Our Final Cruise Day in Trois-Rivieres, Quebec

We arrived at noon and left in the early evening. Rita stayed on board to pack our bags for disembarking tomorrow morning, while I went on a shore excursion.

The final lecture of this cruise was at 9:30 this morning. Prof. Gary Evans spoke about the French/British/American competition for control of North America. Among other things (lots of them), we learned something that isn’t taught in American history: the burning of the White House and Capital by the British in 1814 was in response to American soldiers burning the Parliament building in York (now Toronto). So why did the Americans burn their parliament building? Because the soldiers saw the MP’s wigs hanging on the wall and mistook them for a display of American scalps!

The shore excursion was a 2-hour bus tour of the Trois Rivieres area, with a 40-minute visit to Notre-Dame-du-Cap Sanctuary, which I spotted from our ship as we approached Trois Rivieres.

I wish I could show the pictures I took onshore, but my iPhone has been balking since yesterday at copying my photos onto my computer. (That’s why no slides from the last couple lectures.)

Our great tour guide, a native of Trois Rivieres named Remi, taught me something that I don’t remember learning in four years of French classes. French has two words for “river” — one for rivers that flow into a sea or ocean (fleuve), and another for rivers that don’t (rivieres). Trois Rivieres is at the confluence of the Fleuve Saint-Laurent (St. Lawrence) and Riviere Saint-Maurice. The earliest Europeans mistook the St. Maurice River as three rivers because two islands at its mouth give the impression that it is three rivers instead of one.

Returning from that church, the bus stopped at a mural which depicts the area’s history. Here’s a picture of part of it:

Here’s a video I was able to get off my iPhone. You’ll hear Remi’s narration on the soundtrack.

After a late lunch with Rita thanks to room service, I went off the ship for a walk around the downtown/port area of the city. It was cloudy and in the 60s, feeling very much like fall. I took some pictures of truly beautiful flowers in huge pots along the pier and in a park nearby, which I wish I could show you! They will probably be gone in a week or so.

“Back on Board” time was 7 p.m., with us leaving for Montreal by 8 p.m. We’ll have to travel slowly to arrive by 7 a.m., since it’s only 70 nautical miles away. The river, we were told yesterday, flows at 8 knots, so 14 knots should do the trick.

Our large suitcases need to be outside our stateroom by 10 p.m. so the crew can arrange for them to be waiting for us onshore when we disembark at 9 a.m. Viking does this kind of logistics really well. We can’t check into the Doubletree Hotel Montreal until the afternoon, so we have purchased a 3-hour walking food tour of Montreal tomorrow morning. That should give us enough time to deliver our bags to the hotel and get to the starting point for the food tour at 11 a.m. Unfortunately, the weather forecast is for rain with the temperature in the low 60s.

Today we completed a survey provided to all passengers asking for our evaluation of everything from the food to the entertainment, lectures, shore excursions, housekeeping and staff — everything they could think of, except the room service (which was excellent).

Rita and I can’t help but compare this 14-day cruise from Bergen to Montreal with the 122-day world cruise on the Viking Sky. Many things were the same, but Rita and I agree that overall, the world cruise experience was at a higher level.

As I mentioned before, there were 59 sea days on the world cruise, and on those sea days the cruise director would host a “coffee chat” at 8 a.m. in the Wintergarden. I reported on many of them in my daily blog. They were great! We had five sea days on this cruise, but no coffee chat was ever on the daily program. As a result, we never really bonded with our cruise director, and we didn’t get some questions answered. That’s probably the biggest difference.

Another difference was in the entertainment. We had several high-level entertainers who joined the world cruise for just a few days, then got off and joined the Neptune, which was running three days behind us on the same itinerary. One we remember particularly fondly was Harry the Piano — an amazing virtuoso and entertainer. There were so many others, but hardly any such entertainers on this albeit shorter cruise.

There were also special events on the world cruise, such as when we crossed the equator and when we passed the zero meridian (both longitude and latitude) off the coast of Africa. The culinary team on the world cruise also did some amazing productions. I remember one which filled both the pool deck and the adjoining Wintergarden with carved vegetables, ice sculptures, and the most amazing collection of chocolate and other desserts.

Another special event was a contest in which about a dozen passengers (or teams) created a boat using only scavenged items from the ship, such as coffee stirrers. These boats were judged by the officers and were disqualified if they didn’t stay afloat for minimum period of time in the pool. The top three winners were displayed in the Explorer’s Lounge for a few weeks.

We also were given the most fabulous jackets and hats with “2023-2024 World Cruise” and “Viking Sky” embroidered on them — our favorite of all jackets in our wardrobe, which we brought with us on this cruise. If the jackets didn’t fit perfectly, they sent a tailor to our stateroom to do a fitting and take them away for adjustments.

Another difference of our making was that on the world cruise we paid for the beverage package and took full advantage of it, even getting in the habit of bedtime sambuca on the rocks. On this shorter cruise, we limited ourselves to the free wine at lunch and dinner plus gin and ginger ales from the minibar. We probably bought fewer than a half dozen mixed drinks.

Yes, it is unfair to compare the two cruises, but it was hard for Rita and me not to reminisce and miss some of those higher-level features of the world cruise — enough even to contemplate signing up for another one!

So, this will be the last installment of my blog from the actual world cruise plus our Atlantic crossing, but I’ll probably post daily until we get back to Golden the evening of October 1st for those who care to read about our experiences in Montreal for four days, driving with my sister from Montreal to Freeport and Boston, and our time in Boston. Thanks for reading, and for sending me your comments, which Rita and I have enjoyed reading.