In two days we will set off on another cruise adventure, and part of this trip visits a region that I haven’t visited by ship before: The Canadian Maritimes.
We will be traveling on a 12-day itinerary called the “Eastern Seaboard Explorer” on the new Viking Sky. This will be our third trip this year with Viking. Last year at this time we spent two wonderful weeks venturing around the Baltic Sea on the line’s first ocean vessel, the Viking Sea.
Then in June, we traveled down the Rhine river on the Viking Hlin, one of the company’s 59 river ships.
The Sky is the third ocean-going ship and we will be interested to see what design tweaks they have made over the original Viking Sea.
Actually, I have visited all of the ports on this itinerary: Montreal, Quebec City, the Saguenay Fjord, Gaspé, Halifax, Boston and New York. But except for the latter two, I have never arrived by ship. We were supposed to visit Charlottetown on Prince Edward Island, which would have been new to me but we learned last week that because of new speed regulations in the St. Lawrence River and Gulf of St. Lawrence (to protect the right whales) we would not make that port in time for our excursions, so they substituted the Gaspé.
Many years ago I had a wonderful visit to that remote peninsula as part of an excursion with fellow travel writers and still remember it in great detail. I am glad that Chet will get to experience this. I am particularly hoping to spot some whales while we are enjoying the fall color.
We are overnighting in several ports, giving us extra time to explore them…another hallmark of the Viking way of operating cruises that we appreciate. We also enjoy the included excursions
We will be traveling with my sister- and brother-in-law, Vicki and Carl, who are totally new to Viking…so it will be nice to have input from those with fresh impressions.
So far, Viking has impressed us in so many ways, particularly with the staff. So embarkation on Saturday can’t some soon enough!
September 21, 2017
Heidi, Editor-In-Chief
