Frugalapolis

Adventure OTS - At Sea (Day 3 of cruise)

This was our first sea day and a chance to sleep in after our journey to Montreal and Quebec City. The temp was 11C (52F) with strong winds 29 mph and 5 ft waves, a mostly cloudy day. Today Hurricane Michael would make landfall in the Florida panhandle. We were lucky it was not headed to our home in Tampa Bay, but there were many people on the ship from Florida who were worried about it.

This cruise was not a typical combination of guests since it was a repositioning cruise. There were many older guests, lots of Canadians and Floridians since those were the starting and ending ports. There were only seven children on the ship. When they had the love and marriage show and were looking for contestants for newly weds the newest married were six years. It was a wonderful mix, and the experienced cruisers were much more tolerate, polite and friendly than a ship full of families and new cruisers would be.

Breakfast everyday was in the windjammer where I had salmon lox, and Scott had an omelet. I was able to eat fish everyday for breakfast and dinner, and resisted the bread the entire cruise. I only gained 4 lbs, which I have lost already.

First activity of the day was the cruise critic meet and greet where we met fellow members of the cruise critic forum and our facebook group, plus there were raffles of prizes, drinks and excursions from the ship staff. I won a nice back pack!

Enjoying the hot tub in the Solarium, surprisingly was not used much, it was cold so I think people were in their rooms reading.

The lonely lifeguard on the pool, most of the week no one was in the pools.

I started out with good cards in the poker run, but didn't end up with a winning hand.

Charlotte was in the facebook group, loved her card glasses. We sure enjoyed the Diamond Club free drinks, didn't spend any money on this cruise for drinks.

Hanging out for the Captains Welcome Aboard Reception, free champagne for all in the Royal Promenade. The Headliner showtime was the Las Vegas Tenors in the Lyric Theatre. They were a group of guys who sang cover songs. It was entertaining, but I guess not that great because I didn't even get a picture. We did stop in the casino to use our free spin to win coins - three each, and I won a Casino Royale tshirt. It was my lucky day.

Dinner in the dining room again. loving the fish every night!

Dinner - Jan, Joel, Chrissy, Mark. Our servers were Pablo and Ruel (Rusty).

Adventure of the Seas - Quebec City, Quebec CA Day 4

10:00 AM by Me

The ship stayed in port in Quebec City overnight so we had a full day to spend on land til All aboard at 3:45 pm. Muster call would be shortly after all aboard and sail away was 5 pm. The weather was 18C (64F) and cloudy with scattered showers. Not the nicest day, but nothing you can do about it. We wanted to get the ship staff familiar with us and our bikes so we took them off the ship even though we only rode a few miles along the St Lawrence river. The bikes on the ship worked fine, we just scouted out the hall and elevator before we would roll our bikes out. We tried to avoid busy times by leaving a little later, and coming back on board before the end of port call.

A couple notes for those interested in the logistics so far. My Sprint Samsung S6 phone worked fine in Canada. I have the unlimited SERO plan and got free data, phone calls were $2.50 and texts $0.20 each. I used WhatsApp to text for free. I had also downloaded the Bixi bike app in Montreal before leaving the US. There is Wi-Fi everywhere in the bars and resto's. Scott's Samsung S4 phone didn't work at all, it was a brick. His service is Tello, a discount plan that runs off Sprint network, they do not support service outside the U.S. Our friends have Apple Iphones and they worked with a discount plan but the cost was high to call, and use data. They relied on Wi-Fi.

It was interesting to note that Uber was used in Montreal and they have a station at the airport set up for it, but it seemed to be blocked in the near vicinity. We had to get a cab. But as soon as we were driving away in the cab, I checked Uber and was able to connect to their network. Uber was not available in any other Canadian towns we visited, there were no drivers. Uber is illegal in Prince Edward Island. Nova Scotia had no drivers.

Quebec City is beautiful, and I'm told seems to be just like quaint old Europe. Most of the town looks normal and business like, its just a tourist district down by the port that has the Europe feel. The hills were extremely steep and there is a funicular to ride up to the top of the hill where the Frontenac Hotel is. There is great history about this town between the French and English battles. Lots of cannons around, and we even saw a cannon ball wedged under a tree that had grown around it.

The ship had great entertainment almost every evening. We again enjoyed the free drinks in the Diamond Lounge. It turns out we never spent a dollar on drinks our entire cruise. We usually used to spend about $100 a day on drinks, but since we're diamond status now we saved over a thousand dollars on this trip with the free drinks. There were over 1000 diamond members on this cruise, and the ship reported during one of the last diamond parties that they had served over 22,000 free drinks over the cruise, over 1600 drinks each evening.

The evening show before dinner was Chad Chesmark who performed a magic show. Later that evening after dinner, there was a comedian, Michele Balan. Tomorrow would be a day at sea, and then we arrive at Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island (PEI) for our next port.

Marie & Scott, Mark & Jan

Chad Chesmark

Joel & Chrissy, Kathy & Mark

Quebec City

Frontenac Hotel

Adventure of the Seas in Quebec City, QC port

The funicular sculpture.

Adventure of the Seas - Quebec City, Quebec CA Day 3

9:30 AM by Me

Started our day with a yummy breakfast at Hotel Le Dauphin and then jumped in the rental car to drive the 150 miles to Quebec City to get on the ship, Adventure of the Seas. The ship was going to be in port overnight and departing the next day so there was no rush to get on. It was a beautiful drive up to Quebec City, as the leaves were turning. The landscape was on fire.

On the way up we decided to visit Montmorency Falls, just outside of Quebec City while we still had a vehicle. It was a cold and blustery day. We didn't have a lot of time before the car rental was due so we didn't go to the top and walk across the falls, but you can. There is also a gondola you can ride to the top for a nominal fee. These falls were beautiful. They are higher than Niagra Falls at 270 feet.

After visiting the Falls we drove back to Quebec City and returned the car, which was an adventure in itself. There was a long line of people waiting outside the Avis office for someone to return a car, so they were glad to see us! We had dropped our big bags at the ship earlier, so we just had backpacks to walk back the kilometer back to the ship. We wondered around and took some pictures of town.

When we got on the ship we dropped our stuff and wandered around. We checked out our dinner table and of course it was not a large table, only a 4 top for us and our friends. We got that straightened out and got a 8 top where we met two sisters Kathy and Chrissy, and there husbands Mark and Joel. They hailed from California and Alabama. We all connected and enjoyed our dinners every night in the main dining room until they turned the lights on to kick us out. It was a great experience, and is exactly the reason we always request a large table in the dining room. The great connection finally happened, and it probably won't again for ten years.

We unpacked our folding bicycles in the room for ride around the port the next day. We didn't get off that ship in the evening because it started to rain. We enjoyed our first night in the Diamond Lounge even though it was super crowded. There were over 1000 diamond members trying to get drinks in a small room with 60 chairs. Staff soon set up an extra bar in the Blue Moon to serve drinks and that helped. They served potstickers and chicken wings for appetizers. Yum!

Adventure of the Seas - Montreal, Quebec CA Day 2

2:39 PM by Me

Actually, this is day 1 pictures which I realized were missing when I wrote yesterdays post. But we were in Montreal on Saturday and Sunday. The action is on Charlotte Street in the Village. There were barricades blocking the street so everyone can walk in the road. The street is lined with overhead balls on strings that reflect the lights, and that is cool too. The night we walked around there was a Festival of Color with marching groups dancing in costume and playing music. It had a Caribbean flair to it.

We had some poutine in a resto on one of the side streets, I can't get enough of that stuff. We also road bikes on the bike paths along the river to see the unique apartments called Habitat 67.