By: Indranil Poddar | Wed May 30, 2018 at 09.10 PM
Pros:
1. Fantastic Hotels to stay
2. Great Itinerary covering the chief attractions.
3. Knowledgeable Tour guide
4. Value for Money
Cons:
1. A bit rushed up.
2. Food option was the same all days (chinese buffet). 3rd day lunch was no..t up to mark.Read full review
With the long weekend 19-21 May, 2018 coming up, we heard from one of our friends of this 3 day bus trip to east Canada and wanted to give it a try. Based on reading a few reviews here, we were a little worried about the whole "Chinese-driv..en package", the Hotel stay, food, tour guide's preferred langauge (Chinese) and so on. My wife and I reprogrammed our priorities to focus only on the places we go, carry our own food, and try to adjust with the Hotel.
But we were wrong, and we did not experience any of the concerns stated by the previous reviewers. In fact, we give this trip a 5 star and would strongly recommend this to people who haven't been east Canada. It was LOVELY. I'll detail our experience below:
Our guide's name was Monica. Monica was extremely organized, had the entire trip planned out well in her head, and made necessary changes to itinerary owing to the weather, without missing out on anything we signed up for.
She messaged us the quick tips a day in advance and told us to come 45 mins early owing to the rain which could potentially slow us down. I totally agreed with this decision.
Itinerary of days 1 and 3 were switched and that fell beautifully into the plan without making it seem haphazard or unprepared. The company running this tour is a Chinese company and the tour guide spoke in Mandarin and English with an equal importance to both the languages.
Monica was very professional yet fun, and helped us out with any questions we had.
We stayed in Quality Hotel in Montreal. The room was clean, bed was comfy, breakfast was provided - in short - no complaints whatsoever for what you'll be using the room for.
My favorite part of the trip was Quebec City. We really fell in love with the European style shops and roads.
On the final day, we went on a cruise on 1000 Islands, and that was a spectacular experience as well.
Below are a few things that we found a little difficulty in, but we managed and Monica was kind enough to help us out as well.
1. Getting vegetarian food is a huge challenge - The travels arranges Asian buffet food for you, which you need to pay extra for obviously. But that didn't suit our taste, so we had to hunt for vegetarian food. We were lucky to find a place in Ottawa and packed that for our dinner. The closest food to vegetarian in Quebec City was eggs. We didn't mind that, so had it for lunch. Dinner again was in an Asian restaurant, so we used Google to find an Indian restaurant, and were lucky to find one call Restaurant Gandhi in Montreal. We packed our dinner from there. The lunch arranged on 1000 islands was a buffet, but had good spread of vegetables, so that worked for us.
2. Traveling with a crowd brings in group dynamics (Not a fault of the travels, but that's the nature of bus trips). The crowd can be late to show up, loud (especially the kids), and small kids kept kicking the back of my seat, which became annoying after a certain point. I chose to let Monica know of this end of the day and she immediately took the feedback and promised there wont be any kids sitting behind me the next day :)
A few suggestions for future travelers:
1. If you're vegetarian or a Muslim couple like us, try to get your own food for breakfast and lunch on the 1st day. You will find some place for dinner. Try to get extra fruits and some breads as well.
2. You're traveling with an unknown crowd, so you may have to be patient when someone delays, or try to adjust when kids kick the back of your seat. Let your tour guide know, and they will do their best to help you.
3. The trip can be tiring at the end, ensure you plan for an extra day off after the trip.
Besides the suggestions, its a fun, educative, and really enjoyable trip. And I would definitely recommend people not to miss this before winter arrives.
Enjoy!Read full review
By: Melanie Marciano | Wed May 23, 2018 at 12.33 AM
Would not recommend it for anyone who's been to quebec. Too many attraction not enough time. They should focus on whats good about quebec. For first timer sure why not. Too much wasted on uninteresting attraction and your mandated to pay fo..r 4 attraction. Maybe if u have just old quebec tour plus 2 attractions let me know.Read full review
Me and my friend enjoyed this trip as hell!!! The tour guide is funny and her English is professional. Our bus is great quality and we don't eat with the tour so no comment about the food.
Overall, this is a must try trip with cheap price ..and satisfied quality.Read full review
"My favorite is the Thousand Islands and we encountered so many interesting travelers. It was a very nice day when we were on a boat. There were so many little islands that the rich people owned! We had the Meal Plan, including three course..s Genuine French cuisine lunch at Old Quebec City, Sea food lunch, and tradition French cuisine lunch.The food was more delicious than our expectations. And Old Quebec city is so beautiful."Read full review
By: Maria Dela Cruz | Wed May 16, 2018 at 02.43 AM
For the amount of time we had it was a great tour! It was well organized although it’s quite a rush to see the attractions and the cities itself. My childhood friends had a great time. It’s basically a snapshot of the three cities of.. Ottawa , Montreal , and Quebec . The cruise to Thousand Isaland was nice with the sun out at the time .It was my friends first time to visit Canada and they were all positive with the experience. It was short but sweet! Many thanks to our tour guide Jeff and the driver Read full review
"We took our cruise of the 1000 Islands in this tour and we saw the beautiful Boldt and Singer Castles on the islands as well as many, many impressive homes. We saw many homes flying the flags of their country as well as seeing many flying ..both the Canadian and American flags. Our guide was very congenial and he and the other ship personnel were very congenial answering our questions as we departed the boat.?If you ever have the opportunity to see these marvelous islands and homes, large and small, don't pass it up!"Read full review
At first, this trip may look attractive but be careful. You will be in a bus full of chinese tourists and the communication and food throughout will mainly be chinese. The hotel room was cold and shabby. Will review Quality Hotel in detail ..on Tripadvisor. Itinerary included breakfast at budget hotels but here we were given breakfast packs the night before (upon arrival in the hotel)- the packs contained one banana, 2 slices cold and stale bread, a small jam sachet and a small juice pack. After providing this kind of stale food, the bus never took a breakfast stop in the mornings for some hot coffee etc. What a shame!
We were charged 20$ per person for visiting Montreal Botanical Gardens. We reached there at 4.45pm and were hurried through the greenhouse. Later, upon further enquiry, I got to know that the places closes at 5pm. Moreover, the actual Gardens are closed until mid-May. Why take us for an optional tour attraction which is actually closed and that too on such tight time. I would like to request a refund of the wasted 50$ spent for 2 adult and 1 child entry.
Lastly, the bus was in poor condition- the seats worn out and torn, the toilet was never cleaned in 3 days, so it became unbearable to enter the toilet on the 3rd tour day.
The driver, Ben, drove us safety and the guide Carrie was courteous. We got back safely, thats all that matters. But yes, I felt cheated and would still request a refund for the Montreal Botanical Gardens entry feeRead full review