Lots of people love Acadia National Park.  Until the day we visited on our cruise, Tom and I were not among them.  We had been to Acadia in 1994  and it was wall-to-wall people.  The roads were jammed with cars.  We weren’t able to find parking anywhere close to where we wanted to go.  The sheer number of visitors was overwhelming.  When we finally managed to climb up Cadillac Mountain, there were still way too many people to enjoy anything about the park.  We couldn’t wait to leave.

When we thought about going back, we were very reluctant.  But I didn’t get the stamp in 1994 so I had to go back.  The first problem with getting into Acadia National Park was getting off the ship.  We had to go through immigration in order to enter the US.  This was done on the ship and we had group numbers assigned.  When we were supposed to report to immigration, they announced our number.

Our number was 14, which was early in the process compared to people in group 40.  It still took two hours for us to be processed through immigration.  Meeting with an immigration official took 30 seconds.  He took a picture, checked the facial recognition software and then told us “Welcome home.”  Once we cleared immigration we were given an orange sticker on our key card and were able to leave the ship.

Less of a problem was getting to Bar Harbor.  We had to ride a tender in.  Fortunately we were able to get on a tender within minutes of clearing immigration.  The immigration process started at 10 a.m. and by 12:30 we were in Bar Harbor.  The next issue was getting to the Visitors Center for Acadia National Park.  We thought about walking, but there wasn’t a good path or sidewalk from the town to the Visitors Center.

Fortunately, since we last visited Acadia National Park, they have started a shuttle bus system called “The Island Explorer.”  The shuttle buses leave from the Village Green in Bar Harbor and take people all over the island – for free!  There are 11 different routes and most of them run every half hour.  The route that goes from the Village Green to the Visitors Center runs every 15 minutes in the summer.  Riding the Island Explorer was a game changer for us.

We got on the shuttle at the Village Green and rode up to the Acadia National Park Visitors Center.  The parking lot was still full but the buses cut way down on the number of cars on the roads.  I got my stamp and we looked at some trails in the park.  We decided to hike around Jordan Pond, so we went back to the bus stop and waited for the Jordan Pond shuttle.

When we got to Jordan Pond, we headed out on the trail.  It was about four miles all the way around the pond and it was a beautiful day.  One mile of the trail was on a narrow boardwalk with pullouts.  People were going both directions on the path, but the pullouts allowed us to step over so people could pass.  Because of the number of people, it took a while to traverse the boardwalk.

The next section of path was where a rockfall had slid down into the pond.  We had to climb up and down over the large rocks, which was challenging for me.  It was more difficult because of trying to get around other people.  But the views along the pond were gorgeous.  Just about the time I was ready to give up and turn around, we came to the path around the rest of the lake.  Wide and sandy.  A delight to walk on.  It was especially nice because it was the second half of our walk, so we got the hard part out of the way while we were fresh.

Tom and I thought about hiking some more, but decided there wasn’t another hike we wanted to do that would fit into the time we had.  Instead, we went back to Bar Harbor for some ice cream and shopping.  We took the Loop shuttle to Bar Harbor which made the trip a little longer, but showed us more of the island.

When we returned to the Village Green we headed to Mt. Desert Island Ice Cream.  Their motto is “fearless flavor” and they had some interesting flavors we could have tried.  Tom got vanilla with chocolate syrup.  I decided to try peach and Metz Sugar Pill.  They were both delicious.  The Metz Sugar Pill was marshmallow ice cream with graham cracker pieces and chocolate fudge pieces.  Yummy!

Fortified with the ice cream we checked out a couple of souvenir shops.  Tom always wears the backpack when we are out and it was hard for him to maneuver with the number of people in the shops.  I found a spoon and we spent some time in a bookstore, but then we were feeling crowded again.  We walked down toward the harbor and found a bench for some people-watching.  The scenery was gorgeous and it was fun to see people enjoying the beautiful day.

I don’t think Acadia National Park will ever be one of our favorite parks.  It is like a lot of National Parks – loved to death.  We prefer going places that have fewer people with hiking trails that are less crowded.  But this visit was a definite improvement over the last one, thanks to the Island Explorer.  A great idea that more parks need to adopt.