VEENDAM: June 15-22 Boston to Quebec AKA "Honey we're home"

[debjo]

For shrimip56 and jplewis...

After reading all the anecdotes regarding all the fun you folks had on the 6/15 leg of the cruise...it makes me wish DH and I could get away for more than 7-8 days at a time. With a bunch of horses at home, it makes it hard, but I wouldn't give them up for all the cruises in the world!

 

I'm glad we were able to make the DWTS cruise on 6/22...but it would have been nicer to have enjoyed all the better weather you had the previous week at the ports-of-call and then concentrate on the DWTS activities. As you noticed...it was hard to get too involved with other aspects of our cruise week and be thoroughly immersed in the DWTS events too..."c'est la vie" ! (I did remember some of my 8 years of French class while I was in Quebec!) :-)

 

We're really enjoying our "cruise again" with all your memories on this message board...thanks for doing such a terrific job with it...still looking forward to your Quebec memories!

 

Debjo

[Steppy08]

Shrimp56, just started reading your review. This is one of our to-do itineraries, so I'm interested to see what it was like. I'm enjoying it so far! Especially the Mustard drill. ;)

[shrimp56]

Shrimp56, just started reading your review. This is one of our to-do itineraries, so I'm interested to see what it was like. I'm enjoying it so far! Especially the Mustard drill. ;)

 

Thank you for your kind words. As I said it's a much lower key "wow" than Alaska, but I'm sure you could up the ante by renting a car and driving to hike-able areas. I've enjoyed your review because you've shown me places I had not seen.

[shrimp56]

QUEBEC VILLE

After we had spent 4 days here "land-side" during a conference my husband attended, we came to the conclusion that Quebec was a "2 day city." So when when we saw the leaden clouds and the rain coming down as we approached Quebec, we were wondering a bit why we were here again.

 

 

The looooooooooooong "arm" that led to the cruise terminal was not reassuring either. The dock that I thought was "so close" to everything on Google maps was actually a long march to the exit. AND we were spending an extra night "land-side" due to flight schedules. (grumble, grumble, whiiiiiiiiiiine)

 

 

Then the sun came out and the French minx that is Quebec winked at us and the world was right again.

 

"basse ville" with The Fairmount Chateau Frontenac towering over all.

 

The good part about where we were docked was that we were in the "basse ville" (lower city), the old historic area also known as Le Petit Champlain. Going between "basse ville" and "haut ville" was a matter of a funicular ride ($2. each way) or endless stairs. So, with the exception of one forary into upper Quebec, we explored "basse ville" and saw much we had missed before.

 

We met these young 'uns as we were leaving the port area. I can't remember where they said that they got those "hats", but they kindly posed for a portrait.

 

 

Then we walked by Museé de la Civilisation, which we had missed last visit. This time it had an exhibit on Paris in the Belle Epoque, so that was on our list for post-disembarkation.

 

 

We walked to the handsome cream building with the red doors and shutters, turned right, and were transported to the early years in Quebec. Many of the warehouses near the docks had been converted into upscale hotels, but the building facades still retained a historic feel. (to be continued)

 

[shrimp56]

At the top of the street we stopped and looked at our future hotel for Saturday night. More about that later. From there we turned left and dog-legged it through historic streets, finally ending up in Place Royal. There we saw Notre-Dame-des-Victoires at the head of the square. They are currently celebrating the 350th anniversary of their founding as a parish. Her simple, gray stone exterior opens up into a beautiful white and gold interior.

 

Notre-Dame-des-Victoires

 

Interior of Notre-Dame-des-Victoires

 

 

The stations of the cross resembled old lithographs or engravings, which if a parish isn't rich, might well be what they used.

 

 

The suspended boat is emblematic of Quebec's relationship with her river and the sea as well as the Christian symbolism of our lives as a journey over the sea. For more information, scroll down on this page http://www.danishwindmill.com/danish_traditions/traditions_overview.asp

 

We had a "date" at 2pm to meet some of the "family" at Chateau Frontenac for a drink in their beautiful bar. But first we needed lunch. After a brief reconnaissance we settled on Le Bistro sous le Fort, which means "The restaurant below the fort." The steep cliff was a natural location for protecting the city.

 

 

We ate on the raised terrace conversing pleasantly with our neighbors while demolishing a light lunch. My husband was settling the bill when I noticed an older woman with a cane looking for a place to sit, so I stood up and offered her my seat. (She was next in line) The host noticed and gave me a $10. gift certificate for doing what my mother taught me to. Alas, we were unable to use it, but it was a nice gesture.

 

You can see the already mentioned funicular on the hill behind the restaurant, which was to take us to our next stop...

 

Chateau Frontenac Hotel

[mamamzee]

On this itinerary at Halifax, has anyone gone to see the Titanic graves? Many of those that were found were buried there.

[shrimp56]

On this itinerary at Halifax, has anyone gone to see the Titanic graves? Many of those that were found were buried there.

 

I'm sure someone on the ship went on the tour that stopped at the gravesite. As my report indicates, we stayed on the ship in Halifax.

[shrimp56]

I had suggested to "the family" that we go to the bar at Chateau Frontenac for a drink. (We like to stay at a "lesser" hotel and drink at the good ones LOL) They named me "point person" because I been there for a drink in the bar on our previous visit and I speak some French. And because it's such a "fancy-pants" place (not!) they wanted me to be the one to be thrown out. Thanks guys!

 

So in we went. It is a beautiful space with a smashing view of the river. Not only did the young server speak better English than I speak French, she made sure the 6 of us ( Kay, Bonnie, myself and spouses) had prime seating for the view. It's a lovely, somewhat old-style British space with plenty of wood, comfy chairs and a circular bar in the middle. While we were more subdued than our usual "Happy Hour" on the ship, I think we had a lovely time.

 

 

After we finished drinking in the view and our potables, the husband and I wandered a little bit in the immediate vicinity. We said hello to the statue of Samuel Champlain, who founded Quebec.

 

 

Took a peek at a red roofed hotel, gazed at our beautiful ship, and wandered down Dufferin Terrace to check out the cannons. The funicular in the distance goes up to the Old Quebec Ramparts.

 

 

 

 

We decided to go back to the ship to rest a bit before our last dinner on ms Veendam. Our return trip began, of course, with the Funicular.

 

[fireflies]

Great review, the East coast looks lovely. Awesome food pics, love all the seafood and colorful local pics.

[shrimp56]

Great review, the East coast looks lovely. Awesome food pics, love all the seafood and colorful local pics.

 

Thank you for your kind comments:) I've been mulling it over and my thought is that this trip is much more dependent on good weather. Alaska in the rain is still scenic, Quebec is just wet.

[RuthC]

On this itinerary at Halifax, has anyone gone to see the Titanic graves? Many of those that were found were buried there.

I took the HAL tour that stopped there several years ago; I don't suppose it has changed much in that time.

I was impressed with the design of the Titanic area, especially the representation of the rip in the bow where the iceberg tore through.

It's a peaceful final resting place.

[Typhoon1]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and the excellent pictures.

[shrimp56]

We had enjoyed the International Dinner a lot on Volendam last summer so were filled with anticipation. Alas, while described interestingly, few of the dishes were excellent.

 

My husband's spring roll

 

 

This dish was a mystery. I can always do gravalax, but why with what seemed to be taco chips and a mustard-ish sauce? A prize for anyone that can explain this to me.

 

 

The shrimp with tomato sauce, broccoli and rice was just that. It was tasty enough, but looked exactly like shrimp with tomato sauce, broccoli and rice -- nothing exotic.

 

 

My Kiwi Pavlova was nice. No idea why I ordered it because I don't like kiwi. The strange things we do while floating around on a ship.

 

Then came the parade and "introduction of important people" ending up with the staff lining the stairs. I had not seen this before as in Alaska the big deal was the entrance of flaming Baked Alaska. I also didn't see the little flags on the table as we had before.

 

 

So what did we do on our last shipboard night? We went to the cabin and read our e-books until it was time for a last picture of Quebec from our balcony.

 

We still had one more day, but here endeth the fun part of the cruise. We were going to miss our ship, our balcony and, most of all, our "family," but, as you will see "family" keeps popping up. So for now I leave you with magical Quebec.

 

[sail7seas]

On this itinerary at Halifax, has anyone gone to see the Titanic graves? Many of those that were found were buried there.

 

 

We did a tour of Halifax years ago through HAL and were glad we did. While we don't often do HAL tours, this one had agreat guide, he gave us so much information about Halifax and included a stop at the cemetary where the victims of Titanic are buried. The headstones are arranged in the shape of a ship's bow and our guide gave wonderful background information about those victims and some White Star Line actions that were fascinating. I also found the cemetary interesting as we walked around a bit and noticed it was in sections for Greeks, Italians, Irish etc I had no idea how very diverse Halifax is. Seeing the various sections in the cemetary demonstrated it. I was glad we took that tour. We also saw the side of the harbor where Halifax suffered the 'great explosion' and it was shocking to hear the details.

 

I always knew there was a strong connection between Boston, where we haved lived all our lives, and Halifax but I never knew why until that tour.

 

[sail7seas]

Shrimp.......

 

GREAT review of a cruise we love so much.

Wonderful reading.

Thanks so much for sharing the great photos and comments. :)

[shrimp56]

Thank you sail:) But hold your praise. I get grumpy in the next post ;)

[debjo]

For shrimp56...

We love all your beautiful Quebec photos...glad your time there quickly changed from the dismal gray sky to a sunny one. After reading all that you did and saw...we've a better idea of what we'll do on our next visit to this beautiful city. Before we boarded the VEENDAM on 6/22, we retraced the sights I saw during my (long ago) high school visit to Quebec, as DH had never been to this city of history. Now I'm torn between sailing to Quebec from Boston again replaying our recent trip with a pre-cruise stay at the Chateau Frontenac or doing the two-week round-trip cruise...if only we could manage the two-week, round-trip from Quebec cruise...then we could have it both ways...sail into Quebec and then do a pre or post-cruise stay at the Chateau! Ah, dreams are the impetus to advance planning!

 

What future cruises do you have in mind?

 

Debjo

[shrimp56]

Scheduling constraints are a pain aren't they?

 

I'm ashamed (and happy) to say that we leave August 5 for the August 8-15 Norse Legends cruise on the Eurodam. We'll see friends in A'dam before the cruise and friends in Paris after the cruise.

[shrimp56]

You may have noticed that my posts are getting a bit grumpy. In Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet, Juliet says that "parting is such sweet sorrow." While their tale ended a lot worse than mine will, I beg to differ. Parting from new friends and a lovely ship is just plain lousy. Of course it didn't help that Quebec was in her foul mood again.

 

We joined Patsy for the tail-end of her early morning Lido time (That became our tradition for the second part of the cruise). Then we waited for "Yellow 1" to disembark. I never knew there were so many colors between red and yellow. Someone should show HAL a color chart. And we exited the ship mournfully. It didn't help that I temporarily took the wrong suitcase. If I hadn't started to open it to find my raincoat, I would have walked off with it. Who knew red was the new black? And then we looked back.... SIGH

 

 

Since it was raining we took a taxi to our hotel instead of our planned stroll. We left our suitcases there and plowed through the rain back to Place Royal where we had a second breakfast at a little cafe & food emporium we had seen the day before.

 

La maison Smith

 

View from inside La maison Smith

 

THEN the sun came out:) That little minx of a city did it again! We revisited the church and enjoyed Place Royal a bit before heading for Museé de la Civilisation. En route we ran into "family" from the ship, but as you will read later that was not our last family interaction:)

 

Place Royal in the sun

 

I had always dismissed this museum, but I now owe it an apology. It was varied. It was engaging. It was WONDERFUL! There is, of course Quebec history told through artifacts. There was an old Viking ship relic in the entry way set off by a large, multi-piece sculpture. There was an interactive media event for young peeps underway.

 

 

And then there was the Paris on Stage exhibition exhibition. I normally hate those recorded tours, but I gave in on this one and was glad I did. It was a smart little machine that knew when I went from room to room. They had accidentally given me French, so I also got a lot of mental exercise. This show is immersive and magnificent. It will be in Quebec through February 23, 2014, so if you have the chance GO! But ask for the English recording unless your French is better than mine.;) http://www.mcq.org/en/mcq/expositions.php

 

We ate lunch at the small museum cafeteria. We both had a delicious tomato soup and an even better quiche.

 

 

Next: We come full circle and our exit from Quebec.

[shrimp56]

Let's get the hotel over with. I had vacillated between several, but ended up reserving Le Priori in the end. It's an old building turned into a trendy hotel.

 

 

RANT

From the website I am gathering that our room was one of the lesser ones. We did have a stone wall, disfigured by a 3 part abstract orange painting that did not deserve space on my camera's storage card. The rug was long, scraggly and black. the corners of the bed were large and metal. It took me three passes before I stopped banging my toes on it. The bathroom was nice. The sink was in the room, which was fine, but cone shaped. At least it tapered down so my toes were safe. We needed to leave for the airport at 4:30am so they reserved a taxi for us and reminded us that the front desk was closed from midnight to 6am. Okay, no problem. What we weren't told was that the elevator was shut down also and we were going to have to haul our luggage down 4 flights of stairs into a secure space that had an exit into the street.

End RANT

 

The good part was that our taxi driver had a Chicago Blackhawks t-shirt over his seat. It turns out that Quebec will root for anyone against the Boston Bruins LOL So we talked ice hockey en français all the way to the airport. Our trip home via Toronto had its own challenges, but we will draw the curtain here.

 

NOW back to the family.

 

It turned out that Cruisin_Kay_D and her husband were staying across the street at Hotel 71, (They made a much better choice of hotel than we did) and invited us to share dinner with them at the restaurant in the hotel. It was a lovely way to finish the cruise. Good friends, good food, good wine. And so we closed the circle. From the Marriott Copley Place to Il Matto in Quebec. It doesn't get better than that.

 

 

 

My VERY rich Agnolotti

 

My husband's Pappardelle with wild mushrooms

 

 

Still to come:

Some general comments on ms Veendam and our cruise, plus my list of "bests."

[shrimp56]

But first I have to show off my new star :D

 

[shrimp56]

As I thought it through my "general comments" amount to understanding that any ship is a living organism and that it makes for a better cruise to see the good than the not perfect. I don't cruise to find fault, I cruise to relax and enjoy. Food not always to your taste? You didn't have to cook it. Worn carpet or whatever? My house has its issues too. etc... What I am "buying" is the whole experience: ship, ports and philosophy.

 

What DID upset me was how stretched the staff were. Not because they served us less well (they didn't), but for the exhaustion in their faces. HAL provides much more value than is paid for, but at whose expense?

 

In sum ms Veendam may be an older lady, but she still is warm, welcoming and comfortable. I'd sail on her again in a nano-second.

 

So to THE BESTS:

 

Best Cruise Terminal: Sydney, NS

Best Lobster Roll: The West Street Cafe, Bar Harbor

Best Shore Excursion: Tossup between Lobster boat and lighthouses, with a slim vote going to Capt John and his lecture on lobster s-e-x

Best Meal: Lunch at The Pinnacle

Best MDR Entree: The first night's Carrot Risotto

Best Service: Mabel in the Crow's Nest

Best Traveling Companions: My husband, of course, and our "family."

[jplewis]

Sally & Kay, I forgot to ask if you got the notes we left for you at your hotels? Both receptionists were very nice and did speak excellent English. I'm with Kay or Bonnie or whoever, I don't think we mind you posting pics of our family!

[BarbRN]

Loved your review, getting excited about the Veendam mid September. We did Alaska with HAL too. This sounds wonderful. I can tell you are a happy, easy to please person. I think attitude has a lot to do with the success of a trip.

 

Any excursions you recommend?

[shrimp56]

Sally & Kay, I forgot to ask if you got the notes we left for you at your hotels? Both receptionists were very nice and did speak excellent English. I'm with Kay or Bonnie or whoever, I don't think we mind you posting pics of our family!

 

Yes we did get your notes. My apologies for not thanking you earlier. We felt very loved :) And we miss you all a LOT. Pictures coming up!

 

Loved your review, getting excited about the Veendam mid September. We did Alaska with HAL too. This sounds wonderful. I can tell you are a happy, easy to please person. I think attitude has a lot to do with the success of a trip.

 

Any excursions you recommend?

 

Actually I have a pretty off-center view of the world. Ask my Veendam family LOL I notice the details, but I try see beyond them to the whole picture.

 

I'd recommend both the shorex I took. In Bar Harbor: The Lulu Lobster Boat Ride. In Charlottetown: The Lighthouse Tour. If you decide to climb one lighthouse make it Prim Point, because if you run late you won't have time to climb the other.