The Amazing Race! Canada/USA Road Trip July-Aug 2016 - Day 8 (Drive to Boston)

[neilhd]

Another early-ish start saw us waking up at 7am. We finished the packing and gave Joe his clue for today. His challenge was to navigate us to Ellen's Stardust Diner, which was about a 15 minute walk away. I had printed Google Maps directions so this was pretty easy.

We were seated straight away, and ordered some breakfast. I had a breakfast burrito to try and make up for the rubbish one I had last night. The food was pretty good - better than Tick Tock Diner, and the singers were amazing! Definitely recommend this place, but perhaps not if you have a hangover. It's also quite expensive - £56 for the 3 of us. For comparison, later tonight at the Cheesecake Factory we spent £55 on dinner (which included a couple of beers and dessert!).

We walked back to our hotel and asked the reception guy to call for our car. We went upstairs, got our bags, tidied up, went to the loo etc, and went back downstairs. Our car pulled up 2 minutes later. We thoroughly enjoyed our stay at the Distrikt. The street it is on is not that great (you walk past a parole office!), but there's plenty of foot-traffic and a couple of other hotels so it feels perfectly safe. The location near Times Square is really good, and the staff are great.

We loaded our car, and programmed Mrs Google to take us to Boston! As we were quite far west in Manhattan anyway it was a very short and simple drive to get back to that big road that runs up along the Hudson river (I forget the name of it), and the drive to Boston, through Connecticut into Massachusetts was very simple, and very nice too.

We stopped for gas at some point and got a coffee from the Dunkin Donuts there. I wasn't expecting much from it, but it turned out to be really good coffee.

Boston is not laid out on a grid like NYC, as it is a bit older, so it is slightly more confusing to get around, but Mrs Google steered us deftly to the Intercontinental Hotel on Atlantic Avenue, which was handy as that's where we were staying.

We dropped the car with the valet and went inside. This was a very nice hotel indeed. We loved it immediately! We were a bit early (it was about 2pm) but our room was ready so we went straight up.

Our room number was represented in Binary:



The room was amazing, and the bathroom was even better, featuring both a large shower cubicle and a deep-soak bathtub. It even had some sort of sports toilet:



We were really impressed with this place. Joe discovered the mini bar and started pulling everything out to show us, until I noticed the sign that said "As soon as you remove anything, it'll be charged to your room". The front-desk sorted all that out when we checked out the next day!

After exploring our room sufficiently we went down and checked out the pool and spa (Free apples, nice!), and then went out the back of the hotel to the waterfront. It was really nice out here, so we milled around for a while.

Back of our hotel:









and then set off on a walk to the Prudential Centre a couple of miles away. The reason for this was dinner - there is a Cheesecake Factory there!

I realised that I could use Google Maps to do the walking directions, put the phone in my pocket and then it would send an alert to my Pebble watch every time we needed to turn at a junction, so that was pretty convenient and stopped me looking like a lost tourist.

It was good to walk through the city (Boston is known as a walking city, apparently), and we got to see more than if we just drove/cabbed it. Joe needed the loo halfway there so we stopped at a convenient very nice Loews hotel to use their facilities.

We eventually got to the Cheesecake Factory. It's actually enormous! We were seated immediately, which makes a change to Orlando where you normally have to sit for 45 minutes by the water feature in the mall clutching a pager. Ele and Joe had the fresh lemonade that they always get. I forget what they ate, but I ate a Bacon Bacon Burger. Basically a burger with 2 different types of bacon on it. It was amazing. Naturally, we had some cheesecake to finish. It was a new one with Nutella in it. You don't need to ask if it was nice! Including a beer or two it was somehow marginally cheaper than our breakfast at Ellen's this morning.



Suitably stuffed we had a little wander around and found this pool and fountain:





We spent 15 minutes here, then decided to head back. We walked for a bit on a different route, popped into a Walgreens for some bottled water, orange juice and breakfast things, then decided to Uber it back to the hotel.

Once back we went for a swim. Joe had to put on the robe for the trip to the spa!



They were showing a movie in the pool (Rise of the Guardians) and we actually had the place to ourselves. Once finished we helped ourselves to some free apples and left to go to bed.

Not the most interesting of days to read about today as not much happened, for which I apolgise and promise to make it up to you in later installments. Maybe.

[jocat]

Looks a great hotel, and the weather in Boston looks lovely.

Got to love the Cheesecake Factory. We ate there in Boston too, and like you we were seated straightaway. It makes such a nice change.

[Mortimer Mouse]

Ooh looks like a fancy hotel. Do you mind me asking how much you paid for it?

I love Dunkin Donuts coffee and I always buy a packet to bring home.

[neilhd]

Originally Posted by Mortimer Mouse

Ooh looks like a fancy hotel. Do you mind me asking how much you paid for it?

I love Dunkin Donuts coffee and I always buy a packet to bring home.

See more...

I think we paid £160 for the night which is reasonably pricey, but worth it considering how nice it was.

[disney owl]

Boston looks good too

[Glee Fan]

Interested in a trip to Boston too, so this TR is being super helpful

Hotel looks lovely, cheesecake even better.