Boston Old Town Trolley

[tring]

We have booked the Old Town Trolley for the first of our two days in Boston mid September, which falls on a Saturday.  I have just been looking at the reviews for the trolley for previous Septembers and a lot of people have reported that there were problems encountered getting back onto a trolley at various stops.  On the day we have booked the trolley for there is another 5,000 passenger ship in port, as well as ours, which takes just less than 2,000, so a 5,000 pax in total).

 

Has anyone encountered problems such as this, and if so, do you think a port load of 7,000 passengers means we may well have problems?  We are thinking of cancelling our booking, but if it works, it would be a good option for us.  Any advice regards this would be greatly appreciated.

 

Edited July 13 by tring

[zqvol]

Don’t forget Boston is a large city and in addition to the cruise ships there will be a lot of other tourists there too. 

[tring]

11 minutes ago, zqvol said:

Don’t forget Boston is a large city and in addition to the cruise ships there will be a lot of other tourists there too. 

 

Thanks for the reply, yes I agree, that is our worry.  TBH we are tending to think we would be better cancelling the booking and just using a taxi for a couple of journeys, but would be interested if others have encountered problems, or not.   

 

Edited July 13 by tring

[princeton123211]

15 minutes ago, tring said:

We are thinking of cancelling our booking, but if it works, it would be a good option for us.  Any advice regards this would be greatly appreciated.

Boston is one of the most easily walkable cities in the US-- the main historic areas are relatively compact and getting from one end to the other takes no more than about 45 minutes. If you don't have an issue walking I would tell you that the bus is sort of a waste of time to begin with. The Freedom Trail is easily walkable and you can fill in some of the things that are further afield (the USS Constitution in Charlestown being the best example) by an easy Uber or the harbor ferry. 

 

The only reason I would take a bus while sightseeing in Boston is if you aren't able to walk for long periods. 

[tring]

1 hour ago, princeton123211 said:

Boston is one of the most easily walkable cities in the US-- the main historic areas are relatively compact and getting from one end to the other takes no more than about 45 minutes. If you don't have an issue walking I would tell you that the bus is sort of a waste of time to begin with. The Freedom Trail is easily walkable and you can fill in some of the things that are further afield (the USS Constitution in Charlestown being the best example) by an easy Uber or the harbor ferry. 

 

The only reason I would take a bus while sightseeing in Boston is if you aren't able to walk for long periods. 

 

Thanks, yes we have decided to cancel the booking.  Will use some of the cash to buy a US sim card with some internet that can also be used in Canada, so can call taxis.

 

[princeton123211]

6 minutes ago, tring said:

so can call taxis.

Just know that there are significantly less traditional taxis in Boston these days than there used to be-- not that common to find anymore. Most use Uber or Lyft. 

[tring]

15 minutes ago, princeton123211 said:

Just know that there are significantly less traditional taxis in Boston these days than there used to be-- not that common to find anymore. Most use Uber or Lyft. 

 

Thanks.  We do not use Uber in the UK, but DH should be able to sort it before we go. 

 

Thanks again.

 

[tetleytea]

We basically took the public bus to the USS Constitution, walked here-and-there to Boston Common (and Cheers), then took a different public bus back to the ship.   But that was some rigorous walking from the Constitution to Bunker Hill, and Feneuil Hall is closed until something like summer 2025 (the shops are open, but the part that makes it worth a visit is closed).

[mets123]

Can you please elaborate on which parts of Fanuil Hall are open and which are closed. I'm there this September.

[tetleytea]

Right now it's just Feneuil.Marketplace and not Feneuil.Hall.  The shops are open, the public restrooms are open downstairs.  But the historical part that gives talks and tours is closed for renovation. There are a few occasional street performers, but nothing I would detour your walk route for.  

[Nitemare]

I would have suggested keeping the tour and planning to use a taxi, uber, or public transport back to the ship if you couldn't get a ride back on the Trolley

[tring]

4 hours ago, Nitemare said:

I would have suggested keeping the tour and planning to use a taxi, uber, or public transport back to the ship if you couldn't get a ride back on the Trolley

 

Not much point in that if we only do about a third of the trolley route, possibly less, before we got off.  Thanks for the reply though.

 

We have cancelled now, but the main reason we booked it initially is that doing a trip via the cruise line would have got us priority for immigration, which needs done in Boston.  We are on a ship travelling from the UK round trip, which will have almost entirely British  passengers, who will have got ESTA visa waivers that will need processing on arrival.  We were on the same itinerary last year with the same cruise line and we got through immigration between 10.30am and 11.00am without the priority of a ship's excursion.  After passengers on excursions, they processed everyone according to deck, with the upper decks first.  We were on deck C, which is fairly middling and are in a similar position on the ship this year.  We will be in overnight, so want to stay out in port late the first day, so decided we do not really want to queue for immigration soon after 7am, which is what was required for the 9.30am excursions last year.

 

The ships on that route only have about 2.000 passengers, so hoping we will be ok this year as well in Boston, though reading the thread about immigration in Portland just now has left us a little wary, so if anyone has experience of immigration in Boston, I would appreciate any feedback regards how efficient it was. 

 

We have booked an 11am excursion for another immigration port (New Orleans) on a January cruise we have booked, since immigration was much less efficient there on previous calls.  In NO the process took until late afternoon to complete, both of last two years.  That is another regular itinerary, done annually by the cruise line, though in January we will be on a grand class ship, so about 3,000 pax.  Again it is a 2 day call though, presumably because of the immigration

 

Edited July 15 by tring