Amazing Azamara – Day 7 – Saguenay, Quebec

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Morning all! Is it Friday, already? 🤔. Welcome to our BIG Holiday of 2025! We’re with our mates, Ralph and Karen, taking in Canada, Greenland and Iceland.

Day 7 — Friday, 8th August
Saguenay, Quebec, Canada

It’s silly o’clock (5am!, local time, 10am, UK) and I’m up. Why so early? (especially after last night’s late one). Well, there’s a REAL chance I’m going to see my very FIRST WHALE today as the good ship Azamara Quest sails along the Saguenay Fjord leading to today’s destination – Saguenay. I’ll return to the usual summary of our adventures later, but for now, it’s cameras at the ready, as Ralph and I scanned the water for signs of life…

There’s a whale there! Honest!!! 🤔

Initially, “Klingons on the starboard bow” felt more likely as the whales obviously saw me and decided to tease us by popping up for just a precious few seconds before disappearing.

It was perishing out there, but it was to be ultimately worth the effort (just)! 🥶. At 6.19am, local time, it finally happened… I saw my first whale ever (sort of!) and I was told it was a Beluga. OK, there was no tail flapping, no water spouts and no David Attenborough narration, but a whale is a whale, right!?!? 😉. It’s taken me more than 68 years, but happily, that’s another thing off my bucket list. We’re also out on a boat later, so maybe I’m on a roll?? 🤔

Missed a previous Post?
Day 1 – Heading to Montréal
Day 2 – Montréal (Day 1)
Day 3 – Montréal (Day 2)
Day 4 – Ship Ahoy!
Day 5 – Québec City
Day 6 – Québec City (the Sequel)

After breakfast, we had some time to kill before our arrival in Saguenay. In fact, with the Azamara Quest cruising at a very fjord-friendly pace, we now had about an hour-and-a-half of just water, trees and sky for scenery. Gorgeous though, isn’t it? 😁

Saguenay, Quebec

We arrived just after 9.35am to a glorious blue sky. Not only did we have fantastic weather, it looked like they sent out a small welcoming committee in the shape of some circus acts!

We were now about 120 miles north of Quebec City where we’ve been for the past few days – in the city of Saguenay, home to around 150000 people. It looks like every sophisticated town – and very clean too! Next, it was all aboard a School Bus to get us to our destination.

Well, that was an exhilarating start to the experience! Our driver – Ben Hur Remy – took off instantly at about Mach 1 and maintained the velocity for the hour-long journey. Consequently, there wasn’t much of an opportunity to take photos of the scenery on the journey there – and the lack of any seatbelts encouraged us to stay put! 😲

To take our mind off the lack of safety features, our Guide – Lise – kept us entertained with facts and figures about Saguenay. They came thick and fast and we were encouraged to share our email addresses with her so she could send the handouts within a few days! 10/10 for enthusiasm and dedication – thanks, Lise! How she kept her balance as Remy hit the bends, I don’t know (probably years of practice) 😁

This was all very beautiful, and we might have stopped right here (above) and just enjoyed the sunshine and the surroundings, but the Tour was calling!

Boat Trip

The Tour was a trip by boat here at the National Park fjord. I can’t think we’ll ever do this again, so we parted with the eye-watering price for the ‘half-day’ excursion – and we were promised a unique experience.

On arrival, we were introduced to our Guide – Julée – who was also to be our Boat Captain (not quite as exotic as yesterday’s ‘Goat Major’ but we still needed her skills!). After being asked to read the ‘Risk Notice’ and sign that we had, it was a short ten-minute walk to our boat.

But before that, we were kitted out with special coats that had a life-jacket built in. I’d not seen one of these before, and with the temperature now pushing late 20s/low 30s, it wasn’t the most comfortable of experiences!

Sadly, from then on in, the Tour became lacklustre and boring for a number of reasons. Julée did a great job of piloting the craft and add some narrative to the tour, but in truth, there wasn’t much of a story to tell – apart from the history of the Mary Magdalene statue high up on the top of one of the rocks. We’d already heard that backstory from the Ship’s Captain earlier today! 😉

I guess, there’s only so much stone, sea and sky to absorb before it all becomes a bit repetitive. Add to all that, Julée‘s confirmation that the whales didn’t come this far in, so there was no chance of me building on this morning’s revelatory experience, was a major disappointment! Oh, and finally, partway through the tour, the four of us got a feeling we’d been here before… We had! A few hours earlier, the Azamara Quest had sailed on these very waters! ☹️. So, we’d paid a premium for something that we’d already seen!

How we laughed! 😠😡

I’ll leave the photos here simply to show we HAVE visited this beautiful place (sometimes twice! 😉) but if you’re following in our footsteps, as memorable as the location is, we’d recommend you spend your money elsewhere – and just bring a picnic.

You’re welcome! 👍😁

So, it wasn’t one of our most memorable and enjoyable activities, but to end positively: Julée did her best, I now know 17 things about Saguenay that I didn’t when I got up this morning, the weather was fab, and it was good to be out in the fresh air.

At just after 2pm, it was back on the School Bus for the light-speed return journey. Lise once again maintained her ‘full-on’ knowledge-transfer of everything Saguenay whilst still defying gravity as Remy hit the bends! 😉. AND as a bonus, we heard a third variant on the Mary Magdalene story! 😂

Sixty-three minutes and 19 seconds later, we ‘landed’ at the Terminal. By now the weather was in the mid 30s and such a contrast to this morning when I was whale watching (I didn’t think I’d be saying that today!). A quick shower, something to drink, a short snooze and all four of us were now ready for Azamara’s famous… ‘White Night’.

Tonight is ‘White Night’

Another unique feature of the Azamara package is their famous ‘White Night’. No prizes for guessing the preferred colour, where we’re all invited to dress accordingly and adopt a party atmosphere out on deck. ‘Bottomless’ food and drink helped to keep things moving along! 😁

What an event! We’ve never seen so much food on offer!

But the celebrations didn’t stop there. The staff paraded around the deck (together with their national flag) – to thunderous applause. Plus, they also presented the senior heads of department too! – again, to much well deserved applause!

And then the space was handed over to us the passengers – where a party atmosphere, led by the Ship’s resident singers and dancers got the dance-floor filling up in no time! This was the perfect way to end the week, and we both thought that this outshone all the other cruise lines by some margin.

Tomorrow…

Have a good weekend everyone – thanks again for your readership. It’s a day at sea tomorrow as we head for Havre St Pierre.

AS I THOUGHT, I’VE GOT A FEW TECHY CHALLENGES HERE – CONNECTIVITY/STABILITY/INTERNET SPEED etc. SO – YOU LUCKY PEOPLE – THERE’S UNLIKELY TO BE ANOTHER POST TOMORROW. I’M HOPING MY NEXT ONE WILL BE SUNDAY EVENING (DAY 9).

Nighty night! 💤💤