I did end up doing my own in-city walking. Unfortunately, the weather during my visit was miserable (downpours and strong winds) so my walking excursions were in short spurts, except for my last day.

For my first day I had pre-booked a bus tour with Vieux Quebec tours (aka, Dupont Tours) and it was the worst tour experience of my life. I'm not the only one who thought so. We were a large group, mixed independent tourists with cruise ship passengers on a day tour, and many of us were herded on and off several buses as our names were on the "wrong" lists. It was chaos, and while the bad weather wasn't of course the tours' fault, the fact that 75-100 people were standing in the rain and wind while the bus drivers argued and shouted at each other, did not bode well for the trip. I was finally allowed to settle in on my third bus; for the couple next to me, it was the fourth bus they'd been told to board. It got worse from there. Due to the confusion, the buses left at least 35 minutes late, so that the rest of our day was already off schedule and rushed. To make it worse, my bus driver got lost (seriously!) on the Beaupre coast, and after driving for 30 aimless minutes, we ended up helping him back up on a one-way narrow residential street. As a result, there was very little time at Montmorency Falls and even less time at St Anne de Beaupre shrine, which many passengers were especially looking forward to. I'd been waiting all day for our visit to Ile d'Orleans, and it turned out to be exactly 10 minutes, and it was so late, that it was already dark outside so we could see nothing. Despite the lost time, we did not skip a useless stop at a copper factory (for urged purchases) nor a stop at a maple products store (expensive, but at least purchases were made).

Returned to Quebec City 90 minutes late. The cruise passengers were grumbling about having missed their dinner on the ships, and I was grumbling to myself on any number of topics. Aside from accurate passenger lists, passengers should have been grouped according to being from ships or not, so that they all could have returned earlier if they'd wanted to, and for sure, they all could have been dropped off at one ship instead of all of us sitting through more drop off stops on the return. I wrote an email of complaint to the company, in detailed but appropriate language, and did not receive a reply.

Now, all of that said, on my last day, the sun was shining, and I bit the bullet and booked again with Vieux Quebec, for what they call a "shuttle tour" to Montmorency Falls. Left central Quebec (pick ups at various hotels), drove the 15 minutes to the falls, had a leisurely full 90 minutes there (time for a cable car ride to the top, a walk to the suspension bridge, plenty of photos, and even time for optional refreshments), and then the short walk back to Quebec. All went smoothly and pleasantly. THAT tour, I recommend.