Vacances Essipit — Attraction in Quebec

We signed up for the bear watching tour earlier this month. The website claims "you can watch black bears in action in their natural habitat".

There is nothing natural about it. First of all, the bears were fed CAKE. Yes, CAKE!! What bear eats cake in its natural environment?? It is not only unnatural but also feeding them JUNK FOOD! The tour guide was quite happy and proud to admit he just fed them cake! As wildlife enthusiasts and conservationists, we did not appreciate seeing the bears being fed cake.

There were also wooden structures built for the bears to sit on or climb on. That is not natural habitat either! But it is not too disturbing compared to being fed cake.

This tour is no different than watching bears in the zoo, except that it is worse than a zoo because we were led to believe the bears are living in their natural habitat. The website is providing false advertisement.

We also agree with other reviews stating the female at the front desk who was welcoming guests was nothing but rude to non-French speakers. We speak French and have seen how rude she was to the non-French speakers, so we decided to help translate to fellow tourists on what was being said. In this day and age, not being able to speak English is absolutely mind-boggling, especially if you want to be a world-class tourist destination. Clearly, this institution is NOT...

We did a tour with the Zodiac boat. The sail itself was good, and the captain was really nice. But the welcoming was quite awful, as soon as we entered the building we apologized for not speaking french, and a girl working there was super rude, rolling her eyes, turning her back to us, yelling something to her collegue (which was much more professional than her) and kept being very annoyed.

Had a similar experience with the sea Kayaking tour. We had a very nice introduction in english by a nice and professional lady, but we were assigned a french guide for the activity, and he really didn't want to speak english at all. We felt left out for the whole 2.5 hours, it's not a nice feeling. We tried to ask question but we were often given short answers, so we gave up. Even when it was time to paddle back home, he announced it in french only, and we had to ask "what is happening, are we going back?!"

It is a shame they don't offer a nice service for non-french speaking tourists (on purpose), the tours were good after all, and we had the chance to see a lot of whales and even had a close encounter. Please be good to english speaking people, as it is in the rest of...

My friend and I did the 12 person Zodiac Whale watching trip. The whole experience was great from start to finish. The team are courteous, speak English and its all very well organised. We arrived and was early, checked in and advised to return at midday for briefing and jackets. The briefing was offered in French and English. We were issused our waterproofs and instructions on where to out them in and where to wait. We were then split in to our boats groups and they specifically did an English speaking boat, and a French. Our guide was Gabe and he was fantastic. He gave lots of information and was very good at spotting the whales. Within 5 mins of being on the water we spotted a Minky whale. He could tell from the behaviour weather she was diving or breathing. He knowledge was fantastic. We travelled some distance on the boat going at speed at times. He showed humour and approachability. He also made sure everyone had a good view! We made our own way to this venue from Quebec city and it was well worth the 4.5hr car journey. We had a great day and would highly recommend. Its a well run business with the customers experience...