AlanInDC

Hi. I will be in NL for several days (arr Aug 28, dep Sep 2). A few questions:

1. After 2 days in St. Johns, I plan to pick up a rental car and visit Avalon and Bonavista peninsulas for a couple of days. As this won't be peak tourist season, can I just drive wherever and find a place to stay for the night depending on where I am, rather than make a reservation? Or is that very risky? I have a reservation for St. Johns and for the rental car.
2. Re: Avalon and Bonavista: is this a good plan for 2 days? Will need to end up at YYT airport.
3. Figuring that I won't see icebergs--true?
4. If anyone knows about iPhones with U.S.-based plan--is Canada considered to be international (i.e., surcharges) or equivalent to U.S. (domestic)?
5. Sep 1 is Labour Day. While regular businesses will be closed, safe to assume that tourist-oriented things (parks, restaurants, touristy-shops) will be open as usual?

AA_EXP09

4 from what I know will be considered international.
5-the parks should be open (I have visited national parks on holidays), and restaurants will depend on what kind you are looking for (fine dining vs fast food, also depends on the individual shopkeeper.)
1-yes, US driving licences are valid in Canada though I do not know about the destination as I have never been there. For this reason I also cannot answer 2 and 3.

Ontario

Hi,

I went to Newfoundland this summer and had a wonderful time. Spotted several icebergs - according to the locals, they are lasting much longer this season. Consider following Iceberg Finder on twitter - there still seem to be plenty in Twilingate. I do not know about Avalon and Bonavista but this year you may be lucky.

When in St. John's, make sure not to miss the tasting at the Quidi Vidi brewery and have dinner at Bacalao. You won't be disappointed.

heraclitus

Speaking to point 2, I drove up from St. John's to Trinity and Bonavista, and spent a night at each place. It was very lovely - had a great time at both destinations. It's a fair bit of driving (about 3.5 hours each way), but it was great to see something outside of St. John's. I suppose if you're tight for time, roaming the Avalon Peninsula would also be a good choice.

UAPremExecflyer

A little basic research would tell you that Canada requires a calling plan to avoid hefty voice and data charges.

Tax Dude

I'm looking out the Narrows in St. John's as I type this. Icebergs and whales have left for the season. It's a good 4 hours to drive from here to the town of Bonavista at the end of the peninsula. If I only had two days, I'd take a leisurely drive there one day, and spend 2 nights. Don't plan on driving at dusk or after dark - there's lots of moose and there were over 600 collisions last year. The car usually doesn't come out well. I _think_ you'll be fine at that time of year for accommodation without a reservation. Make sure you drop in at Walkham's Gate Pub. The owner, Harv, is a real character. I just checked the hours of one of the main historic sites up there, The Ryan Premises (http://www.pc.gc.ca/lhn-nhs/nl/ryan/index.aspx) and their season seems to finish up on Aug 31 so you might want to do a bit of research to see how much will be open on Labour Day. In St. John's and the surrounding area it won't be a problem.
If you don't need start your trip in St. John's I'd consider finishing there. Do the Bonavista peninsula first and then come back to St. John's for your last two days. No worries about missing your flight then!
I'd give the QV brewery tour a miss, but I highly recommend nearby Mallard Cottage for dinner. Great food, and they have (limited) bar seating looking into an open kitchen so it would be ok for a single traveller. I also recommend Bacalao, mentioned earlier, and Saltwater both in town.
Lots to do in Newfoundland, have a great time.

AlanInDC

Thanks all. I think I'll stick to the Avalon Peninsula as including Bonavista would involve more driving than I'd like, especially if it all had to occur during daylight hours. For example, could do the trips that include Trepassey and Old Perlican, if that makes sense.

yytleisure

Bonavista is a bit far for a short time. Distances are large and the drive is mostly boring, especially the first few hours. Plenty on the Avalon to keep you busy. Drive around the Irish loop to trepassey and back up through st. Mary's bay. Lots of small towns to see along the way. Same for old perlican and will take 4-5 hours driving each without stops. Cape spear, signal hill are right in town. Labour day is the last weekend before kids go back to school so lots of locals on the go and the tail end of tourist season so might be tight on accommodations in places. Same for the rental car which are very tight all summer here.

travelmad478

It is a bit late for the OP, but I will post my recent experiences of two nights in St. John's in case it will help anyone else. We were there from Aug. 23-25. We arrived on the ferry from N. Sydney into Argentia and took a shuttle van ($35/pax) to St. John's, which took about 2 hours, including a 10-15-minute stop en route while we waited for a new driver to show up. I would have liked to bring our Avis rental car on the ferry with us from Nova Scotia, but we were flying out of St. John's and Avis wouldn't let me do a one-way ending there So we then had to go to the St. John's airport to pick up another car, which was a pain, although not awful.

While in NL we only had two nights, so we stuck pretty close to St. John's. Highlights included:
- the Marconi exhibit in the tower building at Signal Hill
- our Sunday afternoon at Quidi Vidi brewery (the tour is meh but the tasting is fun, and it's only ten bucks) followed by drinks, live traditional music, and very nice casual dinner at Mallard Cottage about 150 meters away
- small-boat trip to Witless Bay Ecological Preserve from Bay Bulls (if you are into birds and/or whales, it's fabulous). No icebergs in late August.
- views from Cape Spear

While in NB and NS, I had a goal (achieved!) of eating lobster in some form on every day of our 9-day vacation there. In NL, I changed the food to cod, and enjoyed that very much. A Newfoundland specialty is cod tongues--pan-fried or deep-fried--which are actually very fine and taste a lot like the rest of the cod, to be honest. Sadly, we did not hit any restaurants that served moose, but if we had, I definitely would have gotten it!

I was very taken by Newfoundland and would really love to go back for a lot longer. We didn't want to spend our whole time there in the car, so barely scratched the surface of what is a very large place with tons to do. It is definitely on my list for a return visit, potentially for 10-14 days so we can get around to other parts of the island.

AlanInDC

Hi Folks. Many thanks for the advice about Newfoundland. Here are a few notes FWIW.

YYT is a nice little airport. Note that most services are before security and that this airport does not have U.S. preclearance. Actually, my YYT-EWR flight is the only one that I saw to the U.S. There is a Maple Leaf Lounge—seemed pretty similar to a United Club as far as the physical layout and food and drink offered (this was morning, so just basic breakfast offerings).

I stayed at Murray Premises hotel at the harbor. The room was nice, but it was pretty dead there. I thought there would be more shops and such. And it wasn’t so quaint. If I were to return, I would stay at the Sheraton if I stayed at a large-ish hotel.

Had a couple of very good meals on Water Street at Aqua and Oliver’s Restaurant. Not surprisingly, there are a number of Irish offerings, but was a little surprised to see a number of Asian restaurants – Chinese (not surprising), Japanese, Korean, Indian, South Asia.

The highlights for me in the downtown area were The Rooms (a museum complex worth a couple of hours) and Signal Hill with the Marconi exhibit that a previous poster mentioned. Went to a few galleries and just walked around a lot. The grounds of Government House are pretty and well-kept and worth a look. Railway Museum was educational about the history of the railroad in Newfoundland.

Picked up a rental car and went to Cape Spear. This is another highlight, even the drive out there to the easterly-most part of North America. The remoteness (though not that far from downtown St. John’s) and views are memorable.

I made a number of stops including Brigus (cute little town), the Conception Bay Museum, and the cable museum at Heart’s Content. As I do some tech policy work, I especially appreciated the cable museum (the first transatlantic cable terminated in North America at Heart’s Content and necessitated multiple attempts to lay the cable before success). Stayed at the quaint and delightful George B&B in Dildo. If I did this again, I would have stayed in Dildo for 2 nights and used it as a base to explore this area.

Had back luck on Labour Day. More things are closed in Newfoundland than in the U.S. For example, nearly all stores are closed. I had planned to do a fair bit of driving and go to outdoor places such as Cape St. Mary’s. However, had really bad weather with cloudy skies and light rain but worse, major fog, even at noontime in Placentia, so figured it wasn’t worth even going down to Cape St. Mary’s. The locals were all quite pessimistic that the fog would burn off down there at all.

On the weather front, the worst day occurred at the beginning—rainy, windy, and highs only to 55F (at most). I wore two coats that day, but I was in St. John’s so could do primarily indoor things such as The Rooms.

The last night was at the Fairfield Inn to make a quick drive to the airport in the morning. This part of St. John’s is (sub)urban sprawl and close to the Avalon Mall. But it served its purpose.

Flight back to Newark was in United business class. Breakfast was surprisingly bad, even for United. Plain cereal, packaged fruit cocktail, and container of yogurt. No fresh fruit or pastry.

Immigration and customs were a record for me at EWR. Used the new kiosks and had only carry-on luggage. No queue at all. I may have made it out in 5 minutes total.

jhartley15

How unfortunate you missed Cape St Mary's! A truly awe-inspiring view!