Toronto to Chicago Great Lakes Golf Cruise
13 Night Tour with 6 Golf Games
Sail 4 of The Great Lakes & the Welland Canal
5 Star Luxury Four Seasons Hotels in Toronto and Chicago
17 to 30 August 2025*
from AUD 21,150 per golfer (AUD 42,300 per golfing couple)
from AUD 17,400 per non golfer (AUD 38,550 golfer/non-golfer couple)
from AUD 29,600 per solo golfer
Trendsetter Travel Golf Tours invites you to join us on a Toronto to Chicago golf cruise/tour onboard Ponant’s Le Champlain. Our tour will be operated in partnership with Tauck and is perfect for golfers and non golfers alike.
Our journey commences with a 3 night stay at the 5 star Four Seasons Toronto Hotel and includes 2 games of golf at leading courses Glen Abbey Golf Club (1976), 30 times the venue for the Canadian Open and the highly regarded King Valley Golf Club (1990). While in Toronto, we’ll take a trip to Niagara Falls and enjoy an up close experience of the awesome power of the Falls. After our Toronto sojourn, we board Le Champlain to commence an 8 day/7 night cruise of the Great Lakes that will take us to Cleveland, Detroit, Mackinac Island and Muskegon. Sadly our fabulous cruise must end but wait there’s more!
Definitely a highlight, Chicago, a city with stunning architecture never fails to impress. Our home will be the luxurious Four Seasons Hotel (where you will stay in an Executive Suite) and while in Chicago, we’ll play our final 2 golf games, at the elite private Merit Golf Club (1992) and the popular Harbourside Golf Club, Karie Webb won the 1st of her two US Open titles when it was played at Merit Club in 2000.
Your 7 night cruise includes all meals and beverages (standard alcoholic and non-alcoholic), gratuities, wifi, standard shore excursions, use of the fitness centre and arrival/departure airport transfers. Additionally, the 6 nights pre and post-cruise hotel stays include daily breakfast, welcome and farewell dinners with beverages. Golfing guests will enjoy 6 rounds of golf, return coach transfers, motorised carts, prize money, and drinks post golf. 11 of your 13 dinners (including drinks) are included with only 2 nights available for dinning independent of the 4 x group dinners (2 x Tauck and 2 x Trendsetter Travel) and the 7 x dinners on board Le Champlain.
Le Champlain is a small elegant ship which accommodates up to 180 guests. The cruise enables a comprehensive look at this revered waterway as we cross Lake Ontario, and travel 42 km through the Welland Canal to enter Lake Erie. We then sail the length of Lake Erie visiting both Cleveland (Ohio) and Detroit (Michigan) before crossing into Lake Huron and finally Lake Michigan.
While our golf programme includes 6 games of golf, the two golf games in Cleveland and Detroit are optional and a credit of AUD 450/game is available if you prefer to miss golf on either or both days in favour of the included Tauck tours in those cities. The tour is designed to deliver an exceptional golfing and cruising experience – we are confident you can participate in our golf programme and also attend a large part of the Tauck touring on offer.
Our tour is ideal for golfing couples, golfer/non golfer couples, and singles who benefit from a single supplement of approximately 140% of the per person twin share rates.
Significant additional information regarding the Tauck component of our tour can be found at: https://www.tauck.com.au/tours/chicago-toronto-great-lakes-cruise?tcd=glw2025
Your tour hosts are Adrienne Witteman and David Cooper, Directors/Co-Owners of Trendsetter Travel Golf Tours, an Australian golf tour operator which has been running international hosted golf tours since 2016. Both are enthusiastic golfers and longstanding members of one of Sydney’s most prestigious golf clubs. They have golfed and cruised extensively around the world. They invite you to join them on this fantastic tour, with long port days and the chance to play between 4 and 6 games (at your option), all at a wonderful selection of golf courses in and around the Great Lakes.
You can consider this tour in conjunction with Trendsetter’s Montreal to New York City Golf Cruise 2/14 September 2025 on Seabourn Sojourn. This golf cruise commences 3 days after the conclusion of Trendsetter’s Great Lakes Golf Tour. Guests taking both tours will receive an AUD 250 pp air credit for the connecting flight. Trendsetter will arrange an optional 3 night, 5 star hotel stay with 2 optional games of golf from 30 August to 2 September 2025 (at additional cost) to provide a bridge between the two tours. Should you wish to do both tours, please contact us urgently since Montreal to New York is already heavily sold.
*Important Disclosures:
While the Tauck tour is advertised as 11 nights, an extra night is added in both Toronto and Chicago, taking Trendsetter’s tour to 13 nights. Tauck has chartered the entire Ponant ship thus the Trendsetter Travel Golfing Group is part of the Tauck tour.
Itinerary
Day 1 – Sunday 17 August 2025 – Toronto
Tauck provides a complimentary transfer from either Toronto’s Lester B Pearson International Airport or Union Railway Station to the Four Seasons Toronto hotel, home for the next 3 nights. Toronto, which sits on the shore of Lake Ontario, is both the largest city in Canada and the commercial heart of the country. The complimentary Tauck transfer is available if you arrive earlier than your tour’s commencement date.
Toronto Four Seasons is 12 years old and all rooms have a separate walk in shower and stand alone bath tub. All rooms start with a minimum size of 46.5 sqm, large for a hotel room by any measure.
Meet up at 6.30 pm for Trendsetter Travel welcome drinks and dinner.
Day 2 - Monday 18 August 2025 – Toronto – Golf Game 1 – Glen Abbey Golf Club
For the non-golfers, today is free for independent exploring of Toronto.
Golf (Round 1): Today we play Glen Abbey Golf Club, located 45 minutes drive south of down town Toronto. This Jack Nicklaus designed course has held the Canadian Open 30 times (more than twice as many times as any other national golf club) since it was first held here in 1977. Winners of the # 1 tournament in Canada, and a regular inclusion on the PGA Tour schedule, include Greg Norman (1992), Nick Price (1994), Tiger Woods (2000) and famously Jason Day (2015) just prior to his win in the USPGA at Whistling Straights.
After returning to Toronto, we meet the full Tauck tour party over welcome dinner and reception at Casa Loma, a restaurant located in mid-town Toronto.
Day 3 – Tuesday 19 August 2025 – Toronto – Golf Game 2 – King Valley Golf Club
For the non-golfers, there is an included 4 hour shore excursion with Tauck. Choose from a city highlights tour with a visit to the Royal Ontario Museum, or the Ontario Art Gallery. Your afternoon is free time.
Golf (Round 2): We travel 45 minutes north of down town Toronto to play King Valley Golf Club. A collaboration between two-time U.S. Open champion Curtis Strange and renowned architect Doug Carrick, King Valley Golf Club is brilliantly routed through hardwood forests and tall pines, and the valleys and ravines of the beautiful King region just north of Toronto. King Valley was runner-up in Golf Digest’s 1991 list of best new courses in Canada and Mike Weir won the 1993 Canadian Tour Players Championship there, prior to his entry to the PGA Tour.
Day 4 – Wednesday 20 August 2025 – Toronto – Niagara Falls – Embark Le Champlain
After breakfast, check out of the Four Seasons Hotel and travel south of Toronto to Niagara Falls, for what will be a highlight inclusion for many. Niagara Falls sit on the border of the USA and Canada and our tour includes a boat trip to the bottom of the Falls (with rain pancho provided). The Falls are breathtaking and offer plentiful photo opportunities from either side.
Following our visit to Niagara Falls, we visit a local winery for tasting and lunch before returning to Toronto and cruise embarkation. Your luggage will already be in your room/suite, having been transferred direct from the Four
Seasons Hotel to Le Champlain.
Day 5 – Thursday 21 August 2025
Our ship sails overnight to the Welland Canal which links Lake Ontario to Lake Erie. Entering the Welland Canal, we commence an 11 hour, 27 mile journey through 11 locks to bypass the Niagara River and Niagara Falls. The ship then passes through the cities of Welland, Thoroid, and St Catherines, emerging at Port Colborne before heading toward Cleveland at the southern tip of Lake Erie.
A local canal expert will entertain us with stories about the canal and its history as we traverse the waterways.
Day 6 – Friday 22 August 2025 – Cleveland – Golf Game 3 – Fowlers Mill Golf Club - In port 8.30 a.m. to 10 p.m.
For the non-golfers, there is a morning visit to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and in the afternoon a city sightseeing coach tour, to include the theatre district, Westside Market and a visit to a local craft brewery.
Golf (Round 3): Today we play the first of two golf games (both optional) offered on the cruise. The Pete Dye designed Fowlers Mill Golf Club (1970) is ranked as the 8th best Pete Dye layout in the USA. While it is a public access course, it is favourably reviewed and should not disappoint.
Day 7 – Saturday 23 August 2025 – Detroit – Golf Game 4 – Shepherd’s Hollow Golf Club - In port 7 am to 8 pm
For non-golfers there are two included tours on offer. The first is to the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation, which complex covers 9 acres of exhibition space with numerous interactive exhibits. These include the bus in which Rosa Parks famously refused to give up her seat, the Wright Brothers’ bicycle shop, the courthouse where President Lincoln practised law, Thomas Edison’s laboratory and much more. The alternative tour is a guided sight seeing tour of Detroits famous landmarks.
Golf (Round 4): Golfers today will play the second of two golf games (both optional) offered on the cruise at the highly rated The Orchards Golf Club. The course was designed by Robert Trent Jones Junior as a a Championship 18 hole to be reminiscent of the Detroit private clubs built in the 1920s. This
is an upgrade on the golf course we had originally intended to play in Detroit.
Day 8 – Sunday 24 August 2025 – A day on Lake Huron
Today is spent cruising Lake Huron up the scenic east cost of the state of Michigan towards Mackinac Island. The eastern shore is called the Sunrise Coast and is a long parade of beaches, sand dunes, inlets, small towns and 30 lighthouses. This vast freshwater lake encompasses around 30,000 islands.
Day 9 – Monday 25 August 2025 – Mackinac Island
Mackinac Island has been a popular summer holiday retreat since the 19th century when wealthy industrialists built summer holiday homes on the island. The island restricts the use of motor vehicles, except in emergenices, so that the only way to get around the island is on foot, by bicycle or a horse-drawn carriage. Elect either a carriage or bicycle tour of the island as you ride past impressive Victorian mansions and along the picture-postcard main street with its fascinating shops. Further afield, travel out to forests, marshes, beaches and finally Fort Mackinac, a 19th centure military outpost. Lunch is at the palatial Grand Hotel (1887) that boasts the longest porch in the world (over 200 metres). A frequent guest, Thomas Edison, reputedly gave the first demonstration of a phonograph (the earliest form of record player) on the porch.
Day 10 – Tuesday 26 August 2025 – Muskegon – Optional Golf Game - In port 7 a.m. to 4 p.m.
For the non-golfers, your day at Muskegon offers a number of tour options from visiting giant sand dunes to a visit to the town of Holland, established by Dutch Calvinists in the 18th century.
For the golfers, we may offer an optional golf game here in Muskegon.
Day 11 – Wednesday 27 August 2025 – Disembark - Chicago
All good things must come to an end and this morning, having sailed due west across Lake Michigan, we will berth in Milwaukee and disembark from Le Champlain.
Milwaukee, the largest city in Wisconsin, has a population approaching 600,000 and is a 90 minute drive north of Chicago. Tauck will transfer us to Chicago and on arrival, we’ll board a sightseeing boat for an architectural tour along the Chicago River. Lunch is at the legendary Giordano’s Pizzeria where the local delicacy is stuffed, deep-dish pizza. After checking into the Chicago Four Seasons hotel, the remainder of your afternoon is free to independently explore Chicago. Your room at Chicago Four Seasons will be an Executive Suite Lake View Room. This room category has a separate shower and stand alone bath tub and is large at 53 sqm. This is a significant upgrade from the standard Four Seasons room of 36 sqm, most of which have shower over bath. The Four Seasons Hotel sits on top of a high rise office tower and your suite will have a magnificent view of Lake Michigan.
Day 12 – Thursday 28 August 2025 – Chicago – Golf – Game 5 - Merit Golf Club
The non-golfers have a choice of two sight seeing tours this morning. Either visit the Chicago Art Institute, a palatial Beaux Arts-style building on Michigan Avenue which houses over 300,000 works of art or take guided walking tour of of Millennium Park. The afternoon is at your leisure.
Golf (Round 5): Today we play the first of two Chicago golf games and are privileged to be welcomed at the outstanding Merit Golf Club, one of the most exclusive private golf clubs in Chicago, with just 150 members and over 30 green staff. We are told the course will be in immaculate condition. There is some Australian history with this golf club as Karie Webb won the 1st of her two US Open titles when it was played at Merit Club in 2000.
This evening we celebrate the end of the cruise with our fellow Tauck guests at a Tauck farewell reception and dinner at the Chicago Four Seasons hotel.
Day 13 – Friday 29 August 2025 – Chicago - Golf Game 6 - Harbourside International Golf Resort
For the non-golfers, today is a free day to independently further explore Chicago
Golf (Round 6): Today we play our final golf game on tour. We are previliged to play Harbourside International Golf Resort, with its two excellent Starboard and Port golf courses. This is a fitting finale game on our golf tour and will assuredly be a pleasure to play.
This evening we will celebrate the end of the Trendsetter tour with a farewell dinner and drinks.
Day 14 – Saturday 30 August 2025 – Chicago – Conclusion of the tour
Say goodbye to your many new found friends and enjoy a complimentary Tauck transfer to Chicago Airport. The complimentary Tauck transfer is available if you depart later than your tour’s conclusion date.
For those joining Trendsetter Travel’s Montreal to New York Seabourn Golf Cruise, you will fly today from Chicago to Montreal if you wish to participate in the 3 night pre cruise Montreal hotel (golf optional) package. Or you might wish to extend your stay in Chicago and join later in Montreal.
Le Champlain Deck Plan & Specification
The following is the Le Champlain deck plan:
For actual floor plans on the individual staterooms and suites, please refer to the following link:
Trendsetter Travel has a group allocation of the following rooms:
- 3 x Deluxe Staterooms
- 11 x Prestige Staterooms
- 4 x Deluxe Suites
There are other higher categories of suites (Prestige Suites, Privilege Suites, Grand Deluxe Suites and Owners Suites) – these are available on request and subject to availability (refer deck plan and above link for additional details).
The Finer Details.
INCLUSIONS
ALL Trendsetter Travel guests, as part of the Trendsetter Travel Golf Tour Cruise, will enjoy a 14 day, 13 night tour including:
- 11 night Tauck tour comprising a 7 night cruise onboard Le Champlain, 2 nights each at Toronto and Chicago Four Seasons hotels with arrival and departure transfers, touring, breakfast daily and other meals per https://www.tauck.com.au/tours/chicago-toronto-great-lakes-cruise?tcd=glw2025
- 1 extra night in each of Toronto and Chicago Four Seasons with breakfast, and dinner and drinks
- 6 games of golf (including shared motorised cart), coach transfers, green fees, prize money, and drinks post golf (NB the two golf games in Cleveland and Detroit are optional and a credit AUD 450 pp per game is applicable if you prefer to sightsee instead of golfing in those ports)
- Non golfers enjoy lower pricing per the chart above
- Extra pre- and post-tour nights can be purchased from Trendsetter. Price on application
NOT INCLUDED
- International and domestic USA flights
- Golf clubs hire
- Items of a personal nature
- A deposit of 5% of the total cruise is payable upon confirmation e.g. 2 persons in a prestige stateroom = AUD 5,550 (AUD 44,400 x 12.5%)
- The full balance is payable no later than 17 April 2025
- Payments can be made by direct bank transfer or by credit card (1% VIS/MC and 2% AX fees apply)
- The deposit is non-refundable except that should you cancel prior to 17 April 2025, and Trendsetter is able to find a replacement, your deposit will be refunded less an administration fee of AUD 2,000 per room, single or double occupancy.
- Once full payment has been made, a cancellation fee of 50% is applicable up until 60 days prior to the date you will commence your tour, that commencement date to include any pre-tour accommodation
- Within 60 days of your tour commencement date, to include any pre-tour accommodation, no refund is applicable
- TRAVEL INSURANCE IS STRONGLY RECOMMENDED – Trendsetter can assist in organising if required
OTHER GENERAL
- Golf will be played on the courses as specified but Trendsetter cannot be held responsible for any cancellation/s necessitated by a change to Tauck’s itinerary due to weather or any other event, or late amendment by the golf course.
- Similarly, if Trendsetter considers it in the best interests of the tour as a whole to make a change to one or more of the specified golf courses (e.g. due to course maintenance issues or lack of motorised carts or a better, previously unavailable course now being available) the change will be made without referring that decision to guests already booked.
- In the event of a cancellation and where Trendsetter cannot organise an alternative golf course, it will pass through any refund/s available.
Contact Trendsetter Travel Golf Tours Ltd (www.trendsettertravel.com.au) for further information on this tour by phone +61 2 9428 5900 (Longueville/Northwood office) or email david@trendsettertravel.com.au or Mob + 61 (0) 413 010 638.
