Best Summer time 2020 Cruise for Bay of Fundy

[gemduncan]

I'm looking for a cruise in late June or anytime in July 2020 that goes to New Brunswick and Bay of Fundy area. I will be traveling with 3 generations (youngest will be 11 year old). I'd prefer cruise that is less than 8 days. Any recommendations?  The only cruise lines that I can find are Royal Caribbean and Holland. Holland looks to have the better itinerary between the two options, but it's also more expensive.  I would love a cruise that starts and ends in Quebec City but I can only find something that either starts or ends there (not both).  

[gnome12]

5 hours ago, gemduncan said:

I'm looking for a cruise in late June or anytime in July 2020 that goes to New Brunswick and Bay of Fundy area. I will be traveling with 3 generations (youngest will be 11 year old). I'd prefer cruise that is less than 8 days. Any recommendations?  The only cruise lines that I can find are Royal Caribbean and Holland. Holland looks to have the better itinerary between the two options, but it's also more expensive.  I would love a cruise that starts and ends in Quebec City but I can only find something that either starts or ends there (not both).  

 

Quebec City is on the St. Lawrence river. To go from Quebec to the Bay of Fundy you have to go through the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and all the way around Nova Scotia (including Cape Breton). I don't think that you could do that in both directions to get back to Quebec City in fewer than 8 days.

Edited June 16, 2019 by gnome12

[martincath]

Sounds like your dad confirmed which port and area was his priority then OP - and unfortunately for your timing, he chose the ones which are impossible to combine with your available date range & preferred cruise length...

 

HAL does not visit New Brunswick on their 7 day cruises, and Royal only offers 9 day cruises (which do have a stop in Saint John). Since you say you prefer, rather than require, that the cruise be 8 days or less cruise length sounds like the most flexible of your criteria - so book one of the Royal RTs out of New Jersey. Those are literally your ONLY options that check off the reduced requirement list (except other, even longer, cruises).

 

 

[gemduncan]

Thank you both! After further discussion, we have decided that we will pull my daughter out of school for 1 week in either September or October 2020 in order to cruise to Bay of Fundy. However, we can only do 7 days. Any recos? Or should I start a new post with this question?

[martincath]

If you want more opinions, I'd start a new thread so that folks reading the title know about the date change (way more people have cruised this region in the Fall than in Summer, so you'll have a lot more past-cruiser opinions re: specific ships/lines).

 

The key extra choices you will gain by shifting time but not length are 1-week-or-less round trip cruises out of MA, NY, NJ  which stop in Saint John instead of heading up the St Lawrence. For example, Disney offer 5 day New York RTs with Bar Harbor, Saint John, and 2 Sea Days; NCL do 7 day NYC RTs which add stops in Portland ME and Halifax to this. IIRC there are similar offerings from Carnival/NCL/Princess/RCCI, while HAL continue to mostly do back & forth 7 days (Quebec-Boston/NYC/NJ with no Fundy stops) or 10-12 day RTs which do both Fundy and St L. None of these will check off your dad's prior request for fjords, but the 7 day routes will generally offer 2 Canadian ports (almost always Saint John & Halifax) and 2 or 3 US ports, with each day less cruising dropping one port (NB: always at least one Canadian port to ensure compliance with PVSA rules). There's even one option that puts Newfoundland back on the table, along with some more obscure Canadian ports - Cunard does NYC/QC with stops in Corner Brook NL and Sept-Iles QC, plus an overnight in QC - but unfortunately no Saint John/Bay of Fundy.

 

Personally I feel that NYC round trips are better than Boston, as they tend to offer 5 ports rather than 4 - e.g. Regal Princess stops in Boston, Newport, Bar Harbor, Saint John, Halifax - and you can even go 'all Canadian' on a short cruise (Regal finishes this season with a NYC-Halifax-Saint John-back to NYC 5 day). While Boston's a great town to hang in with a major airport, NYC of course offers even more stuff to do and more airports so both your pre-/post-cruise time and non-stop flight choices are wider.

 

Extra background waffle: fundamentally there are limitations for any ship making port stops en route to actually travel all the way up to Quebec City, let alone Montreal - if they only have 7 days they can't make efficient use of the Bay of Fundy as it takes extra time to get into Saint John and backtrack out again, whereas there are multiple other ports that don't involve much if any deviation from the most direct route. This isn't a problem if you have 10-12 days, but it's too much backtracking on a 7 day itinerary. After an enforced low speed zone was put in a couple of years ago in the Gulf of St Lawrence due to the presence of extremely-endangered North Atlantic Right Whales (several fines lwere evied on cruise ships breaking the new speed limit) with the promise that it will happen again if whales are hanging around in the shipping routes, I think cruiselines are also a little more gunshy about routes - they cannot assume cruising at typical speeds any more when building itineraries, which makes a 7 day one-way even Quebec-Boston very tight if Saint John was included... cruisers get very annoyed if you cut port times!

[Travelling2Some]

You don't say why you are focused on the Saint Johns/Bay of Fundy port stop.  If your interest is in seeing the extreme tidal changes there then be sure and check to see what times high and low tide will occur on the day you visit to avoid disappointment.  If the tides do not cooperate with the time you are in port there will be nothing much to see.

[maryann ns]

Sometimes a land tour is a better option and this may be one of them. If this is possible for you then post on Trip Advisor.

 

Here is a link to Bay of Fundy information. There is some general useful information but the rest of the links pertain to the Nova Scotia side: Bay of Fundy

[Zuki]

Check out the Sky Princess for Sept 26 2020.  RT from New York.  Bay of fundy in port 10am - 10:45pm.  Tidal reports list low tide  8pm so time to see and make back to the ship.  

[mets123]

Keep in mind that it is dark at 8 pm in September.  How much are you actually going to see?

[Sailor Taylor]

If I can only pick one is it better to see low tide or high tide? 

Edited July 17, 2019 by Sailor Taylor

[maryann ns]

It is the amazing movement of water and the difference between tides which is so special so only seeing one tide cannot give you the understanding of this. Many people who do not live near the ocean write about wanting to "walk on the ocean floor" which is just walking on the exposed land during a low tide. That may be of some interest to you so in that way low tide is better. However without seeing the extreme movement of the water over a period of six hours you are not experiencing what makes the Bay of Fundy and its tides so interesting.

 

[BarbinMich]

On 7/17/2019 at 10:10 AM, maryann ns said:

It is the amazing movement of water and the difference between tides which is so special so only seeing one tide cannot give you the understanding of this. Many people who do not live near the ocean write about wanting to "walk on the ocean floor" which is just walking on the exposed land during a low tide. That may be of some interest to you so in that way low tide is better. However without seeing the extreme movement of the water over a period of six hours you are not experiencing what makes the Bay of Fundy and its tides so interesting.

I agree.  We first visited maritime Canada, the area we're talking about, by car (from Michigan).  I did a lot of research about the tides out there and had us at a place where the tide would come up a dry creek bed.  It wasn't a sudden rush of water (more of a slow flow), so less dramatic than I expected.  We also were at several coves along the Maine and NS coast where we could see the tidal changes and in one instance walk on the floor of a cove at low tide (really no water).  For example, we stopped at St. Andrews NB, which is close to the US border; we went whale watching for several hours and the change in water level at the dock was 6-10 ft between when we left and when we returned from that trip.  On a Can-NE cruise being in port at St.John, NB, you will notice the change if you leave the ship and go elsewhere for a few hours.

[maryann ns]

The most dramatic tide changes are in the upper Bay of Fundy where the change can be up to fifty feet.  

[BarbinMich]

On 7/20/2019 at 1:21 PM, maryann ns said:

The most dramatic tide changes are in the upper Bay of Fundy where the change can be up to fifty feet.  

Thanks for posting this info.  Hopefully, op will realize that stopping in St. John NB will not give her the opportunity to really experience the tidal bore.  We've been to St. John by car and by ship.  Fortunately our cabin was on the opposite side from the dock so we could easily note the level of the harbor at the dock across the way, but it's certainly not like we could can really see the water moving in and out because it's such a gradual process.  One can only see the tidal bore when it surges up a narrow river or stream bed.  We've witnessed this at several inland places in NB and/or NS.  Have to admit it was underwhelming even in those places.

[maryann ns]

If you are on a beach in the Upper Bay of Fundy say Driftwood Beach or Red Rock Beach in the Advocate Harbour area, you can put a marker on the beach and watch the water moving either in or out. It can be relatively fast. Visiting the fossil beach in Joggins you have to be careful not to be caught by the high tide which can come up to the cliffs, leaving no beach. You can also watch this happening at Hopewell Rocks.

 

The tidal bore, as mentioned, is the wave of the incoming high tide entering and going up a tidal river. At certain times of the month this can be several feet high. One great place to see that is in the Shubenacadie River in the South Maitland area of Nova Scotia. You can go rafting on the tidal bore or just stand on the bridge and watch it. See post#7 above for a link to more information.