Canada-New England Quebec City Departure?

[mattR]

Looking at a cruise( Caribbean Princess ) that departs Quebec City and heads to Fort Lauderdale.  It has two days at see before making it's first port of call in Hallifax.  Will the days at sea be in the St Lawrence Seaway or will they cruise up to the open ocean the first night?  Would hate to miss seeing the seaway if they have to get out of the seaway the first night?

[navybankerteacher]

1 hour ago, mattR said:

Looking at a cruise( Caribbean Princess ) that departs Quebec City and heads to Fort Lauderdale.  It has two days at see before making it's first port of call in Hallifax.  Will the days at sea be in the St Lawrence Seaway or will they cruise up to the open ocean the first night?  Would hate to miss seeing the seaway if they have to get out of the seaway the first night?

It is a fairly long way from Quebec to the Atlantic, so you will be in the “St. j Lawrence Seaway” for a long while.  However there is very little to see - it is a very wide estuary as you head northeast from Quebec and you are unlikely to see much of anything but a whole lot of water.

“

[Ashland]

3 hours ago, navybankerteacher said:

It is a fairly long way from Quebec to the Atlantic, so you will be in the “St. j Lawrence Seaway” for a long while.  However there is very little to see - it is a very wide estuary as you head northeast from Quebec and you are unlikely to see much of anything but a whole lot of water.

“

Agree completely. We've done the "snowbird" itinerary with RCI from Quebec City to Fort Lauderdale. An amazing itinerary !!

[lx200gps]

9 hours ago, mattR said:

Looking at a cruise( Caribbean Princess ) that departs Quebec City and heads to Fort Lauderdale.  It has two days at see before making it's first port of call in Hallifax.  Will the days at sea be in the St Lawrence Seaway or will they cruise up to the open ocean the first night?  Would hate to miss seeing the seaway if they have to get out of the seaway the first night?

What are your expectations re the "Seaway"? The Seaway pretty much starts at the mouth of Lake Ontario near Kingston and follows the St Lawrence upriver to the Atlantic. For the first 300 miles or so, the river is narrow and the Seaway traffic uses a series of locks. I've SCUBA'd up and down the St Lawrence in that area and it would be a very interesting sail if you could find such a cruise, tons to see and experience. Here in Montreal for example there are quite a few locks and bridges for the ship traffic to navigate. The river can be surprisingly narrow in places and the Thousand Islands is gorgeous.  Pretty much after Quebec City the St Lawrence hugely widens out and is at least 10 miles wide right after QC, opening up to a good 30 miles wide as you approach the Gaspe peninsula. So after leaving Quebec City, while you may technically be in the "Seaway" it won't be as impressive as it is downstream in Ontario and as navybankerteacher says above, it will just be a big wide river, very much open water. If you depart QC at dinner time, by the next morning's sunrise, I would think you will be very much in open ocean at or past the mouth of the St Lawrence.

[d9704011]

17 minutes ago, lx200gps said:

What are your expectations re the "Seaway"? The Seaway pretty much starts at the mouth of Lake Ontario near Kingston and follows the St Lawrence upriver to the Atlantic.

Technically, the Seaway is composed of two sections: 1.  Welland Canal connecting Lakes Erie and Ontario, and; 2. The portion of the St. Lawrence River between Lake Ontario and Montreal.  Downstream of Montreal, it's simply the St. Lawrence River although the navigation channel in this stretch is fairly narrow.  Downstream of Quebec City, the St. Lawrence widens pretty quickly (as you noted) and once past Ile d'Orleans, it's much like a widening estuary to the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

[lx200gps]

3 hours ago, d9704011 said:

Technically, the Seaway is composed of two sections: 1.  Welland Canal connecting Lakes Erie and Ontario, and; 2. The portion of the St. Lawrence River between Lake Ontario and Montreal.  Downstream of Montreal, it's simply the St. Lawrence River although the navigation channel in this stretch is fairly narrow.  Downstream of Quebec City, the St. Lawrence widens pretty quickly (as you noted) and once past Ile d'Orleans, it's much like a widening estuary to the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

Correct, I'd forgotten about the Welland Canal, thanks for the clarification. Bottom line, as we say, is that after Montreal, and certainly after Quebec City, it's just the St Lawrence river, devoid of any "Seaway" like locks etc. 

[LHT28]

4 hours ago, lx200gps said:

I've SCUBA'd up and down the St Lawrence in that area and it would be a very interesting sail if you could find such a cruise, tons to see and experience. 

Several years  ago  we did  Kingston to Montreal r/t on the Canadian Empress

it was not cheap  but lots of interesting places  & a fun cruise  

https://www.stlawrencecruiselines.com/the-ship/

[lx200gps]

2 hours ago, LHT28 said:

Several years  ago  we did  Kingston to Montreal r/t on the Canadian Empress

it was not cheap  but lots of interesting places  & a fun cruise  

https://www.stlawrencecruiselines.com/the-ship/

In addition to dive charters along the St Lawrence, we've also done day trips out of Kingston and Gananoque. The 1000 Islands is pretty impressive, some lovely sights along the way. A cruise around some of the Great Lakes and up (down?) the St Lawrence, along the "real" Seaway up to Montreal is definitely one we'd love to try

[GTJ]

6 hours ago, lx200gps said:

A cruise around some of the Great Lakes and up (down?) the St Lawrence, along the "real" Seaway up to Montreal is definitely one we'd love to try

I have traveled a bit on the lower St. Lawrence River and Gulf, including: Les Dauphins du Saint Laurent (hydrofoil) from Montréal to Québec; Croisières Dufour (catamaran) from Québec to Tadoussac; Croisières AML from Tadoussac round-trip up the Saguenay fjord; Relais Nordik (cargo-passenger) from Rimouski to Blanc-Sablon; Coopérative de Transport Maritime et Aérien from Montréal to Saint-Pierre (special voyage extended from les Îles-de-la-Madeleine); Norwegian Cruise Line from Québec to Boston; Société des traversiers du Québec from Québec to Lévis, from Tadoussac to Baie-Sainte-Catherine, and from Baie-Comeau to Matane; Traverse Rivière-du-Loup Saint-Siméon from Saint-Siméon to Rivière-du-Loup; Traverse Rimouski - Forestville from Forestville to Rimouski; Labrador Marine from Blanc-Sablon to St. Barbe, Marine Atlantic from Port-aux-Basques to North Sydney; and SPM Ferries between St-Pierre and Fortune.

 

Alas, I have never traveled further up than Montréal, so both St. Lawrence Cruise Lines and Ontario Waterway Cruises are on my radar, as well as the other lines that also travel further up and into the Great Lakes region: American Queen Voyages, Pearl Seas Cruises, Hapag-Lloyd Cruises, Ponant, and Viking Expeditions. And within the Great Lakes themselves, Lake Express (high-speed catamaran), S.S. Badger (1953: last coal-fired passenger steamship in the United States), Muskoka Steamships and Discovery Centre (R.M.S. Segwun, 1887: oldest steamship in North America), and Owen Sound Transportation Company (M.S. Chi-Cheemaun and Pelee Island ferries). So many inland routes and vessels that the mass-market cruise lines would just assume to ignore.