We have one full day to spend in Halifax. We arrive late one night and travel to PEI 2 days later. Since our flight arrives late in the evening, we will probably spend 2 nights in a hotel near the airport. Do any tour companies pick up at the airport hotels? We will have a rental car, but we know we can see more with a tour. Would the city of Halifax and Peggy's Cove be too much for one day?

We will return to Halifax to fly out via Digby. How many days would we need to see Grand Pre and Annapolis Royal along the way? The options for the ferry (from Saint John) have us arriving at Digby at 2 in the morning or 5:30 in the afternoon. If we arrive at 5:30 in the afternoon, that would just give us one evening and one full day to tour on our way to Halifax. Is that enough?

You would have to contact the tour companies to find out if they pick up at airport hotels. If they do not, you could get the airport bus to a downtown hotel for tour pickup. You could do a morning sightseeing tour of Halifax and an afternoon trip to Peggy's Cove. I have not checked tour operators for tour departure times, though. Annapolis Royal is an interesting and historic town and approximately 2 hours from Grand Pre. I think an hour would be enough in Grand Pre.

First, if you have a rented car, your best bet is to do your own tour. Depending on how late you arrive, you could do the first night downtown Halifax. Spend the nezt day touring via foot. Do the Harbour Hopper to see the downtown core and learn some of the history of the city. Next day you could travel to Pictou and spend the night. Then take the ferry to PEI or you could travel toward Amherst on the Sunrise trail and take the bridge. If coming back through Digby, I assume you will travel to Hopewell Rocks, etc.

We don't get into Halifax until midnight on a Wednesday night. We are scheduled to meet friends in PEI on Friday. We will leave our friends in Saint John. The plan is to stay only one night in Saint John. We will arrive in Saint John on a Wednesday traveling from Miramichi. I am hoping that we can see Hopewell Rocks on the way into Saint John. Our friends will depart Saint John late the Thursday afternoon. We can either leave them and take the 12:30 ferry to Digby, or spend another night in Saint John and travel to Digby on the Friday. If we leave on Friday, we get to Digby at 5:30 in the afternoon. We could spend the night at Annapolis Royal, tour Annapolis Royal and Grand Pre enroute to Halifax. We will spend Saturday night in Halifax for and early morning flight on Sunday. I wish that we wouldn't need to make reservations for the ferry ahead of time.

(sigh) Why must 'time' have to be an issue for most of us, in Nova Scotia?

(rhetorical)

Even though I appreciate your late arrival leading you to want to stay near the airport, if it was me I would consider staying downtown Halifax, for the extra roughly half-hour drive (I believe). This would allow you to enjoy Halifax on foot late into the evening on the following day if you want, after a day-trip down the Lighthouse Route. Peggy's Cove is very scenic, but there's not much there in the way of activities, it's tiny. You might want to include as part of your day-trip a couple of hours - maybe a lunch - in Lunenburg (a UNESCO World Heritage Site), which offers more to see and do. Then head back to Halifax in the afternoon, visit the Citadel then spend the evening in and around Halifax Harbour, walking the boardwalk, browsing shops at the Historic Properties, dinner at a pub or harbourside restaurant, etc.

It's been a number of years since I visited Annapolis Royal, but I remember it as a very small village, quaint, but can be explored in a day or less. I did not visit Grand Pre but my instinct is that your one evening plus one full day for both of these would be enough.