It’s a good thing we didn’t disembark in Boston and then arrive in New York later than the ship. If it wasn’t a cruise day, the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal Parking Lot would be shut down. It’s llittle better than shut down even when it’s open on a cruise day. That’s what we discovered on July 14 when Queen Mary 2 arrived in port at the end of her 175 anniversary cruise with us on it. We went to the machine just inside the terminal building so we could pay for one and a half months of parking our car in Brooklyn while we were in Europe and on the ship. A terminal employee announced, “It’s broken. Use the machine in the parking lot.”
We didn’t remember a machine in the parking lot. But we went out there anyway. Two employees hanging around the parking lot confirmed what we suspected. There was no other machine. They took down our credit card number and went to look for a form. It took forever to do even that much. Finally we got to our car. But when we tried to drive it out of the lot, the arm wouldn’t rise and let us out. No one was around. I had to shout for the parking lot attendants. They had to raise the arm for us and let us. out. Or we might be trapped there to this hour without any ship in port and only the Statue of Liberty across from the dock to keep us company.
