Catlover54

Old factory: Children who visit the park had been asked to draw what they liked best about the park, and we were particularly impressed with this exuberant child's concept of the size, and of course importance, of ice cream cones:

. We also took a little side loop into the nearby woods to get additional views. DH was busy with his camera. I like to keep an eye out for birch trees

Day 7, Baie-Comeau This little "replacement" port, a former mid-20th century planned "company" industrial town (with hierarchical housing arrangements), turned out to be a pleasant surprise. We spent part of the morning walking around the old downtown after taking the school bus shuttle SB had arranged to get there. There was not too much superficially touristy stuff to see in the town itself this off time of year, though the history of the town is interesting in understanding how and why it became the way it is. The walk to/from port to the town is quite scenic, along an easy trail with a park that follows the sea, lined by quirky public art How many heads? Inside view from a tunnel of wooden art:

Thank you for correcting my Saguenay spelling Wendy! Sincere apologies for this and also in advance for other typos, grammar problems, butchered French phrases, and accidental duplicate picture postings. But I am happy that so far I have been lucky that no pictures have posted upside down, which has also happened to me in the past) 🙂 We are now docked in Baei-Comeau, next to Holland America's Zaandam. Pax and crew from both ships have been streaming off the ship to walk into the village 1.2 miles away (more about that later with some photos), or to take the school bus shuttle (much more comfortable than the prior school buses we have been on). There are also a couple excursions scheduled in the afternoon. We sail at 6. On the paper Herald I see the following scheduled for the evening: 5:45 Classical Caviar Sailaway (singers, caviar and champagne), poolside, weather permitting 6:30 A Conversation with Special Guest Speaker Colonel Gerald McCormack; Newfoundland and Labrador (I'm game to hear this, even though we are not in those areas) 6:30 cocktails and "guitar grooves with Carlos" in Observation Bar (this is a regular event) 8:45 jam session with The Trio (Club) 9:30 Jewelry (Hubert) viewing in Boutique 9:30 ** Citizen West* is the main Grand Salon entertainment, described as "Hot Hot Hot", Latin hits

This could have been a perfect time for the Louis XIII Sidecar for only $219: But DH and I were tired, so we settled on room service, despite its usual anticipated problems (e.g., bringing two instead of one of an entree we ordered, and forgetting two items etc.), accompanied by our own wine, which was definitely a bit cheaper 🙂

Then it was back to the school bus shuttle to return to the ship: I think Saguenoy would be a great place to visit on one's own, in summer, and in a car.

(More from Saguenoy yesterday): One of the stops was a small air defense museum: And of course there were churches, in various presentations: Old train fans could see and climb into this:

Viking Star continued to shadow us: People from Quest tendered and then headed off on school buses to the nature park, as the only official excursion, or they could DIY. The weather got a lot drizzlier. For those you did not take the school bus to the nature park in the afternoon after we arrived, and decided on DIY, businesses in the area the tender went to were almost all closed. Ueber had no cars available (off season). The only real alternative was to take a hop on and hop tour that spent a couple hours going around the area -- on a one-way school bus that would run every half hour. These were the potential stops: However, the bus full loop is 2 hours one way, so you dared not spend too much time at any of the potentially interesting stops or you would not be able to go all the way around in time to catch the tender back to the ship (we did not get in until 1 and having to tender let to about a 2PM start time on shore) The glass blowing stop was not blowing anything, but one could see the before and the after of how it works: There was also other local art: A teepee made of yield signs (!):

Then we had the slow, gradual, erie appearance of what turned out to be the Madonna, presumably looking out for our safety on the Quest:

Apologies for delayed updates about Saguenoy. We are now sailing to Baei-Comeau will be there soon Internet had been very poor all day yesterday in Saguenoy area (both our upgraded wifi and LTE) and unusable for posting, and died completely in our suite when we started sailing again in the evening 11PM, when it went out completely and stayed out. An announcement said it is due to hurricane in Miami. It pretty much stayed dead with error messages until now, though my phone continued to update emails coming in, slowly (even SB Souce would give assorted complex error messages or advice for me to "check back when you are on board" -- I'm glad I had my paper version). The day in Saguenoy (yesterday) started out grey, but fall colors were increasingly common. Courtesy DH:

Viking Star shadowed us ( she was near us in QC too) but got the dock. We got tenders. The weather changed quickly from blue patches to a grey weather for reading and eating soup ( or on DH’s case slogging in the area looking for photo ops)

IMG_0298.MOV Direction Saguenoy earlier:

Other posts on CC indicated Quest was in a dry dock in Genoe until July 2021. I don't know how often they do dry docks, but the ship does look clean and fresh, as opposed to like an old hotel with carpet spots etc. Crew were also painting parts of the outside the other day.

Not at all a "dumb" question. I have a a picture of the size of the water you get in the suite (and which is regularly distributed in the dining rooms), and what is often at the gangway. The smaller one is what is available for you to grab when you leave the ship. I find even the little one too heavy, and with it's fat mouth (and my faint tremor) I land up wetting my face when I drink. Plus it tastes poorly for my preferences. Post is not sending now due to overloaded internet, will try later. So I bring lightweight small plastic battles from Badoit or single serving Diet Coke light plastic bottle shapes, and comfortable narrow openings, and refill them from diet coke cans or Perrier on board (or similar waters whose taste I like) and take to shore to sip throughout the day. This is why I was a bit miffed that the stewardess early in the cruise pulled my bottles out of my cupboard and tossed most of them (some I had with me survived) 🙂

DH's favorite hot tub in the bow was closed today due to rain. But the bathtub in our suite (which has both a tub and a shower) was available, as were the tubs at the pool. I like that SB suites still have bath tubs, which I'm a fan of after a lot of walking on cruises. The trend on higher end cruise lines is away from having a shower and tub except in the top suites, and instead just having a big shower, which is what most (especially younger) people want. There are also two sinks, and there is plenty of storage, it is all just on open shelving (no closed drawers). The bath towels are a bit thin for a luxury line, but the stewardess can and does bring extras when I want them. Products are Moulton Brown, as they have been for a few years. Everything works well in the bathroom (nothing is broken, even the tub plug does not leak), and we have had no surprises like clogged toilets, leaky ceilings, or broken AC. We knew from prior experience the bed would be a bit hard, so we had had our TA advance request a topper to soften it up, and it was already on the bed when we arrived. Overall, the ship comes across as still well-maintained, with very nice clean, simple lines, no fuss.

The show tonight was singer Jo Rochel, accompanied by the ship's band. This UK mezzo in a sparkling red jumpsuit energetically belted out a variety of popular tunes, from Motown to Moon River. She also described how, for 18 months of lockdown, she had lost all her income and worked as a delivery driver for online goods to make a living (and showed some photos of her doing just that). Again, the show was well-attended, and well-received despite an initial nervous start. Earlier I had gone to SB Square to ask if we would have any enrichment lectures this cruise. The staff person asked, "What do you mean, enrichment?" I tried to clarify what "enrichment" is, but he was still confused. Finally when I said "like a teacher talking to students", he got it, and said we would have a talk on 9/28 and 9/30. The Herald later announced we will have a talk tomorrow morning, 9/27, while at sea, 10:30. We do not get into Sagounoy until noon. Other than the school bus trip to a nature park and interpretive center (one hour one way), no excursions have been added, so we decided to just DIY in town, especially since it will likely be rainy. While I was at the Square people inquired about the boutique and the casino, which were of course closed since we left Montreal late at night because per laws they cannot be open while in port (and the little sailing time we had was at night). I don't care about the casino and the store, but some pax do. This art piece at MOBA was called "The Long Arm of the Law":

Meanwhile, back at the ranch: And BTW at the bigger ranch (successful asteroid interception):

Various women in "agony": This one was called "Until blue in the face" (but could be renamed, "Uncaffeinated morning cruiser") 🙂 Surprisingly, the next one was painted by an apparently clairvoyant artist 30 years ago:

QC was gray and a bit windy, but we still managed to walk about 5 miles (slowly), about half of it up and down steep hills and steps (be careful, especially on the "breakneck" steps). There are many boutiques with tasteful clothing and gift items (very few with just souvenir T shirt items), for those who like to shop. I love the narrow winding streets and European atmosphere. We also had an excellent sit-down, calm lunch at restaurant Echoud. And, as planned, we also toured the Museum of Bad Art (admission free, donations welcome), and loved so much of the "bad" art, everything from depictions of people as drainpipes to an ode to ladies' underwear. Think Magritte on steroids. It provided good laughs, and I highly recommend it to people with a sense of the absurd. Some street scenes (from DH:) SB excursion:

We returned to our suite after a rainy day of interesting self-guided touring of Quebec City (more on that when our premium internet is better) and to our surprise and delight, found this Nespresso machine and paraphernalia waiting for us! The two pitchers contained hot water, plus there were 2 kinds of sugar, 10 baggie packets of misc. tea, and 2 cups and spoons. Unfortunately there were no coffee capsules or coffee of any kind to go with the Nespresso coffee machine (when I had inquired about the possibility of getting a Nespresso machine, as Covepointcruiser suggested, even though I was not entitled to one as a mere V3 deck 6 suite booker, I admittedly had not *specifically* also asked about getting coffee to go with the machine). Later, we thanked the assistant stewardess we saw in the hall for securing the coffee machine and asked if we could also get some coffee capsules to go with it. She instantly replied that unfortunately they were "out" of coffee capsules. I then cheerfully said that not having coffee for the coffee machine kind of defeated the purpose of having a coffee machine. She smiled and quickly said she would check again and. depending on what she found, she would let me know, and I could then decide whether or not to keep the machine. When we came back from dinner, misc. coffee capsules previously "out" had miraculously appeared. SB service comes through! Tomorrow, we will test it out.

Yes, there is an upgrade available. We are on Quest (Canadian Autumn, so just in Canada, and due to hurricane just on the St Lawrence Seaway and mostly sitting in ports). We had just the "free" internet (and our cellular through Verizon) the first few days. At popular times, it was impossible to do anything from our mid-ship deck 6 suite, a bit better in SB Square. So yesterday we bought the enhanced version for $199.50, "unlimited", to last the rest of the cruise, to see what would happen. At the popular pre-dinner time, we still could not do anything at all with it from our suite, but had acceptable servce in the Square. Because the free wifi can be overloaded at popular times, in the smaller port of Trois Rivieres, the cellular service was also overloaded. But this is par for the course, just plan accordingly (e.g., do bigger things like posting pictures, if you do that, or working, in less popular times). For many years, in my experience, Odyssey and Quest had so-so internet at popular times, and it was worse in some suite locations (my worst experience was a PH suite far in the bow). Of course, other luxury lines also have problems (other than Celebrity, where I was very impressed with Internet on the Edge). I am still quite happy to have internet at all when on a cruise!

Terrific news! Common sense and courtesy should of course still prevail (e.g., I certainly hope that people with respiratory symptoms, whether from Covid, flu, or another virus, do not travel to crowded airports or on cruises when in their infectious period, or go on excursions with tight spacing if they get sick on board , though of course some will anyway).

We have not yet attempted (though DaveA had success as he posted), because so far we like sampling the variety of interesting daily special offerings in The Restaurant for dinner (3 there so far, plus 1 in Colonnade on French night, have been to our liking, so we are batting 4/4 at dinners, despite service not being ideal). We probably will try for again later in the cruise, to sample other things this time around and reenjoy the stellar service and friendly, unrushed but efficient staff. Maybe I am misremembering prior cruises (possibly too distracted by the previously loud music, not at all too loud this cruise), but I think the TK Grill food (which we had the first night of the cruise) was even better than on previous SB sailings (same courses we usually get), and service, as before , was excellent there. BTW of the 3 dinners we had so far in The Restaurant, the best service was when we went for a late dinner, e.g., 8:30, when the plan was to skip the 9:30 show because dinner with the 3 courses we typically get there would obviously take longer than an hour. I don't have enough of an "n" to say that is going to be a pattern, e.g., dining late to get better service, and we also had a different server. Plus, you have to be ready to miss the beginning of a show, but not everyone goes. People who like to dine earlier than the 7 PM opening time for The Restaurant, Colonnade, and Earth and Ocean have to go for the TK Grill, which opens at 6.

I am glad you are enjoying them. The better ones (though sometimes delayed) are often from DH (he cruises primarily to have digital photographic opportunities). More will be forthcoming!