I hate ocean cruising.

My wife, on the other hand, loves this particular form of travel/vacation.

So, every so often (about once a decade), I relent and take her on one of these “floating resorts”.

Back at the beginning of September was one of those occasions. We boarded a ship in Boston for an eleven day trip that sailed to Portland, ME, then to several picturesque little towns in the Canadian maritimes, and finally down the St. Lawrence to Quebec City.

I will have more to say about this particular voyage, with some ranting about cruising in general, in a later post. But for now, here are a few of my photos from that early fall sailing. A full gallery of life on the ship is here, and another with images from the ports here.

First up, at the top is a view of the ship itself, docked in Saguenay, Quebec province, the smallest of the towns we visited. The ship is supposed to accommodate 3600 passengers and it seemed as if every bed was filled for this trip. That’s considered a “mid-size” ship in the cruise industry.

Our longest time in port was Quebec City, which is an interesting city that I didn’t have enough time to really explore. I’d love to return to for a longer stay. This street musician playing a harp was just one of many great sights in one of the tourist areas.

This is a very shiny look at the four-story central atrium of the ship. Since we were on the ship itself more than in the ports, I spent a lot of time looking for unique aspects of life on board. I may have run out of ideas about 1/3 of the way through the cruise.

The ship usually arrived in a port, in this case Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, around 7 in the morning. Which offered some nice light for capturing a panoramic view of the town. I do wonder what the people who live here think of a few thousand people showing up at breakfast time and then disappearing before dinner.

This ship featured a lot of “entertainment”, which included a variety of musicians. The quality of the performances was pretty inconsistent, but overall I thought the keyboardists were certainly the best of the bunch. It takes a great deal of talent to adapt to so many styles and situations.