Montmorency, Île d’Orléans and Charlevoix by Car, Before or After a Québec City Cruise

The tourism office calls Montmorency 15 minutes from Old Québec; our routing from Terminal 84 is 17. Close enough — call it a quarter-hour either way.

The tourism office calls the shrine about 20 minutes from Québec City; our routing from Terminal 84 is 33 minutes — a gap big enough to matter on a sail day, so plan on ours.

All four lie east of the city, in roughly one direction, which is why a single car day can string two of them together.

We found no toll on any of these routes; the hub says how we checked. No transponder needed.

Montmorency Falls (Sépaq), 2026 daily access for non-Québec residents: adults C$13.90 from May 11 to Nov 1 (C$10.42 off-season), 65+ C$12.52, under 18 free. The cable car round trip is C$14.95 an adult, C$7.48 ages 6 to 17, C$43.06 for a family of two adults; rates exclude taxes.

Daily 9 to 5:30 until Oct 12 and 9 to 5 from Oct 13 to Nov 1; the cable car runs weekends only, 11 to 4, from Sept 8 to Oct 12; from Nov 2 to Dec 18 the site stays open without services.

Read that cable-car line twice. Late in the cruise season it’s a weekend ride only, and we found no cable-car hours listed after Oct 12.

The tourism office lists both free and paid on-site parking and no price; the Sépaq rate page lists no parking fee. The Sépaq strongly recommends buying access online.

We won’t print a parking price nobody publishes — bring a card and expect either answer at the gate.

The park sits at 5300 boulevard Sainte-Anne, about 15 minutes from Old Québec. For a falls-only morning, a cab or a tour may be simpler — the decision page weighs that.

At an assumed C$50 a day, two adults come to about C$90 for the morning, access and fuel included, our arithmetic.

Add two cable-car round trips and it’s about C$120. The car is the biggest single line — bigger than the access fees or the cable car.

That’s why the falls alone rarely justify a rental. Pair them with the shrine or the island and the same car day covers more ground.

Île d’Orléans’ tourist office is at 490 côte du Pont in Saint-Pierre (1-866-941-9411); the island calls itself “very close to Old Quebec”.

The Québec government has posted news pages about replacing the Île d’Orléans bridge, but they loaded empty for us, so we can’t say whether any work touches traffic on your date. Check Québec 511 before you go.

We’re saying so plainly because a closure on the bridge would end the island day before it starts.

Our routing reaches the tourist office in about a quarter of an hour without traffic. The island loop itself we didn’t time.

Skip it on boarding morning if the bridge looks uncertain — it suits a free day after the cruise far better.

Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré Shrine, 10018 avenue Royale: open Mon–Fri 9 to 4, Sat 9 to 5, Sun 7:30 to 6, with free outdoor parking, per the tourism office; no admission price is listed.

Sunday’s 7:30-to-6 window is the widest of the week — though the listing doesn’t say which season those hours cover, so check before a late-October visit.

It’s the farthest of the three close stops — roughly 43 miles there and back on our routing, about an hour behind the wheel. Still an easy morning.

Montmorency is the nearer stop in the same direction, so the two make a natural pair for one car day. On a Sunday, do the shrine first.

Baie-Saint-Paul, the gateway to Charlevoix, is about 59 miles from Terminal 84 on our routing, an hour and a half without traffic. Tourisme Charlevoix’s home page mentions the Train de Charlevoix but gives no Québec City directions we could read.

That’s about 118 miles there and back, a fuel bill, not a rounding error.

At 30 mpg it burns roughly 3.9 US gallons, about C$31 of fuel at GasWizard’s Oct 3 price, our conversion.

With an assumed C$50 day and both taxes, the whole drive comes to about C$89, our arithmetic. Fuel is about a third of it.

That money buys a region, not a single stop — the falls can’t say the same.

Leave it for a free day, not the morning you board — the ship won’t wait for a slow lunch in Baie-Saint-Paul.

The tourism office puts the cruise season from May to October, and the cable car’s weekend-only stretch falls inside it.

“After the cruise” only applies if your ship finishes here, say a Princess sailing up from Boston; every Québec departure we checked ends somewhere else, as the drive-in page lists.

If yours sails out of Québec, the day trips belong before boarding — keep them short, and keep them close.

Right turns on red are allowed across Québec except on the island of Montréal, and only after a full stop; the SAAQ lists a C$100 to C$200 fine and 3 demerit points for breaking the rule. The exception covers Montréal, not Québec City.

Québec law: children ride in a seat suited to their weight and height until they are 9 years old or at least 145 cm (4 ft 9 in) tall; the fine is C$80 to C$100 and 3 demerit points.

We found no Canadian car-seat price, so the calculator uses Avis’s published US figure, $14 a day up to $84 a rental, typed in as C$ — so a single day with one seat is about C$14 before tax.

Québec requires winter tires (the mountain-snowflake pictogram, or studs) from Dec 1 to Mar 15 on all Québec-registered vehicles, rental cars included; cars registered outside Québec are exempt. The fine is C$200 to C$300. The cruise season ends before Dec 1, so this only bites on a winter trip.

Hertz’s YQB terms name a Seasonal Tires Fee with no amount — look for it on any winter quote.

Collect the morning of the drive, at a desk that’s open when you’ll be back. A Saturday or Sunday start narrows that list fast.