SAGUENAY AND QUEBEC CITY, CANADA

[R & R Carroll]

Looking for recommendations please, for English speaking tour guides with vehicles in Saguenay and Quebec City, Canada for small private tours.

[BklynBoy8]

3 hours ago, R & R Carroll said:

Looking for recommendations please, for English speaking tour guides with vehicles in Saguenay and Quebec City, Canada for small private tours.

 

Sorry but we are visiting it next month with the Cunard Line and they are organized tours at those ports.

[R & R Carroll]

17 hours ago, BklynBoy8 said:

 

Sorry but we are visiting it next month with the Cunard Line and they are organized tours at those ports.

As does Oceania. However, we prefer small private groups of 6-8 persons vs. large ship tours. Just a matter of personal preference. Enjoy your trip!

[princeton123211]

22 hours ago, R & R Carroll said:

Looking for recommendations please, for English speaking tour guides with vehicles in Saguenay and Quebec City, Canada for small private tours.

We usually just do Quebec on our own since it's easy to just walk pretty much everywhere. We did a bunch of years ago (this was prob 2017) use a company called Tours Voir Quebec which did a private guided walking tour which was quite good. I did a little googling and it looks like they are still in business.

 

I wouldn't worry about English speaking-- if you see a tour you like researching book it. Virtually everyone in Quebec is bilingual and will quickly pivot to English when you engage with them. 

[R & R Carroll]

6 minutes ago, princeton123211 said:

We usually just do Quebec on our own since it's easy to just walk pretty much everywhere. We did a bunch of years ago (this was prob 2017) use a company called Tours Voir Quebec which did a private guided walking tour which was quite good. I did a little googling and it looks like they are still in business.

 

I wouldn't worry about English speaking-- if you see a tour you like researching book it. Virtually everyone in Quebec is bilingual and will quickly pivot to English when you engage with them. 

Thank you princeton123211. We will be in Quebec City for two days and do plan to tour the city on our own one day, but would like a tour outside of the city to see Montmorency Falls, St-Anne Canyon, and Lac-Beauport lake and maybe some villages in the countryside on the other day. Good to know that language will not be a problem for us in Quebec City. 

[GTJ]

1 hour ago, princeton123211 said:

I wouldn't worry about English speaking-- if you see a tour you like researching book it. Virtually everyone in Quebec is bilingual and will quickly pivot to English when you engage with them. 

I would respectfully disagree here. Saguenay is strongly French-speaking, with low rates of English comprehension generally. Within the tourism industry, of course, many can speak English, and so visitors remaining on the tourist circuit can get by without much difficulty. But to claim that "virtually everyone" is bilingual in this area is simply wrong. Going to the numbers, French is the first language for 99 percent of the population, English is the first language for 1 percent of the population. About 20 percent of the population is bilingual, while 80 percent can communicate in French only. In the province as a whole, French is the first language for about 80 percent of the population, and over 40 percent are bilingual (in Montréal nearly 60 percent are bilingual).

[princeton123211]

9 minutes ago, GTJ said:

Within the tourism industry, of course, many can speak English, and so visitors remaining on the tourist circuit can get by without much difficulty. But to claim that "virtually everyone" is bilingual in this area is simply wrong.

I never said area-- I meant to refer to Quebec tour companies but I can see how I might have left that a little vague. To correct-- virtually everyone in the tourist trade (tours, hotels, transportation) are bilingual. 

 

I have traveled in Quebec extensively, even to some more remote places, and have never had an issue with finding someone bilingual in English/French. 

[R & R Carroll]

No worries, I understood that princeton123211 was referring to Quebec City and not Saguenay in the above response. I was under the impression that most of Saguenay speaks French with little English, thank you for confirming that GTJ. 

[GTJ]

59 minutes ago, princeton123211 said:

I never said area-- I meant to refer to Quebec tour companies but I can see how I might have left that a little vague. To correct-- virtually everyone in the tourist trade (tours, hotels, transportation) are bilingual. 

 

I have traveled in Quebec extensively, even to some more remote places, and have never had an issue with finding someone bilingual in English/French. 

Yes, to work in the tourism trade in Quebec bilingualism is necessary. The companies that target Engish-speaking tourists must necessarily be able to communicate in English. I have rarely found any exceptions to that. Not always great English . . . the hotel clerk where I last stayed overnight in Chicoutimi had some difficulty with English. But the tourism industry can be narrow, and I would not necessarily include transportation as being mostly bilingual. I remember having sought to buy a bus ticket while in Jonquière, destined for Saint-Siméon, with the ticket seller not speaking a word of English. I have traveled virtually the entire province (and more thoroughly than any other province, even remote places such as Chibougamau and Harrington Harbour . . . though I still have not yet been to Chisasibi!), and there is so much variance throughout. In some of these places English will never be heard, while in others there is the oddity of everyone speaking English surrounded by posted signs that are written only in French. Saguenay is one of those areas that is deepest francophone, probably the cruise port that singularly has the highest proportion of non-English speaking persons in the province . . . even Sept-Îles has more English spoken! Going to Québecc is like going to México: English is spoken by many, especially in tourist areas, but the degree of English ability is not uniform. It varies from place-to-place, and with whom one intends to interact.

[GTJ]

1 hour ago, R & R Carroll said:

No worries, I understood that princeton123211 was referring to Quebec City and not Saguenay in the above response. I was under the impression that most of Saguenay speaks French with little English.

There is more English generally in the city Québec than in Saguenay. About 95 percent in Québec use French, and about one-third of the population is bilingual. Québec is much more French than Montréal, and in many parts of Québec, as in Saguenay, even in the true commercial areas such as along rue Saint-Paul, one will encounter many people unable to communicate in English. But within the walls defining Vieux-Québec, bilingualism is virtually universal among business employees facing customers, whether hotels, restaurants, or retail stores.

[Jagggg]

On 8/10/2022 at 1:15 PM, R & R Carroll said:

Looking for recommendations please, for English speaking tour guides with vehicles in Saguenay and Quebec City, Canada for small private tours.

You may want to look into www.saguenayguidetours.com      We booked with them for our October cruise. English speaking and small van.  As with any non ship excursion, read reviews and decide if it would work for you.

[R & R Carroll]

2 hours ago, Jagggg said:

You may want to look into www.saguenayguidetours.com      We booked with them for our October cruise. English speaking and small van.  As with any non ship excursion, read reviews and decide if it would work for you.

Thank you!

 

[GTJ]

9 hours ago, Jagggg said:

You may want to look into www.saguenayguidetours.com

Looks like a typo with the URL. Try www. saguenayguidedtours.com

[3rdGenCunarder]

I was disappointed to learn that the hop-on-hop-off bus in Saguenay isn't running any more. I was hoping to go to Chicoutimi to see the Pulperie and wander around the town. We did this a few years ago, and were able to use the bus to get around. How available are taxis and Ubers in Saguenay?

 

Also, which is better/more available in Quebec City, Uber or taxis? How easy is it to get a taxi or Uber back to the ship if I go somewhere a few miles away? How about buses? Would I have to get a transit card, or can I pay for each ride with cash or a credit card?