Sydney...7 hr tour too long???

[olive2]

We're trying to decide on excursion in Sydney....Cabot Trail and trip to Breton Island around Bras D'Or Lakes (??!) are both 7 hours or should we just stay around Sydney. We're going for the beauty (late August) of the ocean scenery...any opinions from those of you who were on the Maasdam Canada/New Eng and have visited this port. Thanks so much!

[jp2001]

I've done the Cabot Trail when I was a kid and I still remember it, one of the best scenery I've ever seen. I was not in a motorcoach with 40 other people though.

[patnfrank]

Sydney has a nice waterfront boardwalk with several old warships, a ferry across the harbor and downtown is only a few blocks but on the side of a steep hill. There are many references to the WW2 amunition ship explosion but the city is largley rebuilt. Cabot Trail is incredible! If you like mountain and ocean vistas, don't miss it. We were fortunate to spend 3 weeks in Nova Scotia 3 years ago in our RV (a week in each of 3 areas for day trips) & drove the Trail twice, from opposite directions. Traffic is light and every bend has a pull-off. A rental car is do-able but because of the distance and short port time, a cruise line sponsored tour might be best. (You will also be amazed at the number of ice cream shops - they are wonderful)

[patnfrank]

Ooops,sorry. The reference to Sydney should have read Halifax.

[Shoobee2]

Two years ago, we took the Cabot Trail tour which was a 7-hour tour. The scenery and stops were beautiful! We visited a Gaelic College, the Keltic Lodge, a beach, among other stops and I loved the tour. Be prepared though that most of the stops are very short, not much time to really look around or browse on your own.

 

Our bus was late picking us up in the morning and so we were almost two hours late returning to the ship. I was glad it was a ship excursion because they waited for us. To save time because we were running late , the bus driver planned to take a ferry across the lake and we waited in line to do that. The thought of that made me a little nervous as the ferry was one of those that looked like a platform (don't know what they are called but it wasn't one of the big ferries that you see going from port to port in Canada and Alaska) and it seemed like the bus would be too tall and make it very unstable. Luckily, after waiting in line for the ferry we weren't able to drive the bus on to it because the bus steps would catch on something... I was relieved but then it was a long drive back to the ship. Still, it was an adventure!