Not sold on Velvia

So this weekend I went to various places in San Francisco and shot some pictures using Fuji Velvia 100F. Got the results back yesterday and today, and I'm not really that impressed. I can't say that it's significantly better different from Provia, at least in the shots that I took (mostly landscape photos, with some sunsets). The colors looks good, certainly, well-saturated, a little bit of a blue cast when underexposed in shadows (to be expected), tight grain, tons of resolution under an 8x loupe. But it seems like Provia 100F actually has *higher* contrast, whereas everywhere I had read that Velvia is the higher contrast film. This showed up when I scanned in the slides and under Photoshop's Levels there was frequently very little information at the white end of the spectrum. Plus I didn't get any super-saturated colors, which is the point of using Velvia, right? Maybe I got a bad batch of Velvia? Not sure. At this point I'm content to stick with Provia 100F for most of my tasks, although right now Adorama as Velvia 100F on sale for the same price as Provia 100F, so I'll probably pick up a few rolls to try again at a later date.