Our vacation started on Oct 1st in Montreal. We flew in from Ohio. The Montreal airport was empty with the exception of the passengers that arrived on our flight. The kiosk to process the immigration papers was a bit confusing, but there was one person that went around and helped everyone. We took a taxi to our hotel, Auberge Bonaparte, to drop off our luggage. The taxi driver did not speak any English, but managed to find our hotel. It costs $40CA + tip.

We took a couple of walking tours in Olde Montreal that started a few blocks from our hotel at the Notre Dame Bascillica. In hindsight, we wished we would have taken the bus tour with options to get off and on. The metro was about a 5 minute walk from our hotel. We took the metro and visited the underground city and Olympic Parc and went up the Tower. We found a family-owned restaurant at the station, that had good and gave you lots of food. This place reminded us of a place you would find in NYC. We returned to our hotel. The hotel was a sweet gem. It had a quaint European feel to it. The hotel was connected to a restaurant, and we had a nice breakfast in the morning. The breakfast was included in our stay. A tour bus picked us up at the hotel. We had a brief tour in Montreal and 3 hours later, we were in Quebec City. A tour guide boarded the bus and we had a tour around Quebec City. We also visited Montmorency Falls. Then we returned back to Olde Quebec City and did a walking tour for about 50 minutes.

There was about 8 people on our bus who were cruising on NCL Dawn. At 2 pm the bus driver picked us up and drove us to the cruise terminal, so we could drop off our luggage and check-in. We were checked in within 15 minutes. To board the ship at Quebec City there is no bridge connecting the port to the ship. So you had to walk around a maze inside of the port building, and then outside up a steep ramp to the boat and down a very uneven rubber mat to get into the ship. We had no issues with this, but many of the passengers on this cruise had mobility issues. We ate lunch at the buffet, and then found our cabin. They had just brought our luggage up, so we unpacked. We left a note to our girl, Amanda, to remove a couple pieces of furniture and clean out the refrigerator. Then we set off back into Quebec City to walk around. There were several cruise ships in port, so the city was crowded with people. We ended up walking to Chateau Frontenac and other sites. We returned at 7:05 pm to have a nice dinner at the Aqua Main Dining room. The staff expedited our meal, so we could see the 8 pm show. Read more