Saint John or Saguenay

[mdj59]

We’re looking at a Canada/New England cruise on Princess. The NYC to Quebec City route includes Saint John instead of Saguenay and the Quebec City to NYC route includes Saguenay instead of Saint John. We appreciate your insights and suggestions regarding these two ports. Thanks and happy cruising!

[GTJ]

I have been to each a few times on business. Saguenay--which is really a merger of the main community of Chicoutimi and its smaller neighbor, Jonquière, and yet smaller La Baie--is in a scenic fjord. You'll pass by the statue of Notre-Dame-du-Saguenay, and the Ave Maria will be played on the cruise vessel's P.A. when doing so. At the foot of the Rivière Saguenay, where it meets the Rivière St-Laurent, is the community of Tadoussac, well known and visited for whale watching day cruises. Very high francophone population (99 percent), with anglophones being a very small minority (1 percent). Good for French culture, but not many "tourist" sites per se. Saint John is the English part of New Brunswick (only 5 percent francophone). While Saint John has only one-half the population of Saguenay, I sense a greater urban feel to it, and it is the older incorporated city in the country. There are a few tourist sites, including the reversing falls on the Saint John River, within the city, and the Hopewell Rocks outside the city (where the tides in the Bay of Fundy are highest in the world, at 52 feet). The two ports are distinct, and I would hesitate to characterize one as uniformly "better" than the other.

[njhorseman]

About 50 years ago, for reasons that have long since escaped me, I drove from Quebec City to Chicoutimi and as soon as we got there I asked my wife "Why did we do this?", at which point we turned around and drove back to Quebec City.

The only thing I remember about the drive is trying to kill the boredom by repeatedly singing "It's a long way to Tipperary", substituting Chicoutimi for Tipperary in the lyrics.

Bottom line...we find St. John and surroundings to be a pleasant area, but have never found any reason to return to Chicoutimi.

When in St. John we enjoy having a lobster lunch at Steamers Lobster Company, just a short walk from the cruise pier.

Edited June 14, 2022 by njhorseman

[declansdad]

30 minutes ago, njhorseman said:

About 50 years ago, for reasons that have long since escaped me, I drove from Quebec City to Chicoutimi and as soon as we got there I asked my wife "Why did we do this?", at which point we turned around and drove back to Quebec City.

The only thing I remember about the drive is trying to kill the boredom by repeatedly singing "It's a long way to Tipperary", substituting Chicoutimi for Tipperary in the lyrics.

Bottom line...we find St. John and surroundings to be a pleasant area, but have never found any reason to return to Chicoutimi.

When in St. John we enjoy having a lobster lunch at Steamers Lobster Company, just a short walk from the cruise pier.

 

It's Saint John not St. John

 

Also sailing from Quebec City to the Saguenay would be very different than driving.

 

The first response was a very good one. Saint John is an industrial city but is more urban than the Saguenay Region but the cruise part of the Saguenay would be much more scenic.

 

[njhorseman]

14 hours ago, declansdad said:

 

Also sailing from Quebec City to the Saguenay would be very different than driving.

 

The first response was a very good one. Saint John is an industrial city but is more urban than the Saguenay Region but the cruise part of the Saguenay would be much more scenic.

Yes, I'm aware of the fact that sailing to Saguenay would be different than driving. The point of my little story wasn't about mode of transportation but rather as a tourist destination IMO Saint John is superior to Saguenay.

14 hours ago, declansdad said:

 

It's Saint John not St. John

It could have been worse. At least I didn't write St. John's, so you can rest assured that I knew we were discussing New Brunswick, not Newfoundland. 

 

I was born and raised in New York, and currently reside in New Jersey. I'm not going to get all huffy if you happen to refer to them as NY or NJ.

[GTJ]

On 6/13/2022 at 8:44 PM, njhorseman said:

I drove from Quebec City to Chicoutimi and as soon as we got there I asked my wife "Why did we do this?"

I likely would have answered as did George Mallory: "Because it is there."

 

The first time I was ever there, I had arrive the day prior in Jonquière by railroad, staying there overnight. The next morning, on my way to continue onward by railroad from Rivière-du-Loup, I traveled by bus from Jonquière to Saint-Siméon, changing cars in both Chicoutimi and Tadoussac, then ferry across the river. As luck would have it, when alighting from the bus at Chicoutimi I dropped my Nikon camera, both breaking its filter and wedging the filter frame screw threads onto the camera lens. With only an hour or so at the Chicoutimi bus terminal, I walked out onto the main street of Chicoutimi, and found a camera store right across the street, open at that hour of the morning. Not being sufficiently fluent in French, I only had to point to my camera for the person behind the counter to understand. He took good care in using pliers to remove the remnants of the lens filter--a task taking some time--and he had in stock a replacement Nikon clear filter. I was only charged a fair price for the filter, and had everything back in good order half hour after the alighting incident! So to this day I retain a fondness for Chicoutimi for the fortuitousness and fair dealing in a time-sensitive manner where I could not sufficiently speak the language.

 

(In the past the passenger train continued beyond Jonquière, terminating in Chicoutimi itself. But that service had been cut back to Jonquière a few years early, and compelled that fateful bus ride from Jonquière to Chicoutimi. The station building remains in Chicoutimi--you can see it here: https://goo.gl/maps/sAw8CV2tsAd79dAg9--but the tracks are gone. The replacement terminal in Jonquière is good,  integrated with the local transit center. My most recent trip there I simply connected from the arriving train to a local transit bus into Chicoutimi.)

Edited June 15, 2022 by GTJ

[declansdad]

On 6/14/2022 at 12:52 PM, njhorseman said:

Yes, I'm aware of the fact that sailing to Saguenay would be different than driving. The point of my little story wasn't about mode of transportation but rather as a tourist destination IMO Saint John is superior to Saguenay.

It could have been worse. At least I didn't write St. John's, so you can rest assured that I knew we were discussing New Brunswick, not Newfoundland. 

 

I was born and raised in New York, and currently reside in New Jersey. I'm not going to get all huffy if you happen to refer to them as NY or NJ.

 

 

Feel free to refer to it as SJ, St. John is not the name of the City so it shouldn't be written that way.

[GTJ]

18 hours ago, declansdad said:

St. John is not the name of the City so it shouldn't be written that way.

I have long known that to be the case, and respect it in my writing, but I don't know why. What is the aversion to the abbreviation?

[declansdad]

5 hours ago, GTJ said:

I have long known that to be the case, and respect it in my writing, but I don't know why. What is the aversion to the abbreviation?

 

1 - it causes confusion

 

2 - It's not the name of the city.