Our planned day in Boston was extremely hot with high humidity so although we were originally planning to walk around on The Freedom Trail and see those sights, we ended up changing our plans for some more heat friendly options. That doesn’t mean that we crossed off all our plans right off the bat, in fact, we melted quite a bit in the morning on our first tour. But I digress- let me first tell you how we started off planning our day…

When I researched fun things to do with teens in Boston- every blog and website talked about the Boston Duck Tours. After reading about them, we decided that would be the highlight of our day so we purchased our tickets online and booked a 6 pm tour. With the evening set, that left us with the morning and afternoon to fill. After purchasing a Duck Tour ticket, there are several options for discounted tickets to other attractions so we started by taking advantage of half price tickets to a tour of Harvard (they would have been free on a weekday, but they give you a discount on the weekend).

We made our way to the campus found The Hahvahd Tour umbrella and met our tour guide- they are easy to find in their straw hats. All of the tour guides are Harvard students and they take you through the campus giving the history, traditions, and information about famous Harvardians. Our tour guide was well versed and expounded some very well rehearsed puns that seemed to delight the crowd. My only complaint is that although they broke the group in half, we were still a large crowd – it was difficult to hear her and stay together since we were crossing streets to different parts of the university. Furthermore, it made it difficult to stop and take a picture since there were so many people vying for the same photo-op spots.

I’m guessing that this tour may be less crowded on a weekday, but since this was our one full day in Boston, we were forced to fight the crowds and large groups for this tour. Let me also add that if you are looking for an admissions tour- this is not it. We spent the entire time outside because Harvard does not let sightseeing tours into the buildings which could disrupt the learning environment. We ended our tour at The Harvard Shop- a store run by students where most of the proceeds go to help Harvard students with financial aid. If you’re going to take this tour, bring some cash. At the end, it is customary to tip the tour guide since that is how they make their money.

Did I mention it was really hot? It was. Which is why we scrapped plans to walk the Freedom Trail, grabbed some lunch and made our way to the Museum of Science. We were boarding the Duck Tour from that location anyway and we figured it would keep us occupied until it was time to leave. The Duck Tour website offers discounted tickets to the museum, but as we found out, that only applies if you buy a combo ticket when you originally purchase the Duck Tour ticket- the museum doesn’t honor the discount after the fact. We also found out that most of the really cool exhibits at the museum require an extra fee (the planetarium, the Body Worlds, the butterfly garden, etc…)- ouch. Do the math, $29 dollars per ticket multiplied by 4. Then add to that an extra $6 dollars per ticket for entrance to the butterfly garden and that equals a very expensive afternoon.

Definitely poor planning on our part but it turned into a unique experience. The museum has plenty to see and the teens had a good time. Their favorite parts were the butterfly garden (extra fee) and the Theater of Electricity (included in the regular priced ticket).

For a description of the Butterfly Garden, click here. The conservatory, although quite warm, is beautiful and full of butterflies. This gave us plenty of opportunities to photograph them and for them to even land on us. I’ve learned that my other half is apparently a butterfly whisperer because he had several that landed on him and stayed put during our time there.

While we waited for the Lightning Show in the Theater of Electricity we walked around. There are lots of things to keep the kids (and me) occupied…

The Lightning! show was really interesting and informative. The presentation lasted about 25 minutes which gave us about a half hour before the museum closed. Once again- we planned poorly on this one. The museum closed at 5, but we didn’t board our Duck Tour until 6 pm. That left us with about an hour of downtime. We thought to maybe walk somewhere just for something to do, but the museum isn’t near much. Another lesson learned for the next time.

The Duck Tour was everything the websites and my research said it would be. Our ConDUCKtor was Skipper the Skydiver (you can read his bio on the site) and he was awesome. The tour spends an hour or so on land going by 35 different sites. You can find a listing of them here. Skipper was knowledgeable, puny (that seems to be a trend for tours in Boston), and interacted with the crowd well. Then we plunged into the Charles River where he talked to us about the vehicle, pointed out the sites, and mentioned all the charities the Boston Duck Tours gives back to. The teens loved it and we got to experience some nice views.

While on the river, they also let young kids come and steer the boat which I thought was really cute. Once every child that wanted to steer got the opportunity, we headed back to land and our drop off point.

Even with the poor planning, it was a nice day and we did enough to entice the teens into coming back another time. Hopefully, someone out there will learn from our mistakes.

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