Canadian Road Trip

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Our large suitcases had been spirited away in the middle of the night by those magical HAL luggage fairies. Our bags had been marked as BLUE-1 and we were due to disembark at 8:30 AM. We made our way to the Rotterdam Dining Room for one last meal aboard the Maasdam. We were seated by the window and could overlook the dockside activities. Already people were departing, many to catch flights home. We looked up to see a couple being seated with us, and it was déjà vu all over again. As we had joined our Trivia Teammates for breakfast quite by accident just one week earlier, with them departing and we happily continuing back to Montreal, this Saturday morning it would be our turn to depart; while, Edie and Fred had the leisure of taking their time in Montreal before re-boarding for their return leg back to Boston. And so the Penguin Spotters name would endure at least one more journey on this Canadian-New England itinerary. I ordered the two new dishes I’ve come to love for breakfast, the Swiss Style Muesli and the Italian Frittata. And Sharon decided to stick with the French Toast before we would begin our road trip home. We planned to make our way back into the states and then perhaps to find a place to spend the night before continuing home Sunday morning. With a tear in our eyes, we left Edie and Fred, returned to our cabin for one last time, and waited for the announcement for Blue-1 to make their way to the gangway. We had received outstanding service from our cabin stewards, they having kept our ice bucket full, and they even found a wine bucket to hold ice and cans of coke and Diet A&W Root Beer. The Cokes were from the cabin supply, the A&W’s were from Sharon’s carry-on, which you can do when you arrive by car! She also had a supply of peanut butter crackers stashed away somewhere; although, she had little need of these on this trip. To be honest, she did break down and have some out at Peggy’s Cove while I was enjoying the fish chowder before she found out we would also be having gingerbread for dessert. The cabin stewards had found the two envelopes we’d left for them with something extra we’d felt they deserved. They’d also made sure that we always had a laundry bag and laundry submission form after leaving clothes to be washed. This has sometimes been a problem on previous cruises; but, not on this one where the laundry was flawless (except for one small blue sock of Sharon’s that disappeared into that black hole that socks often find).

The call for Blue-1 came at 8:30 AM sharp, and we soon found ourselves in the terminal, and quickly located our luggage. As we disembarked, Jeremy the Cruise Director was saying good-bye to everyone, and remembering us from Team Trivia, made a comment about loving my “Google” Trivia Shirt to proclaim “I don’t need Google, My wife knows everything.” We couldn’t recall another cruise director out on the gangway saying good-bye to passengers as they left, so, our hats off to Jeremy.

Outside the terminal, we had to walk all the way to one end to catch the taxis, only to find, that we then had to walk all the way back towards the other end before the dispatcher would direct you to a number to stand by to wait for a cab. A series of cabs was pulling out, and we had a slight wait as cabs jostled to get to their assigned spots. Sharon found the address for the hotel and provided it to the driver, who took a few seconds to set up his GPS. Traffic was fairly light on this weekend morning. We got to the hotel, and the clerk gave me the passcode to get the car out of the secured lot. I gave her the parking ticket that had been displayed on my dash for the two weeks we’d parked the car with the Fairfield Inn of Montreal, that was included in the price of one night’s stay at the hotel. That certainly was better than the $20 per day port parking, and probably a lot more secure as well.

With all of the construction surrounding the hotel, it took quite a circuitous route to finally get on the freeway in the westerly direction towards Toronto. We took a small detour to find the most expensive gas station to fill up. Sharon noted the posted sign that said that the station would be closed starting Monday for the next four weeks. They were out of regular, and the mid-grade which the Prius uses, and only had the supreme gas, which will also work. I normally fill the tank for very close to $30; well, this tank came very close to $70. So gas is a whole lot more expensive north of the border!

As we left Montreal, working our way through the bag of Pepperidge Farms Chessmen and Pirouettes, we began to encounter a series of enRoutes in the French speaking province of Quebec. Our guide in Quebec City had talked to us about the movement for Quebec to secede from Canada. At the root of this movement was a desire to preserve the culture, and the concern many in Quebec felt by the impact English was having on the French language, with the adoption of many English words, such as “park”, which the people of Quebec would use, but would add a French flair saying for example “park-ier”. The guide also noted that being separate from Canada also posed a whole series of problems that nobody wanted, such as trade agreements with Canada would not automatically apply to any new separate country that might emerge. There seems to have been a calming of this movement, with an emphasis placed on speaking French properly, and not speaking with the English add-ons that once had been so prevalent. Moving on to Toronto, we noticed that the enRoutes had become onRoutes. These were combination rest-stops, service stations and multiple fastfood outlets all under a single roof. A&W is offered in about half of these stops, as is Burger King. Other outlets include KFC (which interestingly in Quebec appears with the well recognizable red-and-white design as “PFK”). On our way to and from Montreal we had the opportunity to make several stops at these service and rest areas. Top marks go to Burger King which delivers pretty much what they do in the states. Close behind is A&W, just don’t expect to get their brew on tap. Sharon did enjoy her root beer float. I got two slices of pizza from their local brand pizza outlet, getting two double size slices of pizza (hence, twice as much as I expected or needed or wanted), one all meat and one all cheese and of so-so quality kept warm under a heat lamp. All of these were “passable” for food on the go, depending what you feel like eating. And now the one down note, the KFC that we tried well into the heartland of Canada on our way home. Sharon just ordered a two piece white meat selection, indicating that all that she wanted was one breast. The girl cheerfully obliged, “I can do that!” I ordered the 4-piece meal deal with all dark meat, one of the choices on the big board. I chose French fries as the side, so that Sharon could have some as well. It seems that in Canada, the “Meal Deals” don’t come with a biscuit (at least the one that I ordered didn’t). But that’s not saying that it wasn’t supposed to. Sharon did get her chicken breast. And my four pieces of dark meat were two additional breasts, a wing and a leg. The meal came without French fries. And to top it off, I suspect the chicken was fried the day before, having that heavy saturated feeling where the fat is all congealed and the meat barely kept warm under their heat lamps. All in all, totally unacceptable. This combination KFC/Taco Bell outlet was so backlogged with people, it had taken fifteen minutes just to place the order and I was second in line! The person ahead of me was told that she would have to wait fifteen minutes for her order to be cooked because they were out of the chicken tenders (at least hers would be newly cooked, or perhaps re-cooked, who knows). Between her hemming and hawing about whether to leave or wait, there seemed little point in trying to get our order fixed, we still had many miles to go.



We had expected to be routed south through Buffalo along the route we had come; but, we seemed to keep going west. We finally decided to stop and check which route we really were on and found out that we were being routed through Detroit. Once we finally did get to Detroit, after what seemed like driving half way across Canada, we found ourselves on I-75 going south and about four hours from home. It hardly seemed worthwhile looking for a place to stay. We did find a Speedway and I got an iced tea (something you can find hard to get in Canada), and I was good for the rest of the trip home. We pulled in the driveway at about 12:30 AM Sunday morning, some fourteen and one-half hours after we left the hotel where our car was parked in Montreal. We’re both looking forward to doing this cruise again, and agree, one week just wouldn’t be long enough.

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