by Jim Bellomo | Oct 2, 2023 | Photography
Yes, there are two posts today. If you are a cruising fan and missed the earlier one on our stateroom, it is below this one.
Here they are for my readers who follow me for my photography and have been asking about what happened on my third day in Montreal. I’m so sorry I forgot to put them out there. I got into the cruise stuff and forgot to add them.
On our third morning, I awoke onboard Vista. One of my favorite things about overnights on cruises is that you can get on or off at any time of the day or night. So I was up at my usual 5:15 and walking out of the port at 5:30. Here’s what I shot on that walk. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…
Early morning moon
Early morning mood with buildings.
Vista in the dark
A really cool dark shot. Turn your brightness up.
The Marine sign…
I am told it is a Montreal landmark.
I shot this standing in the middle of a lock on the Lachine Canal
A sign in Montreal’s Old Towne
It was like being back in France.
With tiny French streets.
Just gorgeous and blue hour gave me great light.
More of the same.
This is the front of the building I shot the night before…
..that’s now a shopping mall
Back on the streets
The light gets lighter.
And changes to Golden Hour
When I found this church.
With really nice lighting
And one last look at the sun on the dome.
Symmetry
Looking back on the city. The light was better on the city…
but the sunrise was not as incredible.
From Vista’s upper deck once back on board.
The no-longer-used Lachine Locks
But still cool to take photos of.
The city from the highest point on the ship.
Back on board for breakfast
Once back on board, we met the group (sans later sleepers Jamie and Steve) for breakfast in the buffet—which was outstanding. I will do a whole post on the food toward the end of the cruise. Then we took a walk down the waterfront with most of the gang to see Old Towne. I took about 25 photos, and I am not happy with a single one of them. The light was directly overhead and incredibly harsh. Not even going to bother to show them to you. Just know, they were bad. And nothing I could do made them in any way special, and I can usually fix them somehow.
Afternoon boat tour
We wanted an activity that didn’t involve a lot of walking, so we decided to do a harbor cruise on a smallish boat. We used Bateau Mouche. Don’t use them. It was NOT a good value. $21CAN for a 45-minute ride, of which half was the same sights as the first. We got to see the river and learned some fun facts, but we all voted that we wished we had gone with another company or skipped it altogether.
I got some photos, but the best ones were of the Six Flags amusement park that sits on a man-made island in the middle of the St. Lawrence. Those were fun. And a couple of other river-cruise-type shots. Here they are—you know the drill.
Thought I would get a pic of the other side of the Big Wheel
And the other side of the Clock Tower.
Two island monuments
A very old cruise ship now sailing with a cruise line we have never heard of—Ambassador.
Six Flags Roller Coaster
Six Flags swing.
Habitat 67 in Montreal
Back on land I took a short walk and got this shot of Vista.
Tugboat in Montreal
And this sadly, abandoned factory also on the Lachine.
That about covered our time in Montreal. It was a great city. Lots to do, and if you haven’t been there, I highly recommend it. We had a great time, ate great food, saw many cool sights, and so much more. Tomorrow, a little more about the ship and our visit to Québec City. We did sail right on time and had a very peaceful voyage down the St. Lawrence River to Québec City.
Montreal is a great town. There’s equal parts blue-collar town.
—Jay Baruchel
by Jim Bellomo | Oct 2, 2023 | Uncategorized
When last I wrote, we had just boarded Vista and been through a beautiful embarkation. When we left the hotel in three separate Ubers, we truly believed we would not be boarding until at least 1:30 or 2:00. But about halfway through our Uber ride (Kathleen, Jocelyn and I), my brother texted that they were letting anyone on and should they go through. We said to hang on; we would be right there. The cruise port was only a 10-minute drive from the hotel. But by the time we got there, the others had gone through and were waiting to board the ship.
We got in line (which was a little longer by then) and were also on board within ten minutes. The port of Montreal is the EXACT opposite of the port of Vancouver, where on our last cruise in May, embarkation had taken three hours and forty-five minutes (you can read about that fiasco here).
When we reached the inside of the ship, we were met by an officer who asked for our key cards (which came to us in a really cool little leatherette folder) so he could see where our muster stations were. We had already watched the video at home when we did our check-in and again a few days later when they sent another reminder (I think we got about five e-mail reminders to watch the video). The officer directed us to our muster station (we were in the main dining room), and we headed there immediately, got our key cards scanned and as far as Oceania was concerned, we were through with them until we sailed the next afternoon. We headed up to the buffet for lunch, where the rest of the gang was holding a table for seven for us, and we started to sample the amazing food that Oceania calls “the best at sea.” Just a note here. I could start going on and on about the food here, but I am going to do a complete post on the culinary glory that is Vista cuisine (at least so far).
Our stateroom–Concierge Verandah 9118
When we boarded, we were told that our suites would be ready by 2:00 p.m. and the rest of the staterooms soon after. But about halfway through lunch (close to 1:00), there was an announcement that suites (not us) were ready. We were in a Concierge verandah, and they announced that those would be available by 2:00 and the rest of the staterooms by 3:00. Lo and behold, at around 1:30, there was an announcement that our staterooms were ready. It was then I realized what had happened with our embarkation time, and what was now true about stateroom readiness was that Oceania was one smart cruise line. They were practicing one of the greatest marketing tools known to business: underpromise and over-deliver. Tell us things will be bad; we grumble a little and then be a hero by getting them done a lot better. It’s impressive to me and something I love to have happen. Should they not have been able to deliver early, they were fine. I had already grumbled.
But getting back to our stateroom, we are in Concierge Verandah 9118, which is aft of amidships on deck nine. We had read that the staterooms were pretty large, and our last stateroom on HAL’s Koningsdam was only 185 square feet, so we thought these would be much bigger at 250 square feet, but honestly, they don’t feel any bigger. Sadly, we have been spoiled by our last three major cruises. In July of 2021, our first cruise back after the pandemic shut down was on Celebrity’s Flora in the Galapagos. Those staterooms are HUGE—almost suite size (330 square feet). Then we were lucky enough to snag a Neptune Suite on HAL’s Nieuw Statendam, and they are even bigger (380 square feet). And last year, we did 21 nights on Viking Ocean in a Penthouse Veranda, and it was smaller than the Neptune but much larger than we are now (338 square feet).
I am only really concerned about the comparison to Viking Ocean because we are VERY loyal cruisers (as evidenced by our 20+ Celebrity cruises), and we are looking for our next cruise line to give our loyalty to, and the stateroom we are in now is just about the same daily price as the much larger one we had on Viking Sky. Not only was it larger and had about 3x the storage space (the worst part of our current stateroom) and about the same size bathroom. The shower is bigger, but not by enough that I noticed it. But where we have a tiny couch and the usual oval miniature coffee table today in 9118, on Viking, we had a full-size couch and coffee table plus plenty of room between the bed and a full-size dresser/desk. Let’s look at some room photos instead of continuing with the comparison. And I apologize for the fact that I took the pics after we had unpacked. I usually get them right away, but because Jocelyn was in a regular verandah stateroom, she came down to ours while Kathleen unpacked, and I walked around the ship taking photos.
BTW: No admonition on looking at these on a cell phone. Feel free. Not my best photography. And if you click the first one, they play as a slideshow. If you can’t read the captions, do the slideshow and if they are still cutoff, click the i in the circle.
Welcome to Concierge Verandah 9118
Right inside the door is a control panel with a card holder below that turns your electrical off and on.
The screen controls temperature (works well) and buttons for Do Not Disturb and Make Up the Room.
Looking in.
This is the view from the room back to our door. Large mirror on the right. Two hooks beyond that for coats. We also brought our own magnetic hooks.
Totally cramped left-hand side of the bed.
But with a full compliment of plugs including one USB A and C and a US electric socket as well as switches that controlled most of the lighting in the cabin.
Looking across the stateroom from the left-hand side. Tiny couch and table.
Two of us barely fit sitting next to each other.
The desk and chair are both so short my head can barely be seen in the mirror above when I am sitting down.
In front of left side of the bed is a small counter with water bottles and ice bucket. You can take the metal ones home with you at no charge.
Above that shelf is a cabinet that houses…
Two shelves and the safe. The safe is the biggest we have had at sea and my laptop and camera both fit inside.
Next to that is the closet. If it just had a few more shelves below the hanging area.
Below the shelf is a small fridge with complimentary soft drinks at our level of stateroom.
Here’s the bed.
The bathroom is quite big.
Lots of space.
Large shower.
Big Oceania mirror
And even more storage.
Our verandah which we haven’t used much yet.
But the very nice chairs do have cushions. Our verandah is larger than most verandah staterooms
A great feature of the stateroom that I almost forgot is the huge (for this size room) television. There are a lot of choices on this Smart-TV. Free movies, TV shows, A great bridge cam, two maps—one interactive, a music library, ship info and of course you can check your ship account as well.
One other thing that is kind of a pain. If you cruise, you know where your big suitcases go when you are done unpacking them—under your bed. You can’t slide large suitcases under these beds. They are too low. We were kind of worried about that until Mike told us that you could ask your stateroom attendant to put them under there for you. They have a special tool that lifts the beds. Sorry, but that’s poor planning on Oceania’s end. I mean, buy a bed that’s a little higher (like every other cruise line).
All in all, we feel like this Concierge Verandah stateroom is a poor value when compared to a similar-priced Penthouse Verandah stateroom on Viking Ocean. Score one for Viking. But that might be the only one. Stay tuned.
I have been black and blue in some spot, somewhere, almost all my life from too intimate contacts with my own furniture.
—Frank Lloyd Wright
by Jim Bellomo | Oct 1, 2023 | Photography
The saga continues. The following day (Friday), we awoke at our hotel in Montreal. This would be our last morning at the hotel as we would board Oceania’s Vista this afternoon. Of course, this meant one more predawn photo walk for me. Initially, before they had changed our boarding time, I had planned NOT to walk this morning because we would be leaving the hotel before 11:00, and I would have needed to pack and get ready to leave by 10:30. But when they pushed our embarkation back to 2:00 (more about that later) I decided to walk, and as you will see from my photos, it would have been a tremendous loss if I hadn’t.
The day before, when I had gotten lost trying to get to the top of Mount Royal in time to take sunrise photos, had been kind of a bust with me arriving after the sun was over the horizon and having missed the blue and golden hour of light. But today, I decided to walk Montreal’s waterfront and didn’t miss anything. One of the reasons I wanted to walk the waterfront was to take some. early morning photos of Vista (our home for the next two weeks). On the way I would get not only photos of Vista but some cityscapes of Montreal from the bottom looking up, some early morning lights and then one of the best sunrises I have ever had the pleasure of shooting.
Sunrise the day before, I had been kind of blah. Even if I had gotten to the top before the sun came up, it was rather hazy up there. Not so this morning on the waterfront, as you shall see. Here are my pics from that morning (with captions). Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…
My walk started in this park where I just wanted a photo of this sculpture. As I walked up to take it, I realized I was in the middle of more than 100 sleeping homeless.
This is the square in front of the cathedral.
It looked totally different than the night before…
Montreal Bank
The outside of the basilica.
Right behind the basilica, there was Vista.
Up close and personal.
Then the sun started showing itself in the blue hour.
Montreal Reflection
I must have shot 30 pics of the big wheel and the reflections.
When it switched to Golden Hour, I just started snapping.
Every time I would think it couldn’t get any better…
Montreal Sunrise
Montreal Tower at Dawn
The Jacques Cartier Bridge with Six Flags amusement park behind it.
The Jacques Cartier Bridge again.
Molson Beer is the second oldest company in Canada after the Hudson Bay Co. Their sign is reflective so that’s the sun you see.
And the sky got better…
Montreal Tower
and better.
As I said, whenever I tried to walk away, I would get called back.
The tower was just the focal point I needed.
But I finally gave up as the sun itself crested the horizon.
Lots of small shops lined the waterfront.
The yacht club had a real sand beach.
Loved the blue.
Behind me was the city.
And of course, the Clock Tower once again.
Molson sign a little later.
Food trucks on the waterfront.
The sign at the port.
Vista, head on.
A very interesting piece of architecture…
An apartment complex called Habitat 67.
An old, abandoned facility on the harbor.
On my way back to the hotel I walked through Old Town.
I would come back here the next morning off the ship.
But the reflections of the light on this dome (above a shopping mall) were too good to pass up.
Old Town Montreal or a street in France—you decide.
Finally, back to our hotel.
After breakfast, Mike, Steve and I wanted to go back and get more photos inside the basilica. because we had been rushed the night before after the performance. There had also been so many people. We still had tickets that would let us in for a tour, so we headed over. We got some great shots–here are mine.
We had missed the stained glass windows the night before..l
because it was dark outside.
Cathedral of Notre Dame in Montreal
Truly a huge work of art
Incredibly well lit
Some of the parts in closeup.
The lectern was about halfway down the side of the church.
There was a private chapel behind the main altar.
The pipe organ at the back.
After shooting the church, it was back to the hotel to pack for the ship, process photos, do a little writing and then grab an Uber. Even though we had received the e-mail about not boarding until 2:30, our check-out time at the hotel was noon. So we thought we could just as easily wait at the port than in the hotel lobby. Plus, if we went over early, we could drop our big luggage with the porters. But Oceania surprised us by just letting us onboard. And I have to say it was probably the best and smoothest embarkation we have ever had in 30+ cruises. We were getting out of the Uber at 12:20 and sitting down to eat lunch in the buffet before 1:00. More about that (and the ship) tomorrow.
There’s never one sunrise the same or one sunset the same.
—Carlos Santana
by Jim Bellomo | Sep 30, 2023 | Food Experiences, Photography
I’m up very early today (our third on the road). We boarded Oceania Vista yesterday, and I haven’t adjusted to the AC in the rooms. With my sinuses, that means I get up when I can no longer breathe through my nose. But enough about me. I promised you more about Montreal.
Following my pre-dawn photo walk (see previous post), we had a complimentary breakfast at our hotel. We had a two-night stay at the Homewood Suites by Hilton Downtown. It sat right at the base of Chinatown, just across a roaring freeway from Old Town. At least we were on the eighth floor, so the noise didn’t bother us that much. The breakfast (we ate there both days) was OK—your typical free hotel food. Which was OK; we had a bunch of food headed our way.
At 10:30, we grabbed Ubers. I wish there was a better way to order an Uber. We needed a larger car because there were seven of us. We knew that we couldn’t all fit in one car, so we ordered two of their XLs. Those are supposed to fit up to 6 people. What we got this morning (for four of us) was a Mazda that barely fix four, and I had to climb over seats to sit in a third-row seat that was designed for a child of about eight years old. Not a grown human. Yet my brother got a full-size van that could have easily fit seven, but they were already gone by the time we got ours. There needs to be a way to see the kind of car you are getting before you say OK. Maybe there is, but I don’t know what it is.
On to the food tour. We met our guide, Eric, of Secret Food Tours of Montreal, at Guillaume Bakery in the Mile-End section of Montreal. Eric was a great guide and had quite the tour planned for us. We started off with a brioche from the bakery, which was delicious. I might have even voted it the best thing we had. While we ate it, Eric told us all kinds of cool facts about his city and quizzed us to see how much we already knew. Great brioche, fun facts and trivia—I’m in!
Our next stop was Drogheria Fine, where we got to sample some excellent gnocchi. Eric told us what was really important here was their world-famous (or at least Montreal-famous) tomato sauce. The gnocchi were only a delivery system for the sauce. Not only that, the place only does take-away in paper cups with chopsticks. Either way, the gnocchi was delicious, and the sauce was pretty good (I like my Italian grandma’s sauce better).
From there, we were off a long walk to the Green Panther restaurant. This place has a fully vegetarian menu, and we sampled a pita sandwich made with jackfruit. Even though Kathleen and I don’t eat a lot of meat, which means I cook a lot of veggies, the jackfruit sandwich did nothing for me. It’s easily my least favorite food on the tour. And the very long walk it took to get to that restaurant left Kathleen and Jocelyn worn out before we even got to the fourth place out of six.
Our fourth place was St Viateur Bagels. Montreal is (we were told) famous for its bagels, which are not boiled but baked in a wood-fired oven. Eric wanted us to sample bagels right out of the oven, and they were delicious. The ones coming out of the oven when we walked in were sesame seed (again, not a favorite of mine), but my bite was very good. The bakery provided an excellent photo opportunity of the bagels being moved around the HUGE wood-fired oven.
Next up was Poutineville. Guess what the specialty of this place was? If you guessed poutine (Canada’s favorite comfort food), you would be correct. For those who have never had poutine, it is a beef gravy (this one had lots of Montreal Smoked Meat in it) poured over french fries (which, in this case, were kind of wimpy) and topped with cheese curds. As I mentioned, gravy and smoked meat were delicious—the fries were kind of flat.
Our last stop was a tiny Italian deli-type place called Caffe Grazie Millie, where we sampled espresso and some outstanding cannoli. I LOVE cannoli, and they have four different types of filling. I chose the traditional ricotta, and Kathleen had the limoncello. We each took a couple of small bites from our three-inch long cannoli and swapped. I still go with the traditional. It was excellent.
Here’s the food tour pics I promised above. Please don’t drool on your device of choice. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…
Guillaume Bakery. Amazing brioche but I want to eat everything there.
Eric doing the Montreal quiz
Eric is a retired college professor so he was used to teaching and thus, very entertaining.
An old firehouse I liked along the way to gnocchi.
First stop, gnocchi.
Folks across the street eating gnocchi with chopsticks.
Our group hearing more about Montreal.
At the Green Panther, our jackfruit pita.
The Green Panther was very photogenic.
Montreal has some amazing murals. They are all over the city. This one is near a software company HQ.
A Polish-Catholic cathedral.
The bagels being flipped in the wood-fired oven.
Apparently the best bagels in Montreal.
The home of all things poutine.
Outside the cannoli place taking orders.
Where to get good cannoli in Montreal.
A little street photography to end the tour
Santa on a tour.
Completely stuffed, we again grabbed Ubers back to our hotel, where I did a bunch of photo-processing, and Kathleen took a quick nap as we had tickets for a performance of Aura at Notre Dame Basilica of Montreal. I would love to show you photos of the actual show, but they don’t allow photos during the 20-minute-long performance. If you check out their website, you will see the kind of laser-light show we got to see. It was truly amazing and very beautiful. Our entire group said they would recommend it to those coming to Montreal. I was able to take a few photos before the show, and they are below. If you come back tomorrow you can see a lot more photos of the inside because Mike, Steve and I went back the next morning for a photo shoot. We were late getting there before the performance so we didn’t have time to really take photos then.
Main Altar of Notre Dame Cathedral.
The massive pipe organ. They used it during the show.
In front of the Cathedral, the Bank of Montreal.
A very cool Art Deco building we could see from our hotel that I shot on the way back from the Cathedral.
Whew! That was one long day. But a good one. We would do just about everything again (other than the Uber rides) and highly recommend it to anyone visiting Montreal. The food tour was a little long for those who aren’t regular walkers. Eric told us it was 1.6 miles, but my walking app said it was closer to three. Just keep that in mind if you decide to go.
I love Montreal. I love the people, I love the history.
—Stephen Thompson
by Jim Bellomo | Sep 1, 2023 | Uncategorized
We are traveling THIS month. Now I can say that. Before September comes to an end, Kathleen and I will embark on our first major trip since September of last year, when we spent almost a month in Europe. For people like us who LOVE TO TRAVEL, this is just too long not to be on the road. I suppose I should be reminded that we did a five-day Holland America cruise in May, but I would rather forget that one; it was so bad.
Who’s going with us?
Besides us, we are traveling with a group of five that includes our regular traveling companions, my brother and sister-in-law (Steve and Jamie) and three of our best friends (Mike, Cathy and Jocelyn) as well. It should be an interesting trip as one of our party (Jocelyn) will be on her first cruise. Steve and Jamie are now seasoned international travelers, and Mike is well-known in the cruising world for his outstanding travel reviews (check them out here). He will undoubtedly do a review (with lots of photos) for this cruise after he is back home, so make sure to check his site around November 1, and you can compare his experiences to mine. I like live-blogging the cruise each and every day, so you get to read mine while it happens.
We first met Mike and the first love of his life, Carol, on a cruise in 2005, and we became close friends. The six of us (including our best buddies Bob and Judy) traveled together quite often over the years in between. Sadly, in those intervening years, we lost both Judy and Carol. We traveled with Mike alone once, but we could tell it wasn’t his best trip. Travel is something you need to do with someone. About three years ago, Mike met Cathy, and if you check out his website, you will see they are traveling like crazy.
Some of us get to have one great love in our life. Mike got lucky; he got two. Cathy is awesome, and other than when they visited us here in Redmond and when we visited them in Wellington, Florida, we have never traveled together before, so this will be FUN!
It is even more fun that our good friend Jocelyn is also joining us. It’s her first cruise. We always say that Jocelyn is the person who introduced Kathleen and I. She really didn’t do the formal introductions, but way back in November of 1997, when I was going through my divorce and feeling very sad, she came into my office in downtown Leavenworth and gave me a kick in the ass pep talk—told me to get on with my life. She told me about a dating website where she had met a nice gentleman that she had started dating. She talked me into checking it out right then and there. It wasn’t like dating websites now; it was more of a bulletin board where people posted what they were looking for in a partner. And the very first posting I saw…was Kathleen’s. The rest is history.
What are we doing?
We are doing a cruise on a brand new cruise line (for us) and a brand spanking new ship. As long-time readers of these posts know, we were very loyal Celebrity cruisers, have done a few on Holland America and gave Viking Ocean a try. But our friend Mike has been sailing Oceania without us. And he keeps telling us how great it is. So when Kathleen and I heard that he and Cathy were doing this cruise, we decided to come along. We were lucky to do that because this cruise was (at that point) sold out. We were only able to get “guarantee” staterooms. That meant we had yet to determine where we would be on the ship, but we were guaranteed to have someplace to sleep. We got the last “guarantee” stateroom about a year ago. Since then, other guarantees and stateroom reservations have been opened, so Jocelyn, Steve and Jamie could join us.
Oceania is known for having the “best food at sea,” so we shall see. I am trying to temper my enthusiasm so I don’t have expectations that can’t be fulfilled except by perfection (like I did with Viking Ocean). It may help that the ship we will sail on is Oceania’s newest, Vista. She was launched in May of this year and has been following a route from the Italian shipyard where she was built, across the Atlantic, up the St. Lawrence Seaway to Montreal.
As ships go, she is not one of the big ones. She is slightly larger than the Viking Sky that we sailed on last September with a total of 1218 passengers as opposed to the Viking ships that carry just under 1,000. This is the size of ship we will be the most comfortable with going forward. We already have another trip planned on Viking Ocean for next June.
Where are we going?
So now you know who is going, the next question is, “Where are we going?” This is an almost three-week trip that will give us a few days in Montreal (a city we have not visited before) and then a cruise all the way to Miami. Here’s our route and stops in graphic form on this map I stole from Oceania Cruises.
We did the New England part of this cruise back in 2018, but there are some places in that region we have yet to go to, including Saguenay, Shelburne, Bar Harbor and Martha’s Vineyard. We have been to Charleston, but only on a land trip, not a cruise. Plus, we are thrilled to be stopping for an overnight visit to the Big Apple. We get to see a show (last year’s big hit, Six), and I get to do an early morning photo walk around the city!
And strangely enough, for people like us who have been on more than 30 cruises, we have never sailed into or out of Miami, one of the world’s largest cruise ports. Every time we have been to Florida, we have sailed in or out of Fort Lauderdale, a few miles up the coast. But there have been a few challenges as we are flying home from Fort Lauderdale, so we have to figure out how to get there.
When are we going?
As I mentioned—we are going this month. We fly from Seattle to Montreal on Wednesday, the 27th and board the ship on Friday, the 29th. The ship does not leave Montreal until late afternoon on the 30th, so that should give us three full days to explore Montreal. We finish in Miami on the 14th and fly home from Fort Lauderdale.
Why?
You have to ask? Because it’s been too long since we sailed on a cruise that was a true adventure. Someplace we haven’t been before. And I promise to take you along with my usual daily reports. Watch for them starting around September 25th as we pack our bags to go.
As Daddy said, life is 95 percent anticipation. —Gloria Swanson
