We stayed out of town at Eastham and drove 1/2 hour to Provincetown for two days and evenings. We wanted to savor the "downtown" atmosphere, the dunes, and the ocean.
We had no interest in staying in Provincetown; our hotel was in Eastham, an ideal location as close as one can get to the National Seashore. You can see the hotel at their website by going to www.fourpoints.com and entering "Eastham" and "MA" into the search. The picture on the front page shows you the tiki bar by the indoor pool. Look closely, and you can see the balconies and patios that adjoin the rooms surrounding the pool. Ours was on the second floor, and we enjoyed our balcony, where one could smoke.
The best thing about this hotel was that it was free for us--we belong to Sheraton's Preferred Guest (www.preferredguest.com) and we had points: only 4,000 for weekdays in July of 2000; now 7,000, I see at their website. But they were remodeling, and their food service areas were a mess and chaotic. It took half an hour to get coffee at the counter. Even worse, there were no coffeepots in the rooms--imagine! I''m one of those rare breeds of humans up at 5:00 a. m. when I''m on vacation, and I am dangerous until I've had my coffee--they told me to drive to the nearest convenience store! But I must stop complaining, for housekeeping solved the problem by finding me a coffeepot by 9 o''clock. I had endangered the lives of the locals only once! Now I''m sure they have brand new coffeemakers in every room.
Everything else worked well. The rooms had all the standard Sheraton touches, including a fridge. We enjoyed the pool and hot tub, and the parrot--or macaw?--added some excitement to the pool area. He was never still until the bartender covered his cage at dark. This location was the perfect place to situate ourselves on the Cape. We "moved" after two nights down to the Sheraton in Hyannis and found ourselves in the midst of a nightmare traffic jam all around that town.
We got our tickets at the Chamber of Commerce building at the head of the wharf and stood in line on MacMillan Wharf for a little while until our "Dolphin" was ready for boarding. The sound system announced that the biologist wanted everyone on the second story deck for the beginning of the trip. There were comfortable benches with backs, where we listened to his explanation of how the whales' feeding grounds had been formed by glacial deposits of rock and how the currents had trapped the nutritious sediment there in the bay to make this one of the best feeding grounds for whales in the world. Then the biologist disappeared to a microphone down under and narrated the entire trip.
"Look at three o'clock," he said, and about 100 people ran to the right side of the ship. Then, "Eleven o'clock," and we ran to the left side, cameras flashing. We saw a few backs and tails before the lightning started, but we were told it would pass. It did. Nothing to worry about. The restaurant was out of the weather and had good hotdogs and muffins, among other food items. Soon the rain and thunder abated, and we were running from side to side on the first deck to catch the sightings and photo opps, bumping into strangers, hardly strangers anymore, and laughing with them. The biologist knew each whale by name, including two mothers and their babies, so we heard info on each one. I believe we saw about 14 breaches, at least two full breaches. When the last whale jumped w-a-y out of the water and flipped her tail as she dove back in, the biologist knew it was over and told us, "Say 'Bye, Bye'." So we did.
It had been a few hours of magic. No better way to spend a summer afternoon on the Cape! The trip back took about a half-hour, and the biologist told us stories of whale rescues he had directed while we soaked up some sun.