What are the best things to do in Halifax on a cruise? — featuring Life Well Cruised

0:00 are you going to Halifax on a cruise and wondering if you should book an Excursion or explore on your own I'm going to share with you the very best things to do in Halifax Nova Scotia along with some tips and tricks that will help you to have the perfect day hi there I'm Ilana from the website

0:19 lifewellcruise.com welcome or welcome back to my channel we recently came back from a Canada New England cruise and Halifax Nova Scotia was absolutely one of our favorite stops so in this video I'm going to share with you the seven best things to do when you are in for the day on a cruise ship in Halifax and

0:36 these are going to include some excursions that you could book with a cruise ship as well as some things that you can do on your own now I'm also going to share with you some of the tips and tricks that you'll want to know for your day in Port now before I get started I did want to mention that if

0:50 you like this video if you find it helpful informative or enjoyable in any way then please do give this video a big thumbs up I really do appreciate it and please subscribe to the channel if you haven't done so already let's get started now before I share with you the best things to do in Halifax including

1:03 what we did for the day and what I think was perhaps the best Excursion ever in Halifax but I did want to share with you a little bit of the connection that Halifax has with the maritime industry and with cruising so one thing that you'll notice is when you get off the cruise ship very close by you will see

1:22 that there is a statue of Samuel Cunard now Samuel Cunard was born in Halifax Nova Scotia and he is the founder of Cunard now another connection is a bit of a sad one and this has to do with the Titanic that sunk in April 1912 after hitting an iceberg while Halifax had sent out two boats to be able to help

1:40 with the recovery efforts and sadly 1500 people approximately perished in that disaster well they were able to bring back over 300 people that Unfortunately they had passed away they brought them back to Halifax now some of the bodies were claimed but approximately 150 of them are actually buried in Halifax Nova

2:02 Scotia at three different cemeteries now I have a connection to Halifax so this day was actually quite meaningful to me as well but I will share that story with you a little bit later in this video okay so let's go over some of the things that you're going to want to know for your day in Halifax so first of all

2:17 where are you docked well when you arrive in Halifax Nova Scotia you're going to be docked approximately 8 20 to 30 minute walk from downtown Halifax so everything is really very accessible and you can either do excursions on your own if you just want to kind of visit Closer by to the cruise ship and there are

2:36 definitely things to do or if you want to do some other excursions you may want to book an Excursion with the cruise line or you can also use some private vendors so here are a few of the best attractions and things to do in Halifax but I do have a little bit of a tip if you decide to book an Excursion that is

2:53 a little bit further I will share with you what we did in Halifax that I think is definitely worth it but what you might want to do is book that in the morning time and then explore on your own in the afternoon so one thing that you could do on your own that's pretty easy and that is really quite close by

3:08 is go and walk up over to the Citadel or you can also take a taxi or you can take an Excursion over to the Citadel now if you do walk it probably is a good 45 minutes so you do really kind of have to be in shape and it is up a hill it's something really to see if this is something that does interest you but as

3:28 I mentioned it is also something that you can see with an Excursion if you don't want to do it on your own now something else to do in Halifax is to visit the Maritime Museum so some of the tours you'll notice that the maritime museum is included now there is a large section that is really dedicated to the

3:46 Titanic and to some of the memorabilia or I guess the artifacts from the Titanic so if this is something that interests you this is definitely something to see the Titanic Cemetery now even though those that were brought back two Halifax that had perished in the Titanic are buried at three

4:05 different cemeteries one of them is actually open to the public and I believe there are like 120 or so of those who had perished that are buried in the Fairview Lawn Cemetery so if this is something that interests you this is often part of the tour that is part of like a Titanic tour or you can visit on

4:24 your own you would need to take a cab it wouldn't be something that would be very accessible to walk on your own Peggy's Cove now this is the Excursion that we decided to book now we actually booked this with the cruise line mainly because the distance from the cruise port was approximately an hour each way and I

4:40 know the way it is that sometimes on the way back you do get some traffic and I really didn't want to get caught in that and well we only had a half day Excursion so probably we wouldn't have missed the ship but it would give me a little bit of anxiety so we did book this with the cruise line we definitely

4:56 did not regret it now some of the nice things about this excursion were not not only that we did get to see Peggy's Cove which I have to say is beyond anything that you can see in pictures and even videos so it really is a place to visit on your own to see with your own eyes to feel that wind for yourself to walk on

5:17 the rocks of Peggy's Cove but at the same time this excursion was on a very comfortable coach bus it was a double decker bus we were on the top which I do suggest because you do have kind of the better view but we really had a wonderful guide her name was Audrey and she was just wonderful in terms of the

5:35 history that she gave us about Halifax I learned so many things that I didn't even know and if we hadn't taken this excursion I don't think that I would have been aware of all of it and it really did make our day in Halifax even better now while the Lighthouse at Lighthouse Point or Peggy's Cove is

5:51 quite spectacular set on those gray granite rocks and that deep blue sea uh it really is something to see when you're there but it's also also set amongst the village of Peggy's Cove now there's actually about 40 people that live there could you imagine a population of only 40 people that lived

6:09 there year round well you can walk around this Village you could see some of the different shops you can go buy a lobster roll you could go and check out some of the artists that are there now one of the downsides to an Excursion like this is we only had probably about an hour and 15 minutes or an hour and a

6:25 half to be able to visit the area so we didn't really take time to go have a lobster roll while we were there but my husband and son did stop in for a hot dog and they did say it was very good now something that we did is we decided to book the early morning Excursion so that we would be able to get back to the

6:42 cruise port area by about 12 30 and this way we still had a few hours to explore in the area closer to the cruise port because there are a lot of things that you can see and do on your own right there and I'll share with you some of the things that we did including where we went for lunch a little bit later on

6:56 in this video the hop-on hop-off bus so one of the ways that you you can also explore on your own now in particular in the downtown Halifax area is that you can take the hop-on hop-off bus so this is a really good way to be able to just get off at the different stops that you want to get off at so including like the

7:16 cemetery or The Maritime Museum or an area like in downtown Halifax so this is a really good way to be able to explore on your own and also get a little bit of an Excursion or a tour at the same time now I have a little bit of an honorable mention there are also some different tours that you can pick up right in

7:34 Halifax when you get off the cruise ship so as you walk towards the boardwalk area you can pick up an Excursion that is a boat tour or you can also pick up like a land and sea tour so it's sort of like an amphibious bus where you can pick that up as well and get a little bit of a tour of Halifax the boardwalk

7:51 now if you do nothing else when you're in Halifax if you don't want to do a big Excursion but you still want to really enjoy your day simply get off the cruise ship and you're going to walk to your right and you're going to walk along the boardwalk at the beginning of the boardwalk you're going to see these

8:07 monuments these statues they are really striking there's just this history to Halifax and it really is very beautiful and I think maybe a little bit underrated this Boardwalk area is really so pretty and you'll see there's a mix of tourists as well as people that really live in the city and are just

8:23 there in the boardwalk area enjoying their day so what we've decided to do in the afternoon after the tour is walk along the boardwalk and we decided that we would go for lunch we would try out some of the different street foods along that Boardwalk now that Boardwalk I believe it's 1.8 miles of just really um

8:41 a scenic view as well as these different restaurants and shops that really makes it so enjoyable now because I researched Halifax and what to do what to eat in Halifax there were some foods that we definitely wanted to try now some things that you may want to try are Dave's lobster rolls so you could see that

8:58 right in the boardwalk area you may also want to try Beaver Tails now I'm actually from Montreal Canada so we have Beaver Tails here we've eaten them for years and they're definitely a delicious treat now there is also poutine that you could eat now poutine just to let you know is french fries with a gravy on top

9:16 and this curd cheese so it's similar tasting maybe to a mozzarella but it's got a little bit of a squeak to it it's like a firm cheese now again I'm from Quebec so we have had that and I absolutely love poutine it's kind of like heart attack in a bowl so you don't want to have it very often but

9:32 definitely if you've never had it before this is something to eat when you are in Halifax now I have to be honest here we were saving our appetites to try something that we were basically told to give it a try when we were in Halifax and this is Donaire but I need to be honest Donaire basically is um sort of

9:50 PETA so it's sort of like a Greek Euro if you've ever had that or like Souvlaki meat but sliced very thin but instead of having that Greek taste that you normally would have a garlicky Greek sauce instead it's a little bit of a sweet yogurty sauce and it just really wasn't to our taste my son did try it

10:09 and it just wasn't something we really liked very much I cannot say that I recommend it now of course this is nothing against Halifax nothing against Daenerys so if you've had a Donaire and you really like it please let me know what you like about it maybe there's something I'm missing and I'll have to

10:24 go back and try it again so please let me know if you've ever tried a Donaire and what you think did you like it or could you pass now something that was not difficult to love was the cows Creamery ice cream who doesn't love ice cream so yes we had some delicious cows Creamery ice cream and that I can

10:41 recommend now you may want to try those kind of street foods or those fast foods or you may want to have more of a sit-down lunch there were some absolutely beautiful restaurants now we decided that we were in the mood really to sit down somewhere so we did sit down at Garrison's Brewery we had a pretty

10:58 good lunch I had some calamari my husband had a hamburger my son had a chicken burger um it was good I have to say though I looked over at I guess like somebody is sitting near us like a bit of a neighbor that we talk to and they had what looked like an absolutely amazing Lobster that

11:13 looked absolutely delicious so perhaps if you do stop in at garrisons consider ordering their lobster shopping along the boardwalk now one thing that I absolutely knew that I wanted to do when I was in Halifax Nova Scotia is get a Halifax t-shirt so I did get one but I also wanted to get one for my father as

11:30 well and the reason I wanted to get one for my father was that my father was actually born in Halifax so even though he's now 80 years old he just turned 80 the other day he was born in Halifax he lived there until he was two years old and his family never returned so it was always a place that we talked about a

11:47 little bit as I was growing up but my family just always went South the way a lot of Canadians often do so we never really went back to Halifax and visiting Halifax honestly it was a little bit emotional for me more emotional than I would have thought because I did really realize that as a Canadian I haven't

12:04 visited a lot of my own country and it was really just such a beautiful city and in any case when you go to Halifax I think you will really enjoy it but it was just interesting to know I even spoke with the tour guide on the bus and she was able to tell me about the hospital where my father was born it's

12:22 now closed um but as well the street where my father was born we were able to look that up I was able to look up a couple of cousins when I was there as well just sort of seeing if they were in the area and it was just um really neat to kind of see that connection that we even had

12:37 to Halifax downtown Halifax now downtown Halifax is very accessible from the cruise port and the best way to do this I think is actually to walk into the boardwalk area and then from the boardwalk area keep walking until you cross the street into what looks like more of the main Downtown City part you

12:55 can walk along the streets you can go to the different shops you can actually stop at Halifax Public Gardens just absolutely beautiful and you could walk from there right up to the Citadel we actually walked up and believe me this is a very big walk we actually had to take a little bit of a break on the

13:11 bench but it is definitely doable but I probably would suggest doing that maybe by Hop On Hop off bus and as well you can stop in at some of the museums you can take a look at some of the churches and you can pick up a map right in like the cruise port building you could find a map of downtown Halifax so if there

13:28 are areas that you want to visit you can definitely do so oh and I almost forgot to mention if you are looking for a souvenir from Halifax of course you can pick up a Halifax t-shirt like me but you can also pick up saltwater taffy at the store where I purchased this t-shirt they actually sold salt water Kathy all

13:45 different flavors but if you bought a t-shirt you actually got a small bag of salt water taffy so that was good too now in the cruise port area they really have an extensive area that you can shop in and the prices were really quite reasonable and something else that's really quite interesting is the Nova

14:01 Scotia Tartan so if this is something that you're interested you can pick up Kilt or other things that have the Nova Scotia Tartan now the Nova Scotia Tartan is blue and white for the self-ridden sea the greens are for the forest the red is for the Royal Lion on the arms of Nova Scotia and the gold is for the

14:21 province's Royal Charter so I hope that this video was helpful for you and gave you some information about the best things to do and see in Halifax Nova Scotia when you are there for a cruise if you've been to Halifax Nova Scotia before please let me know what you think are the best things to do see eat please

14:36 let me know down in the comments below and if you are heading to Halifax Nova Scotia on a Canada New England cruise either now or in the future please let me know as well down in the comments below this video if you did enjoy it please do give it a big thumbs up I really do appreciate it and please

14:50 subscribe to the channel if you haven't done so already bye for now and happy cruising