On our 5th full day of cruising we arrived in St. John and had a delightful time exploring the city which I shared about HERE. After exploring the quaint city of St. John in the morning we boarded a bus for one of the excursions that Carnival Cruise offered entitled, "St.Martin and the Bay of Fundy".
Our drive out to St. Martin's was a bit of a drive that allowed us plenty of time to see the beautiful Canadian countryside.
The Canadian land against the grey skies was truly a beautiful site to behold.
The drive to St.Martin's took about an hour and 20 minutes to get to from our cruise ship.
The drive into St. Martin's allowed us some close up views of some of the homes that have been in existence for many decades and allowed us closer views of the sea.
As we drove into the quiet fishing village of St. Martin's our tour guide shared with us how the tide changes radically throughout the day.
One of the things that St.Martin's "boasts" as a tourist attraction is that this is the only place in the world where you can take a photograph with two covered bridges in one picture. Our tour guide built this up so much that there was a big group of us that wanted to take this picture. As a photographer I love having a little bit of time to capture a memory of what I am seeing but that is definitely not what happened here! Before our tour guide let us off the bus she made the announcement that we had exactly 15 minutes in St. Martin's and then she would ring her cow bell and if we weren't on the bus she was leaving us. I am giggling as I am writing this remembering how a whole group of us was running around like crazy people trying to snap this "important" picture and then all looking at each other like "wait, is this all that it is?" and sure enough the cow bell started to ring so we all ran back as fast our legs would carry us! hahaha!
After our quick stop in St. Martin's we drove out to the St. Martin's Sea Caves.
The Sea Caves were beautiful to see!
I had a lovely time picking up rocks along the coast collecting them for us and some friends and family members. As we collected I suggested that we spend some time praying for each of the people we were collecting them for and for our trip that was such a lovely adventure!
I know that some of you reading this many be curious if I would recommend this particular excursion. This excursion was approximately 3 and a half hours and since we purchased it ahead of time it cost us $65. Honestly, I think that there is a reason for the mixed reviews that you will find on the website. While I loved seeing parts of Canada that I might not have seen otherwise, I really don't feel that I could recommend this excursion as much as the one from Portland that I talked about HERE. In the other excursion we had a fantastic tour guide, felt that we were able to see a lot of Maine and learn a lot along the way and have some adequate time at each of the spots that we stopped in. Unfortunately this was not the case with this excursion. Our tour guide unfortunately portrayed a very strange attitude as she talked down to those of us on the tour, wouldn't speak loudly enough for some of the people in the back of the bus to hear her (or would literally scream when someone asked her to talk loudly) and seemed to pride herself on sharing about her house (which she pointed out to us and kept talking about) and about her daughter's book (which she kept mentioning as the thing to purchase at the small gift shop). Neither of these things are bad but combined with our other experiences with her it definitely gave a strange vibe as it made it seem like she was more interested in sharing her life instead of the tour information. Unlike other tour guides that I have had in my travels this one was definitely the exception and it definitely affected my review. Most of the excursion was spent riding in the bus to St. Martin's and the time at both St. Martin's and the Sea Caves totaled approximately 35 minutes. After we left the Sea Caves (where the tour guide threatened to leave Michelle behind and I was literally standing in the doorway to prevent this from happening as she kept ringing her cow bell in my ear!!hahaha!) we drove back to our cruise ship. The definite positive part was seeing some of the Canadian countryside but the negative was that there was such little time where we were at and the tour guide.
At the end of the day though I truly believe every experience is what you make of it and my favorite part of any trip is having the opportunity to spend it with friends and loved ones! I had so much fun laughing through this tour and had a blast because we chose to make it fun!
Have y'all visited the Bay of Fundy before? I would love to hear your suggestions of places to see if you have!
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