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An Offer I Couldn't Refuse

Fram  crew washes Panorama Lounge windows
This repositioning cruise of the Fram from Arctic to Antarctic comprises different segments, each of them bookable. My trip from Greenland to Halifax is the first of the repositioning segments, followed by New York; Miami; Puerto Limon, Costa Rica; then via the Panama Canal to Callao, Peru, and Valparaiso, Chile, before heading to Antartica.

The problem for Hurtigruten, the operator of the MV Fram, is that these repositioning cruises do not draw full boats. Even on this first segment from Greenland, the 240-passenger vessel is barely half full. The two segments along the U.S. East Coast are even lighter. Only 84 souls are booked from Halifax to New York.

Including me.

I planned to end my journey in Halifax, but when I heard so few were traveling south to New York I asked the purser if he could make a deal. He said he'd get back to me in a couple hours "with an offer you can't refuse".

He did. I didn't. So for less than the price of seven nights in a downtown Marriott  I'll spend another week aboard the Fram, taking the train back to Philadelphia from New York rather than flying back from Halifax through Toronto or Montreal. It will cost about five or six times the coach air fare (or about twice the business class fare, a more appropriate gauge), but in my mind that's still a bargain.

After we struck the deal, however, there was a hitch. Paolo of the purser's office explained there was some issue with Homeland Security which would prevent disembarking in New York. I found that curious, because New York is a two-day port of call. Instead he offered to take me to Miami for the same price with a port call in Charleston, a city that's on my bucket list. I told him that I'd consider it, but my schedule would most likely prevent an additional five days at sea beyond the added week to New York. Miracle of miracles, the next day he said the ship's agent in New York had worked it out and I and a handful of other passengers will disembark at the West Side piers.

All this and another cabin upgrade, too. Probably the same size, just a higher deck. And I suspect that's done for the vessel's convenience, not mine. Grouping the few remaining passengers on two decks rather than three will simplify the Fram's hotel operations.

What makes the Halifax-New York segment so appealing is our first scheduled U.S. port of call: Bar Harbor, Maine, a place I know well having visited there almost every year for nearly half a century. I'm looking forward to entering Frenchman Bay on the Fram.

En route we'll most likely make landing at a town or village along the Nova Scotia coast. After Bar Harbor calls will be made in Bucksport and Rockland, Maine, Boston, and Newport, Rhode Island before entering New York Harbor.

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