May Maasdam Ft Lauderdale to Montreal cruise review Part 3A

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We had 7:30 reservations at the Pinnacle and arrived on time. We were seated at a table for 2 in the front section of the restaurant. We had been told the crab cakes and the clam chowder were both excellent so those were our choices off the starter menu. We ordered an Austrailan Riesling to go with our meal. The waiters and waitresses in this restaurant are from Eastern Europe and did a good job for our meal. Both of us decided on the Filet Mineon for the main course. The meat was excellent and was actually cooked medium rare. We had the Chocolate volcano desert and were so full we ended up leaving a little on our plates. It was an excellent meal and well worth the extra $20 a piece that HAL charges in our opinion. After dinner we checked out the casino but didn't stay long enough to lose a lot. No one seemed to be winning much and bed was calling

 

Charlottetown was our next stop and we were docked by 7:35 in the morning. We hadn't made any plans here just planning on walking around the town and seeing the historic buildings and houses. We had been scheduled to tender in to this port but were able to dock instead which is always an advantage. Charlottetown is on Prince Edward Island and was the place where the Canadian confederacy was established in the 1860's. We checked out the local tourist office near the dock and for a dollar purchased a flyer with self guided walking tours of the town. It described 3 of them and we started off seeing how much we could see before we needed to be back on board at 1 PM. The day was overcast and the temperature was in the high 40's to low 50's. But without the wind we had suffered through in Sydney it almost felt warm. We ended up doing all three of the walking tours taking pictures as we went. By the middle of the last one I think Trisha would have rather we give up and go back then but we ended up managing to make it through it. Because the city is built on a series of small hills it wasn't always easy walking and both of us were glad to get back to the ship and get something to eat around 12:30 or so. After we sailed at 1:30 it was announced we would be going under the Confederation Bridge which connects the island to the mainland. It is a very long and relatively high bridge (actually the world's largest multi-span bridge). It is 12.9 KM long. So I planned on spending some time on deck to make sure we got pictures of the ship going under it, which we did. Lots of other people were doing the same thing. After leaving the bridge behind we retired to the cabin to relax a little before our evening. Dinner was informal and we were happy to see our dinner mates again and to tell them about our Pinnacle Grill experience. We had another excellent dinner and lots of good conversation about what everyone did during their day in Charlottetown.

 

The next day was going to be our last day at sea for this trip with the day ending with a visit to Saquensay Fjord. We had expected to arrive at the Fjord around 1:30 but because of strong currents we didn't until 4:10. We had both breakfast and lunch in the Rotterdam dining room which we like to do on sea days. When the announcement was made we were approaching the Fjord we decided to go up on deck and see if we could get a better view than offered from our verandah. But because the strong winds seemed to have caught up with us and with the temperature in the 40's we retired to our cabin and took our pictures of Fjord from our verandah. It worked out fine and we were able to sip a little wine while we took the pictures and also to stay a lot warmer than we would have on deck. The one disappointment here was the ship had boarded a pilot and also a narrator who was supposed to broadcast what we were seeing but at the last minute the decision was made because of technical problems to only broadcast it in the crow's nest. Because it wouldn't have been possible to take good pictures from there and also because we suspected (correctly) that it was going to be extremely crowded we missed the narration. The Fjord was had a lot of views that made for good pictures from steep cliffs to waterfalls. Unfortunately because we had an overcast day the pictures didn't come out quite as good as I had hoped they would but we will see what Photoshop can do with them. Dinner tonight was going to be our last formal one of the cruise and we had to begin getting ready before we had actually left the Fjord. But by then the sun was getting low in the sky and it was getting too dark to take many good pictures anyway. The last formal dinner was another case of too many good choices to have them all. We all had a good meal and were looking forward to being in Quebec in the morning.

 

I will stop this narrative now and finish the cruise up with a Part 4 either later today or tomorrow. It will cover the stop in Quebec and then our 3 days in Montreal and our flight home.

 

There is now a 10000 character limit on the boards so that is why this review now includes a part 3A.