Zaandam Review

Zaandam - Montreal to Boston & excursions - June 2022

Review for Canada & New England Cruise on Zaandam
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Wupzdaisy
10+ Cruises • Age 40s

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Additional details

Sail Date: Jun 2022
Cabin: Large Interior Stateroom
Light house at Peggy’s Cove
Excursion - Anne of Green Gables visitor center
Prince Edward Island lighthouse
Quebec City walk on your own
Excursion - Baddeck on your own
Confederate bridge on PEI - full day excursion
Excursion - Bar Harbor. Acadia trails biking. 2.5 hour tour

Holland America cruise

Embarkation.

If arriving at Montreal airport or dropping off rental vehicle at the Montreal airport and you wish to get an Uber ride to the cruise terminal, you must wait for your Uber car at the departure level outside door 7. There are clearly marked overhead signs & road markings indicating you are in the correct area. (See picture) It’s about a 30 min drive to the pier where the ship departs in Grand Quay. But make sure to give yourself plenty of time as construction work is a constant which makes traffic jams inevitable. (Our Saturday noonish arrival took about 55 mins) onboarding process was quick. We had filled out the “verifly” app and they just checked our passports & waved us right on thru. We arrived 1 hour before our scheduled check-in time and the terminal was practically empty. Very easy to get onboard.

Cabin Review

Large Interior Stateroom

Port Reviews

Bar Harbor

Bar Harbor - bicycle ride in Acadia park. Scheduled time for excursion booked through Holland was 7:45 AM and departing at 8:30. But… just like all the other stops, we seemed to be running on some sort of warped “island time”. The line for customs & immigration started forming around 6:00 am and wrapped all around the 5th floor. (Although we were advised multiple times to not form lines because they weren’t ready for us.) The officials boarded the ship around 8:10 am & we joined the line then. We went thru about 8:40 am. At 8:45 we were in another line at the theater to join our excursion group. At 9:05 we took a tender boat that had been pre-arranged for our excursion to the shore. We liked that the tenders were very big hired local ferries instead of the small sometimes rocky lifeboats used by other lines. We arrived at shore about 20 mins later. At 9:40 we had arrived at the bike place after a short bus ride from the pier. After picking out bikes and adjusting seats & getting a briefing on the tour, we started the trail about 10:00 am from Hulls Cove entrance. Although parts of the trail were indeed strenuous there were stops along the way to learn a bit about the wildlife and history on the building of the park itself. Alison was a great tour guide. We made sure to keep our guides pumped by shouting out “woohoo!” On the down hills & “we got this!” & “feel the burn” on the way up. Fun times! In total about 7 miles round trip. About 12:00 we were on vans headed back to port so had the rest of the afternoon for lunch on our own & shopping in town.

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