With the long weekend 19-21 May, 2018 coming up, we heard from one of our friends of this 3 day bus trip to east Canada and wanted to give it a try. Based on reading a few reviews here, we were a little worried about the whole "Chinese-driv..en package", the Hotel stay, food, tour guide's preferred langauge (Chinese) and so on. My wife and I reprogrammed our priorities to focus only on the places we go, carry our own food, and try to adjust with the Hotel.
But we were wrong, and we did not experience any of the concerns stated by the previous reviewers. In fact, we give this trip a 5 star and would strongly recommend this to people who haven't been east Canada. It was LOVELY. I'll detail our experience below:
Our guide's name was Monica. Monica was extremely organized, had the entire trip planned out well in her head, and made necessary changes to itinerary owing to the weather, without missing out on anything we signed up for.
She messaged us the quick tips a day in advance and told us to come 45 mins early owing to the rain which could potentially slow us down. I totally agreed with this decision.
Itinerary of days 1 and 3 were switched and that fell beautifully into the plan without making it seem haphazard or unprepared. The company running this tour is a Chinese company and the tour guide spoke in Mandarin and English with an equal importance to both the languages.
Monica was very professional yet fun, and helped us out with any questions we had.
We stayed in Quality Hotel in Montreal. The room was clean, bed was comfy, breakfast was provided - in short - no complaints whatsoever for what you'll be using the room for.
My favorite part of the trip was Quebec City. We really fell in love with the European style shops and roads.
On the final day, we went on a cruise on 1000 Islands, and that was a spectacular experience as well.
Below are a few things that we found a little difficulty in, but we managed and Monica was kind enough to help us out as well.
1. Getting vegetarian food is a huge challenge - The travels arranges Asian buffet food for you, which you need to pay extra for obviously. But that didn't suit our taste, so we had to hunt for vegetarian food. We were lucky to find a place in Ottawa and packed that for our dinner. The closest food to vegetarian in Quebec City was eggs. We didn't mind that, so had it for lunch. Dinner again was in an Asian restaurant, so we used Google to find an Indian restaurant, and were lucky to find one call Restaurant Gandhi in Montreal. We packed our dinner from there. The lunch arranged on 1000 islands was a buffet, but had good spread of vegetables, so that worked for us.
2. Traveling with a crowd brings in group dynamics (Not a fault of the travels, but that's the nature of bus trips). The crowd can be late to show up, loud (especially the kids), and small kids kept kicking the back of my seat, which became annoying after a certain point. I chose to let Monica know of this end of the day and she immediately took the feedback and promised there wont be any kids sitting behind me the next day :)
A few suggestions for future travelers:
1. If you're vegetarian or a Muslim couple like us, try to get your own food for breakfast and lunch on the 1st day. You will find some place for dinner. Try to get extra fruits and some breads as well.
2. You're traveling with an unknown crowd, so you may have to be patient when someone delays, or try to adjust when kids kick the back of your seat. Let your tour guide know, and they will do their best to help you.
3. The trip can be tiring at the end, ensure you plan for an extra day off after the trip.
Besides the suggestions, its a fun, educative, and really enjoyable trip. And I would definitely recommend people not to miss this before winter arrives.
Enjoy!Read full review
Me and my friend enjoyed this trip as hell!!! The tour guide is funny and her English is professional. Our bus is great quality and we don't eat with the tour so no comment about the food.
Overall, this is a must try trip with cheap price ..and satisfied quality.Read full review
By: YURY MARCELA MONSALVE | Tue May 15, 2018 at 05.55 PM
Buenas tardes es que hace pocos minutos realize una reservacion con ustedes # E-772876, en la cual cometi un error no es el 21 de junio de 2018, si no el 14 de junio de 2018, agradezco mucho me hagan el cambio antes de la confirmacion de la.. reservacion. ya compre los tiquetes aereosRead full review
At first, this trip may look attractive but be careful. You will be in a bus full of chinese tourists and the communication and food throughout will mainly be chinese. The hotel room was cold and shabby. Will review Quality Hotel in detail ..on Tripadvisor. Itinerary included breakfast at budget hotels but here we were given breakfast packs the night before (upon arrival in the hotel)- the packs contained one banana, 2 slices cold and stale bread, a small jam sachet and a small juice pack. After providing this kind of stale food, the bus never took a breakfast stop in the mornings for some hot coffee etc. What a shame!
We were charged 20$ per person for visiting Montreal Botanical Gardens. We reached there at 4.45pm and were hurried through the greenhouse. Later, upon further enquiry, I got to know that the places closes at 5pm. Moreover, the actual Gardens are closed until mid-May. Why take us for an optional tour attraction which is actually closed and that too on such tight time. I would like to request a refund of the wasted 50$ spent for 2 adult and 1 child entry.
Lastly, the bus was in poor condition- the seats worn out and torn, the toilet was never cleaned in 3 days, so it became unbearable to enter the toilet on the 3rd tour day.
The driver, Ben, drove us safety and the guide Carrie was courteous. We got back safely, thats all that matters. But yes, I felt cheated and would still request a refund for the Montreal Botanical Gardens entry feeRead full review
By: Cherry Joy Paulino Svensson | Sat Mar 24, 2018 at 09.45 AM
The tour was very organized, economical and we were able to save time and money. We have seen 12 cities in 6 countries during our 7-day tour. We had 2 tour guides (not at the same time), Tim and Lex. Both of them did a very good job, knowl..edgeable and are service minded. They also warned us about the scams happening around Europe whose victims are mostly tourist. So I think that’s a plus factor.Read full review
Tour guide speaks 50 sentences Chinese and 5 sentences English. Expecting to go inside Parliament but did not happen. Hotel room odor sucks. Food not worth the price. Not given other option for food. Bus toilet stinks
I didn’t use at hotel restaurant for our breakfast because it was early start all days..we got breakfast box but it was not good for me. Anyway..our trip was wonderful! We had a great time...nice French Cuisine,beautiful ice hotel scenery..,Biodome,War Museum....all admissions were awesome! Thank you.Read full review
Bought a tour included thousand island and only in the bus tour found out that thousand island is not included in the tour, eventhough it says in the winter intinerary. Tour info says is both english and chinese but is was chinese the main ..language and english after, when able. Two of our visits were not provided english info. Chinese only! Most info in the bus was not given to me us during tour but after, not to disrupt the chineses in the bus. We did not travel with tour4fun but were added to a chinese company instead.Read full review
It was a good tour. I liked the timing and the attractions. The guide explained things in two languages I. E. Chinese and English. The veg food options could have been made better, specially when visiting Chinese restaurant.
We enjoyed the tour so much. Though the weather on the first day was not good (and we could not see Thousand Islands because of the heavy rain), the rest of the tour was so enjoyable. Ben the tour guide was informative and supportive of our.. special request of leaving the tour in Ottawa as we needed to fly to Calgary. The driver was kind and caring. Accommodation was excellent with fast wifi. Totally recommended.Read full review