Great Lakes Cruise News

The most adventurous cruise line of the Great Lakes, Viking Expedition Cruises has just announced a limited-time sale to make their incredible cruises an even easier choice. Until October 31st, Viking will include free roundtrip airfare and their premium silver spirits beverage package with all Great Lakes itineraries and their St. Lawrence Seaway cruise.

It's no secret that one of the trickiest parts of cruising can be getting there -- especially with airfare slowly making it back to normal. Free flights to your cruise and back home can save hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars too. Essentially, this means you can focus less on what many consider the most stressful part of travel and more on what matters -- having the time of your life.

And, that's made even easier with the sale's other inclusion: Viking's Premium Silver Spirits package. While wine and beer are included aboard Viking's North American voyages, cocktails and liquor are not. With the package, which ordinarily costs $20 a night per person, you're able to order these beverages to your hearts desire.

Over at the end of October, this sale encompasses all of Viking's Great Lakes cruises, as well as their top New England and Saint Lawrence Seaway itinerary. Find all of Viking Expedition's cruises here:

​These once-bustling areas were impacted severely by this, and towns once full of thousands of residents dwindled down to the hundreds as many sought employment elsewhere. Still, Lake Superior’s North Shore communities held on, maintaining several local industries while creating a new one – tourism. Surrounded by virtually untouched, magnificent nature, this next endeavor was an obvious choice. Initially, North Shore tourism was only regional, bringing in visitors from nearby areas for weekend getaways and outdoor adventures. Attractions like Silver Islet, known for its underwater silver mine, Sleeping Giant Provincial Park, Battle Island, and Kakabeka Falls (the Niagara of the North) were the most popular places to visit, located close to Thunder Bay, Ontario. Countless others were found along the Lake Superior region, leaving the North Shore dotted with locales primed for tourists. Conveniently, many of these destinations could be reached by Lake Superior boat tours, allowing an even better experience of the massive, seemingly endless Great Lake.

​Once locals and Great Lakes tour operators began to see the potential held for Lake Superior cruises, it was only a matter of time before it was proposed as an all-new destination for expedition cruising. This charge was led by Stephen Burnett, executive director of the Great Lakes Cruise Association, with the establishment of the “Lake Superior North Shore Inside Passage.” This new route would take a Great Lakes cruise ship along the top portion of the lake, from Thunder Bay to the beachfront city of Terrace Bay. 

​Aside from Thunder Bay, the journey brought the small group of cruising experts to the communities of Silver Islet, Red Rock, and Rossport. In between these destinations, they stopped at locations like Battle Island, where they climbed the historic Battle Island Lighthouse. Famously, the lighthouse had several of its top-level windows broken by a wave during a dangerous 1977 storm, 117 feet above the water below. Other finds included the Silver Islet Mine, a now underwater chasm that continues almost 1300 feet into the lakebed, and the Fort Williams Historical Park, the site where the North Shore’s fur trade took off due to a collaboration between the French Canadian and Ojibwe peoples.

To learn more about current cruises that visit Thunder Bay and the North Shore, engage our experts today – we're happy to be your personal Lake Superior cruising guide.

A fixture of the Great Lakes cruise industry, Canada announced that it will begin charting a new way forward for its pandemic-era travel. This comes after years of travel restrictions that have protected citizens, but posed a challenge to all forms of travel to Canada and the businesses that benefit from it. For most as of late, a negative COVID test or quarantine was required for entry.

Since April 1, 2022, Canada has updated its policy on travel, now allowing visitors who are vaccinated and carrying proof of it to enter the country. While not requiring a negative test might seem like a simple change to some, this re-opens cruise lines to the prospects of cruising to and from Canada.

With virtually every cruise line requiring full vaccination, travelers will once again be able to visit the lovely cities and towns of Canada with ease. The country draws millions of visitors each year across all its Great Lakes cruises destinations, from the incredibly diverse metropolis of Toronto all the way to the naturally beautiful Thunder Bay on the Lake Superior North Shore.