Caribbean Princess Canada/New England Day 5: Saint John

5/13/2015

Day #5: Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada
Cruise Line: Princess Ship: Caribbean Princess Length of Cruise: 7 days Departure Port: New York City

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Arrival: During the early morning hours, our ship traveled through the Bay of Fundy to St. John Harbor and docked at around 8:30am in Saint John.

History: In 1604 Samuel de Champlain discovered Saint John, but the first lasting settlement was made by British colonists in 1762. After the American Revolution, 14,000 Loyalists fled the new United States and arrived in Saint John in 1783. The “Great Fire” occurred in June, 1877 and most of Saint John was destroyed. It was rebuilt in stone and has an interesting collection of turn-of-the-century architecture.

St. John's Rockwood Park

Fall Colors At St. John's Rockwood Park

Excursion: There are many fascinating places to see in Saint John, so we chose a hop on-hop off London style double-decker bus to transport us around to the most popular attractions and historic landmarks. These included Rockwood Park, Fallsview Park and the Reversing Rapids, Fort Howe, and The Old City Market.

At Ft. Howe

Reversing Rapids seen from Fallsview Park

High tides of the Bay of Fundy force the St. John River to reverse its flow

Riding a jet boat through the reversing rapids gives a different perspective

Historic Old City Market opened in 1876 and is Canada's oldest continuous farmer's market

Stalls were filled with local produce, handcrafted items, and all sorts of special goodies to eat

Lunch: We went back to the ship after our tour to have lunch. This time we tried the Prego Pizzeria located on Deck 15. We had big slices of delicious pizza which gave us the energy to disembark again and go back into Saint John to see what we had missed on our morning tour.

One of many kinds of pizzas

Prego Pizzeria on Deck 15

On Our Own: Although our hop-on hop-off pass was good for all day, we decided to walk back to some of the buildings and neighborhoods that we saw from the bus. This included Barbour’s General Store, the Stone Church, Loyalist House, homes in the historic section of town and the Church of St. Andrew and St. David. Saint John is very accessible by foot.

Figures outside Barbour's General Store. The store is an authentic country store with merchandise from the Victorian era. It also has a barbershop/dentist's office just like in the olden days.

Stone Church, 1825

Loyalist House

Historic homes in Saint John

Church of St. Andrew and St. David

Shopping: After the ship set sail at about 5:00pm, we had time to check out the Canada & New England Port Tees that were on sale in the Piazza on Deck 5. There were also other shops on Decks 6 & 7 that had interesting souvenirs to consider purchasing.

Dinner: As we had most evenings, we ate dinner in the Coral Dining Room and since we were not assigned a particular table, we were able to meet people from different states and countries. It was fun to learn a little about each person’s background and about the cruises previously taken.