ADVENTURE (Canada/New England) Sept 16-27,2019 REVIEW w/lots of photos

[Hoopster95]

Poll:  What would you like to read next on CC?

• A full photo review? 
• or Another Covid19 thread?

 

I haven't posted a review for one full year since last year's epic Ovation/Alaska sailing, and wasn't planning to review this Adventure sailing from last fall. I had a great time reliving the memories of the Alaska sailing on the current "Ovation - One Year Ago Today" thread, so.....

 

Better late than never!

 

Who's in?

 

 

Sept 16 - Quebec City, Quebec

Sept 17 - Quebec City, Quebec

Sept 18 - at sea

Sept 19 - Charlottetown, P.E.I.

Sept 20 - Sydney, Nova Scotia

Sept 21 - Halifax, Nova Scotia

Sept 22 - Portland, Maine

Sept 23 - Portland, Maine

Sept 24 - Saint John, New Brunswick

Sept 25 - Boston, Mass

Sept 26 - at sea

Sept 27 - Bayonne (w/2 full days post cruise in NYC)

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 25, 2020 by Hoopster95

[Jimbo]

Count me in, this would have been some of the ports we were due to see on the cruise we CWC moved.

 

Adventure of the Seas September 24, 2020

[cruisequeen4ever]

Yay; thank you for doing this!

[toras]

I was on the reverse itinerary right after yours but we didn’t get Sydney so love to see pics esp from there.

[Cruising Lynne]

A review with lot of photos would be refreshing.

 

Adventure back in 2002 was our first cruise ever, and were were hooked. Departed San Juan, Puerto Rico to St.Thomas, St. Martin, Aruba, and Curacao. So fun. I would love to see how the ship has changed since then. I remember we flew in the day of the cruise. We would never do that now. The airlines are so bad.

[Hoopster95]

I still have photos to put together for the ports, so I'll just quickly start off with the cabin...

I had booked only within about 6 weeks of the sailing date. This sailing was offered on the GGG flyer, however was also offered with other added promos through my big box TA. I originally booked a 3V interior for $650 pp (it was as low as $599 the week before however couldn't pull the trigger quite yet for time off). The TA offer included free gratuities plus $100 obc... worked out to under $50 per diem for an interior, a very good buy.

 

I immediately signed up for RoyalUp as I had never done it before. The weakest offer allowable was $350 per person. I thought if I offered another $50 per night, I would end up in a balcony for under $100 per diem, again a great buy for a balcony. So I bid $550 bid, which was considered only "Fair". On Sept 13, only 4 days prior to sailing, I was upgraded to a balcony that I had not seen available in the system whatsoever up to this point, category 4D cabin 7544 right by the forward elevators. Not a location I normally target, but for this price on an 11 day sailing it certainly wasn't bad at all.

 

Keep in mind that my mindset was not taking 5 million pictures for a review like I normally do, so i don't even have a Port side photo of Adventure in port from this sailing, so I'll use one for my Caribbean sailing a few years ago... Here's where cabin 7544 is on this ship (red arrow & circled)

 

 

Your typical balcony cabin on Voyager Class

 

 

Note the original 3 Voyager Class ships (Voyager, Explorer & Adventure) the balconies are built within the hull of the ship...

 

 

... and the bottom 2 feet or so is solid hull,  makes sitting in the chairs and enjoying the views not as enjoyable as on the newer ships. For a view straight down to watch the pier or sailaway for example, you have to stand at the railing. Still, as a RoyalUp inexpensive upgrade, it was fabulous!

 

Edited May 25, 2020 by Hoopster95

[Hoopster95]

I've learned in the last few years that convenience, enjoyment and especially stress free memories often takes on more importance than saving a buck. I now make it a point of staying at the Fairmont at the Vancouver Airport overnight pre-flight... have a great dinner, live entertainment, beautiful rest and I walk out into the actual airport concourse and right up to the check-in desk in 5 minutes..... wonderful way to start the morning.

 

On fly day we were to fly at 7am out of Vancouver on AC, with a long connection in  Montreal... the connecting flight ended up being late, so our connection was even longer! Made for a very long day, but we had a beautiful day/night of flying

 

 

We rushed from the airport into a cab so that we can get to the hotel restaurant for a late dinner. We stayed at Hotel71 which is right in the heart of old Quebec City, and only a couple block walk to the pier and everything you'd wish to see for site seeing. We would've liked to have gotten there much earlier in the evening to enjoy the night, the bar in the hotel, etc... but so be it. From our restaurant table, we can see down the street from the window our first glimpse of Adventure only a couple blocks away

 

 

It was a very short and quick stay through to the next morning. They let us keep our luggage in the holding room while we went off site seeing in the morning. Here's a map of where the hotel is located, the pier and our approximate walking route (in red) we took on the first day in Quebec City.

 

 

This is a 4-5 star hotel, one of the more expensive in the area for those who wish comfort and great food at their Italian restaurant on site. The location can't be beat either, only a 4 block walk to the funicular and 3 blocks to the port entrance (we walked our luggage their, super easy)

 

 

 

 

Got to love the architecture all around this area, made for excellent walking/site seeing in all directions

 

 

Edited May 25, 2020 by Hoopster95

[maggieq]

Thank you so much for posting this review.  We all need something positive right now and this is it for me!

[Hoopster95]

Old Quebec is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and it all starts with "Lower Town". I'm certain many cruisers who walk off the ship to site see end up here as it's so close to the pier, and also the funicular which takes you up to the Chateau Frontenac (in "Upper Town"). This area is gorgeous, just like walking through a little town somewhere in France.

 

 

From the exact spot above, if you turn 180 degrees, you'll find a small park, a memorial to the history of Quebec City and it's fortifications. This is where I took that photo of Adventure above

 

 

This 3-4 block radius area is simply gorgeous, a super nice way to spend the morning. You won't find Diamonds International here! Plenty one-of-a-kind shops and products can be found.

 

 

 

You want Canadiana? You'll find it here... all sorts of stuff, and beautiful quality. Not a lot of junky knick-knacks. Besides the shopping, there's street entertainers and great cafe's along the way.

 

 

 

 

And in this area you will also find the famous Murals of Quebec City

https://www.quebec-cite.com/en/quebec-city/murals-of-the-city

Here's "Fresque de Petit-Champlain"

 

Edited May 25, 2020 by Hoopster95

[FionaMG]

Fed up to the back teeth of the c-word. 😞

It will be great to have something nice to read. Have never been to Canada but it's on the bucket list.

Thanks for sharing.

 

[lr657]

Thanks for giving us an enjoyable change from COVID 19 threads. Looking forward to reading.

[CTCruiser76]

16 minutes ago, lr657 said:

Thanks for giving us an enjoyable change from COVID 19 threads. Looking forward to reading.

Agree!!! Looking forward to this.

[young_ens]

4 hours ago, Hoopster95 said:

 

 

 

 

Nice idea.  Review of past cruise is a good thing!  

Mainly replied to say:  Peggy's Cove!  Just a short drive down the road for me.   I see from you posting now you stayed off the black rocks!  

Edited May 26, 2020 by young_ens

[ckmedsec]

What a wonderful surprise.  Thank you.  

[Hoopster95]

Our morning walk around Lower Town continues.... here's a closer look at Old Quebec, it's proximity to the cruise pier and where we are according to the photos in the previous installment. My previous photos were started where I took the photo of Adventure and continued in the pink area along Rue du Petit Champlain. This next segment moves away from the lower portion of the pink area and into the orange Notre Dame neighborhood

 

 

 

I loved strolling through this area... totally beautiful, and there's an amazing chocolatier called La Fudgerie along Rue du Cul-de-sac heading up underneath this awesome umbrella canopy

 

 

Continuing on into the main square called Place Royale.....

am I in a little french town in the Alps somewhere???

 

 

Notre Dame des Victoires, circa 1688. It is one of the oldest churches on North America.

 

 

 

And just down the side street from Place Royale is the famous La Fresque des Quebecois

("The Mural of Quebecers" for you Anglophones)

 

 

 

[Hoopster95]

We meandered back towards our Hotel to grab our bags and head over to the cruise port. Right across from the hotel is this rooftop garden overtop the Museum of Civilization (we never visited, better things to see and do). From this perch you can see how close Adventure is to town

 

 

Grabbing our nags, we rolled them down the street and over to the cruise terminal. Check-in was a breeze... I'm guessing half the ship were Diamond and up, and a large percentage were on b2b2b, so check-in was not at all busy. Very shortly we were up on the gangway and heading in!!

 

 

We really didn't last long in the ship... it was exactly 1pm so we went right up to our cabin, dropped off what we could, and headed to the WJ. We had purchased the UDP so we first checked if Izumi was open... it wasn't. So up we went... quick lunch ... and right back out to enjoy more of our first day of site seeing Old Quebec.

 

 

Looking back at the Old Quebec map in the previous post, we headed away from the Hotel & pier into the Yellow area. We would walk streets along the old wall up to the Upper Town rather than take the funicular. There's some very interesting art along the way

 

 

Along the way... parks, shops, cafe's, great buildings, cobblestone streets... you get the picture.

We actually walked past the sloped streets that have led us up to La Frantenac, and heaed for a liquor store for some wine to bring aboard. Along that route we passed Place Jean-Pelettier (gardens) the historic Gare du Palais Via Rail (historic Via Rail Train Station - gorgeous inside) 

 

 

 

Having visited this area, we about faced and retraced our steps a couple of blocks and started heading up the hilly streets up to Upper Town

 

 

We walked up along the fortress wall on Rue des Ramparts, coming to several balconies with expansive views of the city below. Along the hillside climb we passed an annex of Laurier University, old canons, several parks and statues of note, until final reaching the apex of our climb at the iconic Place d'Armes

 

 

UNESCO and Champlain monuments

https://www.quebec-cite.com/en/quebec-city/monuments-statues

 

 

And the money shots of the iconic Fairmont Le Chateau Frontenac

 

 

 

 

Edited May 26, 2020 by Hoopster95

[Hoopster95]

What a beautiful area... there's a huge promenade up there used for parades and other events... we would be up here again and venturing out further this way tomorrow

 

 

Also from up here a superb view of Lower Town and Adventure in the Saint Lawrence River

 

 

Without all the walking we had done on this day, the funicular takes you up the hillside from Lower Town to right here on this promenade ... the green building is the funicular entrance. Easy peasy.

 

 

We ventured around the corner and into the main brass revolving doors into Le Chateau Frontenac's main lobby to take in the interior's opulence for a little bit. Then back out we went the back door so to speak to head off for more site seeing

 

 

 

We headed up the main road Rue Saint Louis to enjoy more architecture and ambiance of the city, not going too far as this area was to be our goal the next day....

 

 

 

So we doubled back on the other side of the street to continue to window shop and see things, past Place d'Armes and down the hill, where a staircase connects down to the Lower Town and the pink Champlain area in the map above. Here's also a great place to try taffy on a stick... there's several shops you can get this as you walk along

 

 

 

[Hoopster95]

Whew! Lots of exercise today and superb site seeing... Quebec City is Beautiful.

Back to ship we go, extremely easy to navigate and head to.

 

 

Tonight was our first look at the Viking Crown and the overflow at Happy Hour. More on this tomorrow when I have a photo or two... what a joke. I was not the least bit impressed. However, we did hang out for a bit before dinner at Chops UDP ...  sorry, no food porn tonight. Remember? I'm not supposed be doing a review on this sailing so the iphone was firmly placed in my pocket.

 

Back to the VCL and Happy Hour, with amazing views of Old Town

 

 

 

We purposely decided on this sailing not to focus on shows & events every evening, just go with the flow. If we were enjoying company and just hanging around, this would be our entertainment. We missed the welcome aboard show on this evening and after our late dinner time, we simply walked the ship a bit before heading to our cabin rather early. Here's a few pics around the ship....

 

 

 

I didn't know that the Godparents of this ship were family members of the heroes involved in 9/11.

 

 

 

It's amazing to think that Voyager of the Seas celebrated her 20th birthday last November, 2019 ...  and Adventure will celebrate her birthday next year in 2021.

 

Ending the evening heading back to the cabin, a few photos from deck 7

 

 

 

Edited May 26, 2020 by Hoopster95

[patattack]

Looking forward to your review.  I lift and shif my Canada and New England cruise to next Sept on the Freedom.  

[Missusdubbya]

Super! Thanks Hoopster for the review

[Hoopster95]

We wake the next morning to a beautiful day... in fact, our entire cruise turned out to be pretty awesome weather wise. I've been really blessed in recent years regarding weather for the most part.

 

 

From top deck of Adventure, we can clearly see some landmarks directly in front of us, including the Funicular just below Le Chateau Frontenac. Today we'll be making our way left along the entire portion of the promenade to the left most arrows, along La Promenade des Gouverneurs and up to La Citadelle. As was our daily routine, we did not delay getting on with our day, and we were out by 8:30am'ish. Also take note of the Observatory building in the background...

 

The streets and staircase which were jammed with tourists yesterday (and probably again later today) were empty

 

 

It was nice to have plenty of space this morning and seeing the culture/architecture in this manner. The Funicular was already running when we got there, for a nominal fee of $3 one way. We decided to take this route just for the novelty and to cut out an extra 10-15 minutes of stair climbing.

 

 

The funicular itself is very small (maybe 8 people tops??) so if there's a line up (ie. many cruisers in port) I am certain there's normally a healthy delay going up or down.

 

 

At the top, in front of Le Frontenac, still not many tourists around

 

 

And a side/back view of Le Frontenac with the Wolfe-Montcalm Monument in the foreground

 

 

At the very farthest end of the Promenade is the beginning of La Promenade des Gouverneurs, a rather long walk along the cliff side all around to the back of the Citadel museum and the beginning of the Plains of Abraham. 

 

 

This first part of the walk has a total of 310 steps plus all the walking along various boardwalks

 

 

Before turning the corner along the cliffside and heading towards the Citadel, this area provided great views back of Old Town and Adventure. After this spot, it was a good 20min of steady walking without much to see until you get to the end

 

 

 

 

Edited May 26, 2020 by Hoopster95

[Hoopster95]

The plains of Abraham are expansive, with various sidewalks/walkways. Definitely would make for great jogging or biking.... we were planning to bike along the the St Lawrence and then back up through the Plains of Abraham, however we scrapped that idea as we wished to visit various buildings and areas on foot instead.

 

La Citadelle was closed to the public, so we did not bother hanging out there, Instead we walked down to the main road and followed the signage (and foot prints on the sidewalk) up to the Plains of Abraham Museum.

 

 

The museum itself wasn't that impressive at all, however we went through the 2nd floor where most of the exhibits were.....

 

 

... mostly enjoying the interactive exhibits, including this one where you get to put on a replica coat from the time period... so heavy! Must've weighed a good 20 lbs minimum. I have no clue how they can fight in these

 

 

Of course, being the kid that I am at times, I couldn't help myself here

 

 

 

 

It was here we received a phone call my GF had been waiting for. A great friend of the family is currently living in Quebec City and had time to meet up with us for an hour, so we quickly exited the museum after only 45 min (that's all you need there) and took off into the newer/more clique area of the city. 

 

 

If you are planning to get out of Old Town to see newer areas of the city, to me that was a let down. It's a nice city and all, but really nothing spectacular nor memorable. We met up with our friend, had a cafe at a street side cafe, and walked the city back towards Old Town from our meeting place, until we arrived at.... (next post)

Edited May 26, 2020 by Hoopster95

[Hoopster95]

We bid farewell to GF's friend and entered this building

 

 

Located on the 31st floor of the Marie-Guyart Building, it's the highest vantage point in Quebec City offering 360 degree views. Here's La Citadelle and the Plains of Abraham (museum, middle right) from where we walked first thing this morning

 

 

There are interpretation displays that allows that describes what you are looking at via  interactive touch screens, and other wall displays that are actually quite informative

 

 

The money shot of Le Frontenac, with Adventure docked just behind. The large building in the foreground is where we'll be going next, the Parliament Building Gardens and La Fontaine de Tourny

 

 

Various statistics are posted throughout ...  here's a good one. The area of Quebec is 1/5th that of China. Also the mother language of 94.6% of the population is French. It goes a long way for you as a tourist if you can just simply enter a ship and say "Bonjour! Comment allez-vous?" (Hello! How are you). Or "Combien?" (How much?) Language respect goes a long way in any country you travel to.

 

 

Alas, it was time to go as we still wished to visit a few other spots before making our way back to the ship. This is well worth the effort to go to for a great view of the city

 

 

 

 

Edited May 26, 2020 by Hoopster95

[Hoopster95]

We made our way through the streets of of the city, a short walk to the Parliament Gardens. Many of the gardens are along the back and side of the buildings, so don;t miss those if you walk up to the famous front of the building and then walk away. There's various monuments of historical significance to take note of, rather you're following along on an iphone or afterwards when googling what you saw

 

 

As we rounded the corner to the front of the building

 

 

I have many close-ups of the various statues and their descriptions. Beautiful artwork and architecture here, plus a museum inside. We did not go inside as we figured it would be pushing our time for all aboard. I would have much preferred to visit inside here than walk for a hour or so in the "newer" part of the city

 

 

I can show you plenty pictures of the various garden areas, but you'll just have to visit for yourself! (or google). We went down the main walkway to the iconic Fountain "Tourny", which is a model of a famous French fountain in Bordeaux, France. ordered as part of Quebec's 400 year anniversary celebrations.

 

 

 

Away from the fountain, down the street and under the fortified walls in the Old Town, is a bust of both Sir Winston Churchill and FDR, a memorial to respect the private meeting held between to the two nations regarding nuclear weapons. The entire Le Frontenac was reserved strictly for this diplomatic event. Roosevelt and Churchill signed the "Quebec Agreement" outlining the terms and development for nuclear weapons.

 

 

We meandered down Rue Saint Louis and through some other notable side streets, alongside Notre Dam, street side cafes, cobblestone streets... really nice walk and great photo ops... ending up back at Place d'Armes in front of Le Frontenac. Having had a very full two days site seeing and being very satisfied, we made our way back to port to get ready for the evening and sailaway

Edited May 26, 2020 by Hoopster95

[Hoopster95]

Two days in Quebec City have been awesome! personally I'd rather have 2 days here than in Montreal, so with Adventure being used as the overnight hotel, this was excellent. Those who had sailed up from Bayonne on the previous sailing, had 2 overnights which is even better! There are other areas to see and things to do

 

 

Sailaway finally crept up on us. Hardly anyone was outside, and we as well headed for the VCL for Happy Hour....

 

 

Where we found the place totally empty with many seats available ... N O T ! !

Not impressed. There were a very heavy number of D and up on this sailing. Because I wasn't going to do a review, I don't have the total numbers available. From what I remember there were about 70 PNs and a good 250 D+ ... let alone another 500+ Ds. Yes the VCL was packed to the brim.

 

They supplied a good number (50? 60? hundred??) or so stupid little and very inconvenient & uncomfortable doctor office chairs as extra seating all around the VCL... along the back wall, in the middle of the aisles, everywhere. Sorry... not sitting there. Why stack everyone in like sardines? 

 

 

We were lucky on this night (not all nights) to almost right away score two seats that were being vacated. The views along the St. Lawrence River were nicer than I imagined... reminded me of my British Isles sailing somewhat

 

 

 

This evening was a nice way to start ship life.... great dinner with the the very best company , followed by a great show. If you've never seen MO5AIC, they are fantastic. 

 

 

 

Although tomorrow is a sea day, we did not do the late night dancing/etc on this ship very much. On this night, we did head down to Boleros for a short time where the Latin Band was pretty darn good! Danced some salsa and had a drink for a little while to end the evening, then headed for our cabin.

Edited May 26, 2020 by Hoopster95