CAT Ferry from Yarmouth, Nova Scotia to Portland, Maine // usa and canada

Happy Tuesday friends! I am excited to spend the next couple of weeks sharing with y'all some recap posts from the girls trip that I took four years ago through New England, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Nova Scotia (along with some new posts from this time that I never shared also!)! I hope that it encourages you to consider taking a road trip (in part or in whole depending on your circumstances) this fall to these beautiful places in the world.

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Happy Wednesday friends! Today I am so excited to continue to share more about my recent trip through New England, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Nova Scotia! It is crazy to me that there are only a few more posts to write in this series. It was truly a fantastic trip and "re-living" it here on the blog has been so much fun!

As you can see from the map above, after we stopped in Lunenburg we drove down to Yarmouth to spend the night before catching our early ferry ride on Friday, October 6th. Along the way we briefly stopped in Lockeport and Barrington, but to be very open and frank there is not a lot to see or do (it was sometimes hard to find a gas station) along the drive to Lunenburg to Yarmouth. If you are making the same trip you will want to be prepared for this!

We arrived in Yarmouth starving and tired, but thankful for the amazing day that we had had! We stayed at the Comfort Inn in Yarmouth and the ladies who run the place were so sweet. We were so blessed by their incredible kindness and compassion after a long day of travel. It was very clean and only about 2 miles from the ferry so it worked well for a quick stay if you are looking for a recommendation for a hotel. We ate at Rudders Brew Pub and Seafood Restaurant and it was yummy y'all! I definitely recommend here- especially if you are gluten free as they have a gluten free menu! They are open pretty late - we didn't show up there until about 9:30 and they staff was all extremely sweet.

We took another CAT Ferry (you can read about our CAT Ferry experience from Prince Edward Island to Nova Scotia HERE) from Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, back into the United States and landed in Portland, Maine.

This ferry ride was much longer than the other, with approximately 6 hours of being on the ferry. Similar to our other ferry ride once we parked our car we were not allowed to stay or return to the car for safety reasons. Learning this after the last experience allowed us to prepare a bit better for this ride.

It was an absolutely unbelievable stunning morning as the ferry headed out of Yarmouth.

Because it was so early in the morning there was breakfast on board that you could purchase, snacks for purchase, coffee, hot chocolate, teas, and a sitting area with tables to eat at. For those with food allergies you will want to bring your own food on board as they do not have allergy friendly options.

Ali grabbed some breakfast and curled up in some comfortable chairs in the front of the boat, while I decided to stretch out in the back and work on my travelers notebook from our trip. Watching the scenery go by was absolutely breathtaking and it was lovely to have time to just sit and relax and regroup, watching the beauty pass by.

Ali soon came and joined me in the back, and along with lots of other passengers we stretched out on the benches and both napped. It was incredibly refreshing, and to be honest helped a bit with the sea sickness that was quite extreme as we crossed the ocean. For those of you who are prone to motion sickness you will definitely want to bring some supplies to help you as the ferry is definitely small and some of those waves were HUGE.

Ali and I spent the time remaining on the boat enjoying talking and laughing, reading, and exploring the ship. The time passed quickly and all to soon we were back in the United States! It was sad to see our trip quickly coming to an end, but it was a beautiful way to end it at the same time.

As you drive in you see the Portland Head Lighthouse which was really neat!

As I mentioned in my post about our CAT Ferry ride from Prince Edward Island to Nova Scotia, I do want to put out a disclaimer here that I believe is important. I will give a quick word of warning though that was a bit disappointing in regards to their customer service (which I have expressed to the company directly). For several months prior to our trip I tried to contact the company to ask several questions and to see if I could work with them in our trips (we were taking two of their ferries).

I called, left several messages, sent numerous emails, contacted them through different social media venues, etc and received no response. It was a bit disappointing to see how they didn't even respond to general questions in the help of planning this trip or to even be willing to respond back to any of these attempts to better understand their travel system. In fact, the two friends that I met on the Prince Edward Island to Nova Scotia ferry trip were surprised to learn that there was a ferry from Yarmouth to Portland, Maine. They said that they had tried for about 5 months to hear back from the company and when they did they asked if there were other ferries and were told there wasn't. I share that to say that if you have any questions and are going to use the ferries I would definitely try to figure out the information online and not expect to receive a response.

Despite this, the ferry ride, is an extremely practical way to make a "loop" back to the US and would definitely recommend it if you are planning a trip like we did. Thank you for continuing to read about our adventures throughout the recent trip through New England, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Nova Scotia! I hope for those of you planning a similar trip all of this information is helpful! If you would like, you can read all of the posts from the trip by clicking on the links below:

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