ve been unable to find even one in most places. I’m going to let Steve tell you about the beer choices. He was pretty excited! And I see another adventure in our future as a result.
After a little while on the upper deck, we headed down to the seventh deck for dinner. Our waitress was fantastic, and we got a table close to one of the windows. We enjoyed visiting with friends and having a dinner that consisted of anything that was on the right side of the menu. Evidently our tour has something worked out with the ferry regarding prices, so we weren’t able to order anything on the left side. Fortunately, things like fish and chips, burgers, and stirfrys were available to us.
After dinner, we headed up one deck to the bar area again. There was a young woman in there who was singing. Actually, we were more mesmerized by her dress, which was a very sparkly sequin thing. It didn’t really match the genre she was singing, but entertaining nonetheless. We enjoyed a little more time with our friends and then headed downstairs to bed. It’s a little disconcerting, not having a window in your room, so I set my alarm so we wouldn’t oversleep. During the night, my phone did jump forward half an hour as we were told Newfoundland is in a different time zone. This, of course, has Steve in fits. He struggles in Arizona with time zones and ours doesn’t even change!
I also need to mention the public bathrooms on board the ferry. They are unisex, which we’ve all seen many times before. Usually it’s a one room toilet with a sink that both men and women can use. However, in this case, it is a huge bathroom with many stalls. And both men and women can go in there. It was a little strange to come out of the stall and be washing my hands while two men walked in to use the bathroom. I started to second-guess whether I should be in there, when a woman came in. It’s all good! Gotta love Canada!
As a sidenote, once we were in bed and just getting ready to turn off the light, Steve said to me, “Just think, we are in the North Atlantic Ocean not far from where the Titanic sank!” What a lovely thing to think about as you fall asleep on a ferry.
