School buses used for St Lawrence Trips

We are on a St. Lawrence cruise in late May/June and have noticed that a number of cruise ship trips say that they use school buses, as though it was a sort of warning. School buses in Britain are just standard buses, so we do not understand what is meant by that.

I am looking at trips from Gaspe, Havre St Pierre, Saguenay and Sydney. I am not sure if all those places mention school buses, but a number of them did.

Please can anyone explain what the transport is like?

I don't know what they're like in Canada, but in the U.S. most school buses look like this: https://images.search.yahoo.com/images/view;_ylt=A0LEVjbAf9tUDzMANtcnnIlQ;_ylu=X3oDMTB0b2ZrZmU3BHNlYwNzYwRjb2xvA2JmMQR2dGlkA1lIUzAwMl8x?p=School+Buses+in+Canada&back=https%3A%2F%2Fsearch.yahoo.com%2Fyhs%2Fsearch%3Fp%3DSchool%2BBuses%2Bin%2BCanada%26ei%3DUTF-8%26hsimp%3Dyhs-001%26hspart%3Dmozilla&w=767&h=555&imgurl=www.newstalk770.com%2Ffiles%2F2013%2F08%2Fschool-bus2.jpg&size=300KB&name=school-bus2.jpg&rcurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.newstalk770.com%2F2013%2F12%2F02%2Fno-school-buses-tuesday-morning-cbe%2F&rurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.newstalk770.com%2F2013%2F12%2F02%2Fno-school-buses-tuesday-morning-cbe%2F&type=&no=6&tt=120&oid=83b0149a56698316984107d75c3471e2&tit=school-bus2.jpg&sigr=12afvk7d2&sigi=11hgdqich&sign=10f4d0053&sigt=103vg5ole&sigb=1326ir2sv&fr=yhs-mozilla-001&hspart=mozilla&hsimp=yhs-001 Children seem to cope with the discomfort fairly well, but an adult with a bad back might find an extended tour in one painful.

I agree with Langoustine since school buses in Canada are the same at least where I live.

Thank you for the replies. I suspect that is all that is available in some of the smaller ports.

The buses look a bit like lorries, does that mean that the suspension is very hard? I suspect the legroom, and possibly width of seats will be limited, but are they wooden benches with straight backs or is there a little bit of padding?

We are not considering any lengthy bus tours, but there are transfers of about an hour to/from some places and sometimes on windy roads. We are in our mid 60's with no particular health probs

There should be padded seats and backs. They're not wooden. Legroom will be limited. They're built with children in mind. The larger you are, the more difficult it is to get in and out of the bench seat. We had similar school buses in some of the more remote locations in Alaska, last year.

There will definitely be padded seats and backs as they are required for safety.

Thanks for those replies. I will just have to take some painkillers before I go if the joints are playing up that day!!

It has put me off booking two trips in the day in Havre St Pierre though. We will just stick with the boat trip.

Thanks again,

Barbara

For people still wondering what school buses benches are like in North America here is a picture (example):

http://www.schoolbusfleet.com/_Images/news/M-ParklandPaDistrictSchoolBusAd.jpg

That pic is really great - thank you very much.

I actually take a school bus to school every day, and I live in Montreal. They are big and yellow, like you can see in the pictures. Some are very comfy, while some aren't. It depends how soft the seats are and how well the driver drives. I'll give you on piece of advice, don't sit in the back, because if you hit big bumps, you can easily fly off your seat.

Another useful point!

We hope to meet up with my niece and her family in Montreal, which will be good. The last contact I had with her was a week or two ago and there was a blizard outside and it was -22C. Glad we will be there in early June, rather than midwinter!!

Thank you Stefanosthecruiselover.