Cruising the Great Lakes
- Sep 22 - 29, 2024
- History, Nature, River Cruise
- Gohagan & Company
- Moderate
- Trojan.Travel@usc.edu
Eight-day cruise of all five Great Lakes, featuring an excursion to Mackinac Island, aboard the exclusively chartered, Five-Star ship Le Bellot.
Admire magnificent coastal scenery and discover nearly two centuries of North American innovation and maritime history on this one-0f-a-kind cruise itinerary from Milwaukee to Toronto featuring all five Great Lakes.
Experience the thunderous force of Niagra Falls, the historical charm of Mackinac Island, the unspoiled beauty of the UNESCO-inscribed Niagra Escarpment, and the Henry Ford Museau of Innovation in Detroit. Transit the Welland Canal and Soo Locks, among the greatest engineering feats of the 19th century. Highlights include:
- Eight-day, 7-night voyage between Toronto to Milwaukee, featuring a cruise of all 5 Great Lakes, including a call at Mackinac Island.
- Full-day excursion to Niagara Falls, with a cruise to Horseshoe Falls and lunch overlooking the falls.
- Discover the Sir Adam Beck Power Station, the world’s first large-scale hydroelectric generation project, and Niagara’s famous Floral Clock, intricately filled with 20,000 plants and flowers.
- Visit the Detroit Institute of Arts and see Diego Rivera’s monumental Detroit Industry mural, as well as master works by Auguste Rodin; Michelangelo; Vincent van Gogh; Edgar Degas; and Paul Cézanne.
- Explore the Edsel and Eleanor Ford Mansion.
- Private, glass-bottom boat cruise through Big and Little Tub Harbors and around Flowerpot Island in Tobermory, Ontario.
- Visit the SS Valley Camp, a retired lake freighter that is now a museum featuring exhibits of faithfully restored living quarters.
- Transit the Soo Locks from Lake Huron to Lake Superior and watch colossal freighters lower 21 feet from Lake Superior to enter Lake Huron at the Soo Locks Interpretation Center.
- Horse-drawn carriage tour of Victorian Mackinac Island and clifftop Fort Mackinac with lunch at the historic Grand Hotel.
Extend your journey with the Milwaukee Pre-Program and/or the Toronto Post-Program Options
Special Guest Speaker: Ric Mixter
Great Lake historian Ric Mixter is one of the most requested maritime speakers in the country. Millions of television viewers recognize him as a shipwreck researcher, diving more that 100 shipwrecks in the Great Lakes, including the Edmund Fitzgerald.
He has interviewed dozens of shipwreck survivors over the past 15 years, including two from the 1913 Storm, two from the 1940 Armistice Day Storm, and survivors from the largest shipwrecks in lakes Michigan, Huron, and Erie.
Mixter, who has appeared as a shipwreck expert on the History and Discovery channels, has been awarded for 20 years of maritime preservation by the Association of Great Lakes Maritime History.
- IncludedCruising the Great Lakes