Sitting at JFK waiting on our afternoon flight. Our wonderful cruise is over unfortunately. I truly want to thank
@mevelandry for starting this thread as well as all of the kind folks that offered advice. It really was so helpful.
To pay it forward I’ll offer a brief summary of our experiences in port in the hope it helps someone else in the future. We were on NCL so our ports were somewhat different than those who sailed with Disney.
Quebec City - what a delightful city! Beautiful, clean and full of friendly people. We wandered around for a couple of days prior to our cruise just taking it all in. We also booked a private tour to Isle D’Orleans and Montmorency falls which was a ton of fun. Tour company was was Tours Voir Quebec.
Saguenay - NCL tour that included a boat tour of the fjord with a bus ride to a couple of viewpoints within the national park. Spectacular views of the fjord and foliage.
Charlottetown PEI - we booked a private tour of the island and had a wonderful day on the North Shore. The weather wasn’t great but our guide was terrific and we still had a great time. Lunch was fresh oysters and lobster rolls at Car’s Oysters. Just fabulous! Who could complain about that ??
Tour company was Rusty Rover Tours.
Sydney Nova Scotia - we took an independent small group tour of the Cabot Trail with a stop for lunch in Beddeck. This was amazing!! The scenery was incredible and this was by far the best fall colors of our trip. Tour company was Blackwood Tours.
Halifax Nova Scotia - we’d been here before so opted for a private tour of the Annapolis Valley to go wine tasting. This was a nice day but not as exciting as our last time there where we stuck to the coastal areas. Still, it was a nice change of pace. Tour company was Open Top Tours.
Saint John, New Brunswick. - we’d been here before as well so we booked an NCL tour with a professional photographer. This was just wonderful! She took us to several out of the way places that tourists don’t go to and offered advice for getting the best shots. We normally don’t do tours through a cruise line but NCL offers a lot of booking promotions and we ended up with $100 per port credit so we took advantage of it in three ports. After our tour we walked to the historic market for lunch.
Portland, Maine - We didn’t make any plans here. We’ve been there before so we just wandered around the town a bit doing some shopping. We had the most amazing lunch at Eventide. Get the brown butter lobster roll - you can thank me later !
Bar Harbor, Maine - We booked a private tour through Acadia National Park. This was spectacular. Everyone should see the view from Cadillac Mt at least once in their lifetime. Our guide also took us to a lot of little out of the way places. This was a great day. Tour company was At Your Service Taxi and Tours.
Boston - We took an NCL tour here. It was a culinary tour through the North End (Little Italy). This was so much fun! We had a great guide who took us to all of these little shops to sample their goodies. It was very educational as well as she took great time explaining how things should be used and what to look for when buying them. Lunch in the neighborhood was fantastic as well.
Wow! This is a long post, but then it’s been an action packed 2 weeks. No wonder I’m tired!! This was a wonderful trip in every way. Thanks again to everyone for your advice. It really helped when I was planning our adventure. I really hope this helps someone else traveling to this area. I’d encourage anyone considering traveling there to go ahead and take the plunge. We’re already plotting our return to many of these places.