Bus tours around Ontario/Quebec

[teqsun]

My wife and I just did the Safeway Splendid Tour package to Mount Tremblant and Quebec City from Toronto. It was nice not having to drive long distances especially since I had already driven to Quebec City a few years ago. The best part was just being able to sit back and enjoy the views.

Upsides – though travel was hard on your legs, they did make frequent rest room stops and if you were not the adventurous kind, you could just follow the tour guide around the places you visited. And the best part was that they were always on time and the hotels were pretty decent, especially the one at Tremblant, right in the center of the resort.

Downsides - we spent more time in the bus than actually visiting the places. While we had a good half day at Tremblant, we had only a disappointing couple of hours in Quebec City which was not a lot and to make matters worse, it rained the whole time we were there. And worse still, they skipped the biggest attraction of the place, the Montmorency falls only because they spent too much time organising the dinner and reaching the hotel which was quite far off.

Complaints - the hotel at Quebec City was not in the city as promised, it was a good 40km away in the middle of nowhere and breakfast was not included and was quite pricey at the hotel. Nice way to fleece customers when there is no other options around. The admissions organised were terrible and a complete waste of time and money. You are just better off sitting these off even though the boat tour in Tremblant was informative. The dinner organised at Quebec City was bad and we were actually better off spending the time exploring more of the city and choosing our own restaurant, like in Tremblant.

Chinese tour operators like Safeway and Taipan cater mainly to the Chinese and mostly make lunch stops at Chinese buffet places. Once is okay, but then it just gets tiring. And the worst part, they take more time off the tour just getting to and fro these places. We could have actually spent more time in Quebec City the next morning if the hotel was closer and if the bus did not have to travel all the way to Montreal for the lunch stop instead of driving through to Toronto and just stopping at a major service stop with multiple food options.

Advice – The Chinese lunch places are mostly around malls and I am sure you can find alternate restaurants or fast food joints close by. And if not, you can always opt for the Chinese buffet. Believe me, you really do not need a reservation, these places are huge and can always accommodate another busload! Just skip their offer of lunches/dinner and admissions. These only add to your costs and are not all that great. You can always decide when you get there.

Resolution – I think the next time round, we would skip these tours and either rent a car or take a bus to where we want to visit and use local tours, transit or car rentals to see more of the local sights and culture. Funny thing is we opted for this bus tour because we thought it would be cheaper but it actually ended up being more expensive than if we had organised it ourselves, especially because of the admissions and organised food stops which just cost more! And yes, what they do not advertise – you have to shell out more for the mandatory daily tips to the driver and tour guide though in our case, they deserved it, they were simply fabulous!

[lasallejai]

I know how you feel. My wife and I went on a similar coach trip with one of the Chinese operators 6 years ago, and even though the advertisement in the newspaper said each person only cost $168, but when we went to their branch to find out the details two persons in a room actually cost about $250 each. We also upgraded our hotel in Quebec City so that we could stay in down town Quebec City, or we would have been stuck at the Quebec City airport for the second night watching tv in our room, again. That was a very good move on our part. Only two other persons on the coach did that with us and they also thought they were lucky to have done that, because the other 40 some people were whining a lot about that the last day they were on the bus about the location of the hotel they had stayed in. The bill came to $570 something, if I remember correctly, and that did not even include the meals and admission fees to the attractions. They passed around a sign up sheet on the bus for us to sign up for the meals and the attractions and we had to pay almost another $110 for those on the bus. I remember not all meals were included so we did have to spend extra for couple meals. The worst thing was on the last day coming back to Toronto from Quebec City the guide handed out a bag demanding the tips for him and the driver for $6 a day per person so we had to fetch out another $36. The whole trip cost us about $800 at the end, including the two meals we did on our own. Mind you, we did not join all the attraction visiting tours or it would have been more. I remember sitting at the dock side restaurant in Kingston waiting for two hours for the group to come back on the boatcruise, and also two hours at the aboriginal reserve playing with my fingers. The thing that bothered us most was they never did allow us time to spend in Ottawa before they rushed us to check in in Montreal at the airport hotel the first day after the two museums. We did not even see Montreal down town except the next morning they drove us to Old Montreal to see the Notre Dame church and quickly left for Quebec City. I do not know why they had to pack four cities into 3 days, and I will never forget the horrible experiences. Just last long weekend my wife and I, with our 4 years old son, went to Montreal by driving, and we stayed in down town for all 4 nights, and we ate out every single day for good meals each day, and it only cost us around $800 including gasoline. My wife was a lot more happier this time, and I really do not think we will ever join a coach tour any more. We have already booked the hotel in Quebec City for the Labour Day long weekend coming up so we will venture out on our own in our own time and fashion with good eats and things we want to see.

[lookingforstufffff]

The only time I would consider taking these Asian tours again is if I'm going shopping (the 3 day New York shopping trip), other than that... well...

I've been to the Quebec tour, didn't really enjoy it.

I've been on the Boston -> NYC tour, that was worth the money considering it was my first time in NYC (the problem was we didn't get much alone time).

[wizy]

I went on the korean version of the eastern ontario/quebec tour back in August 2005. We booked the tour through a Korean travel agency for myself, my wife, and her mom, sister and her two kids (ages 8 and 11) who were visiting from Korea (non-english speakers) so this turned out to be a good option. I would have otherwise had to rent a minivan, do all the driving as well, look for accommodations, plan the whole trip and play tourguide.

Our itinerary was as follows:
day 1: Friday morning catch bus at 7.30 am from Toronto, lunch stopover in Kingston (low quality chinese buffet), 3 pm arrive, visit notre dame, and the observatory, then onto old montreal (2 hours to wander); 6 pm arrive somewhere in montreal burbs for korean dinner. 8 pm arrive at hotel (holiday inn).
day 2: Saturday morning buffet breakfast (not fancy but hot meal of bacon & eggs, toast, ceral, etc. coffee was very good), leave for quebec city, stopover at mont merency, then greek resto for lunch (was actually a reasonably good meal). Arrive at old quebec city with 2-3 hours of free time. 6 pm chinese buffet (china buffet king quality) for dinner. 8 pm back to holiday inn.
day 3: Sunday morning (same breakfast). then off to Ottawa to see changing of the guard at parliament bldgs, driveby 24 sussex, and visit the governor general's house. Lunch at korean resto. Stopover at 1000 islands for boat cruise. Return back to Toronto around 6-7 pm.

Overall, I had no complaints, we had to tip the tourguide and bus driver which I had no problem since they did a great job. Everything ran really smoothly as our guide was on top of everything. It was a really brisk tour packed to the minute, but we had a good time. I cannot recall exactly what we paid, but at the time it was a good tradeoff. The cost of the transportation, hotels and meals wouldn't have meant much savings. But we definitely saved our labour and headaches.