Queen Mary 2 - New England & Canada: St. Lawrence Autumn Voyage
A one-off 15-night New York roundtrip aboard Queen Mary 2 that takes the great ocean liner deep up the St. Lawrence, with a three-day stay in Quebec City plus rare calls at Saguenay and Sept-Iles bookended by Boston, Sydney and Halifax.
Price Range
$$
Mid-Range
*Prices vary by cabin type, sailing date, and availability. Confirm rates with Cunard before booking.
Ship Details — Queen Mary 2
View full Queen Mary 2 details
Year Built
2004
Tonnage
149,215 GT
Passengers
2,695
Crew
1,253
Decks
13
Class
Ocean Liner
Itinerary & Route Map
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Where this cruise calls, day by day
10 ports and 6 sea days over 15 Nights.
- Day 1New York, NY port guide: where ships dock and what to do ashore
New York, NY
United StatesDepart Day 2 · At sea
Day 3 · At sea
- Day 4Boston, MA port guide: where ships dock and what to do ashore
Boston, MA
United StatesPort Day 5 · At sea
- Day 6
Sydney
CanadaPortSydney is the way into Cape Breton rather than the reason for the day. The pier is marked by a giant fiddle sculpture on the boardwalk, and the town behind it has been quiet since the coal mines and the steel plant shut. Nearly everything worth the day is a drive away, so decide before you dock - unplanned, Sydney runs out in about an hour.
- Fortress of Louisbourg, a reconstructed 18th-century French garrison town, about 45 minutes away
- The Cabot Trail and Cape Breton Highlands National Park, a full-day loop
- Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site at Baddeck, roughly an hour out
- Cape Breton Miners' Museum in Glace Bay, with an underground tour led by former miners
- Getting ashore
- Docked at the Joan Harriss Cruise Pavilion on the Sydney boardwalk; the town is a short walk, but the sights all need a coach or taxi.
- Best months
- Sep-Oct (Cabot Trail fall colour); Jun-Oct season
Day 7 · At sea
- Day 8
Quebec City
CanadaPortThe berth at Pointe-a-Carcy sits directly under the old city, which makes this one of the easiest walk-off ports anywhere - you come out into the Lower Town and the funicular up to the Chateau Frontenac is two blocks away. Quebec is walled, French-speaking, steep and a UNESCO site in its entirety. Some St. Lawrence itineraries turn around here rather than just call.
- Quartier Petit-Champlain and the funicular up to Dufferin Terrace and the Chateau Frontenac
- The Plains of Abraham and the star-shaped Citadelle
- Montmorency Falls, higher than Niagara, with a cable car and a bridge across the top
- The farm road and cider houses of Ile d'Orleans
- Getting ashore
- Docked at the Port of Quebec terminal at Pointe-a-Carcy in the Old Port; Old Quebec begins at the gangway.
- Best months
- late Sep-mid Oct (fall colour); May-Oct season
- Day 9
Quebec City
CanadaPortThe berth at Pointe-a-Carcy sits directly under the old city, which makes this one of the easiest walk-off ports anywhere - you come out into the Lower Town and the funicular up to the Chateau Frontenac is two blocks away. Quebec is walled, French-speaking, steep and a UNESCO site in its entirety. Some St. Lawrence itineraries turn around here rather than just call.
- Quartier Petit-Champlain and the funicular up to Dufferin Terrace and the Chateau Frontenac
- The Plains of Abraham and the star-shaped Citadelle
- Montmorency Falls, higher than Niagara, with a cable car and a bridge across the top
- The farm road and cider houses of Ile d'Orleans
- Getting ashore
- Docked at the Port of Quebec terminal at Pointe-a-Carcy in the Old Port; Old Quebec begins at the gangway.
- Best months
- late Sep-mid Oct (fall colour); May-Oct season
- Day 10
Quebec City
CanadaPortThe berth at Pointe-a-Carcy sits directly under the old city, which makes this one of the easiest walk-off ports anywhere - you come out into the Lower Town and the funicular up to the Chateau Frontenac is two blocks away. Quebec is walled, French-speaking, steep and a UNESCO site in its entirety. Some St. Lawrence itineraries turn around here rather than just call.
- Quartier Petit-Champlain and the funicular up to Dufferin Terrace and the Chateau Frontenac
- The Plains of Abraham and the star-shaped Citadelle
- Montmorency Falls, higher than Niagara, with a cable car and a bridge across the top
- The farm road and cider houses of Ile d'Orleans
- Getting ashore
- Docked at the Port of Quebec terminal at Pointe-a-Carcy in the Old Port; Old Quebec begins at the gangway.
- Best months
- late Sep-mid Oct (fall colour); May-Oct season
- Day 11
Saguenay
CanadaPortThe cruise berth is the Quai de Bagotville in the La Baie borough, at the head of the Baie des Ha! Ha! - and reaching it means 54 nautical miles up the Saguenay fjord from the St. Lawrence, which is itself most of what you came for. Saguenay has won best-welcome awards four times over and puts entertainment on the dock for every arrival. Quebec City is a two-and-a-half hour drive away.
- The fjord transit itself, past Cap Trinite and the Notre-Dame-du-Saguenay statue on the cliff
- Musee du Fjord in La Baie, on the bay the ship berths in
- La Pulperie de Chicoutimi, a ruined pulp mill turned regional museum
- Zodiac and sea-kayak trips on the fjord, or the drive out to the abandoned company town at Val-Jalbert
- Getting ashore
- Docked at the Quai de Bagotville cruise terminal in La Baie, which has its own welcome pavilion; some ships instead anchor a few hundred metres off and tender.
- Best months
- Sep-Oct (fall colour); Jun-Oct season
- Day 12
Sept-Iles
CanadaPortSept-Iles is an iron-ore port on Quebec's North Shore, one of the largest ore-handling harbours in North America, shipping out what comes down the rail line from the Labrador Trough. The town of roughly 25,000 exists because of it. A cruise day here is about Innu culture, the archipelago of seven islands the place is named for, and a great deal of empty boreal shoreline.
- Musee Shaputuan, an Innu museum arranged around the cycle of the seasons
- Le Vieux-Poste, a reconstructed 18th-century fur-trading post on the bay
- Boat trips out to Ile Grande Basque in the Sept Iles archipelago, with marked trails and beaches
- Drumming, storytelling and country food at Uashat mak Mani-utenam, the Innu community beside town
- Getting ashore
- Docked at the Quai des Croisieres, a dedicated cruise wharf close to the downtown core; the archipelago boats and the outlying sites still need transport.
- Best months
- Sep-Oct (fall colour); Jun-Oct season
Day 13 · At sea
- Day 14Halifax port guide: where ships dock and what to do ashore
Halifax
CanadaPort Day 15 · At sea
- Day 16New York, NY port guide: where ships dock and what to do ashore
New York, NY
United StatesArrive
What to know about this sailing
Drawn from 26 traveler threads about Queen Mary 2 in Canada and New England (archive through February 2026), 68 about the route on other ships, the route data and the port notes above.
The three days in Quebec City are the anchor of this voyage, and everything else is arranged around getting a 2,700-passenger ocean liner up the St. Lawrence and back to New York without flying anyone anywhere. Six of the sixteen days are at sea, and they fall between almost every pair of calls: two before Boston, a distance the ship could cover overnight, one before Sydney, one up the Gulf and the river to Quebec, one from Sept-Iles around Cape Breton to Halifax and one home. The middle stretch is the unusual part. After the three-day stay the ship turns back downstream into the Saguenay fjord for a day and then continues down the North Shore to Sept-Iles, an ore port that only one other ship in the catalog, Caribbean Princess, visits at all. A 2024 thread asked why Cunard's New York roundtrip bothers with a long Boston call so close to home, and the answer given was that Boston and Portland have become the substitutes for Bar Harbor since that town began limiting ships. The result is a loop with none of the usual Maine stops: long days at four established ports, two remote calls, and close to a week at sea on a ship that, as the ship page says, is built for exactly that.
Sentiment on the exact route is thin because the sailing is a one-off, but the Cunard-on-Canada threads say consistent things. A 2019 poster weighing a short QM2 New England and Canada cruise from New York was told the ship is dressier on crossings than on these runs, that a jacket is still expected in the dining room every evening, and, from a four-time QM2 passenger, that the Canada sailings in particular skew older than the ship's other routes. A November 2025 thread from retirees in their sixties who had just done Boston to Quebec on Norwegian Gem and wanted something better drew replies calling Cunard a large step up in quality, recommending private car tours over coach excursions for anyone with limited mobility, and noting that Halifax needs no excursion at all. Route threads on other ships fill in the ports this itinerary shares: Sydney is described by two posters as a place where an excursion is essential, with the Louisbourg fortress, the Bell museum and the coal-mine museum the ones named; Saguenay was missed for weather by a 2025 Norwegian Gem poster, who also felt Quebec City had been wasted as the final stop of that cruise, an argument for this itinerary's three days there in the middle; and Halifax's Pier 21 and maritime museum are within walking distance of the pier. Nobody in the archive reports on the Sept-Iles call, on any ship.
On price per night this is the best-value Queen Mary 2 sailing in the catalog: the seven-night Independence Day version of New England and Canada on the same ship costs nearly as much for less than half the time, and the transatlantic crossing is cheaper only in absolute terms. Against other ships on the route, Caribbean Princess covers the same six Canadian and New England ports including Sept-Iles in eleven nights from Quebec for roughly half the fare, though it is a one-way with a flight at one end; Oceania's Vista, Seabourn Ovation and Regent's Seven Seas Splendor do the St. Lawrence in eleven or twelve nights at two to four times the price; the seven-night loops from New York on Majestic Princess and Norwegian Escape share only Boston and Halifax with it and never enter the river, while Holland America's Zuiderdam reaches Quebec in seven nights but starts in Boston. The voyage suits people who would sail QM2 anyway and want the leaf season with Quebec at its center, who are content with six sea days and formal evenings, and who need a round trip from New York; it does not suit anyone who wants Bar Harbor or Portland, who wants the ship to move every day, or who is choosing Cunard for the first time on the strength of the Grills without checking which dining room their fare buys, a distinction the ship page and a 2024 food thread both make.
Questions about this sailing
Why does Queen Mary 2's New York roundtrip to Canada stop in Boston?
Because Bar Harbor is no longer a reliable option. An August 2024 poster asked why a Cunard round trip from New York would bother stopping so close to home, and the replies said Boston and Portland have become the de facto replacements for Bar Harbor, which has capped the number of cruise ships it accepts; a Norwegian passenger on the same thread said their itinerary had picked up Boston for the same reason. Route threads add that the Boston cruise port sits in the Seaport with the Silver Line to South Station a short walk away, so the long call can be done without an excursion.
Is Queen Mary 2 more formal on a Canada and New England cruise than on a transatlantic crossing?
Less, according to a 2019 thread from a solo traveler considering a short QM2 New England and Canada sailing from New York. Replies said the dress code is at its strictest on crossings, that the shorter holiday-period runs have a more casual feel, and that making an effort with mix-and-match outfits is enough, with the buffet available on gala nights for anyone who wants to skip them. The constants still apply: a four-time QM2 passenger said men need a jacket in the dining room every night, and another poster's father-in-law was told to put his bow tie back on at one in the morning on a gala night. The same regular noted that the Canada sailings draw an older crowd than the ship's other routes.
Onboard Amenities
Cruise Highlights
About the Ship
What Travelers Say About Queen Mary 2
Reviews of the ship itself — the same for every Queen Mary 2 sailing. Distilled from 208 traveler threads, passenger reviews and travel blogs.
Queen Mary 2 is not a cruise ship — she is the world's only true ocean liner in regular service, purpose-built to power across the North Atlantic on the historic Southampton-to-New York crossing. That heritage defines everything: a deeper, stronger hull that handles rough seas, a formal black-tie culture, white star service, and traditions like grand ballroom dancing and afternoon tea in the cavernous Queens Room. The vibe is elegant, civilized, and adult — a floating piece of Cunard history with the only planetarium at sea, a serious enrichment program, one of the largest libraries afloat, and even the only kennels at sea for guests crossing with their pets.
What People Love
- Genuine ocean liner built for the open Atlantic — far more stable in rough seas than a typical cruise ship, which makes the Southampton-to-New York crossing a bucket-list experience
- The only planetarium at sea (at Illuminations) plus a serious enrichment program with guest lecturers, a huge library, and a maritime history walk celebrating Cunard's legacy
- Princess Grill and Queens Grill dining are repeatedly called among the best food experiences at sea, with single-seating service and dedicated restaurants for suite guests
Common Complaints
- Technology lags badly — Wi-Fi is widely described as poor and expensive, there is no useful onboard app, and many cabins lack USB ports and adequate charging
- The Britannia main dining room and the Kings Court buffet get mixed-to-mediocre reviews, with complaints about limited variety and inconsistency compared to the excellent Grills
- The Grills 'ship-within-a-ship' concept feels weaker than rivals — lounges and deck space are dispersed rather than a cohesive exclusive enclave
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