American Cruise Lines - Day 12 - Sea day?

With ports so relatively close together and only venturing out into open water when weather or traffic issues deem necessary, I didn't ever expect to see a sea day in our itinerary. On a side note - I've been on ships that have gone around the edge of storms and sailed through storms where the only people who can walk in a straight line are the drunk passengers. The only time I've been bothered by the extra motion was on a small whale watching boat in Bar Harbor as the weather was super foggy. I don't know if it's a difference between not feeling it as much on the bigger ships or the fact that my body had gotten used to the calm waters but when we had to go out on open ocean these couple times it was above and beyond rocky. Drawers would slide open and closed, our beds would rock back and forth and at one point I reached out to open the bathroom door and it flew out of my hand and into the main cabin door. I had to sit up a couple times in the chair until I felt settled enough to be lying down in the bed again. Even if you're not prone to motion sickness, bring something for it if you go on this type of small ship!

Since we were technically in port at Savannah through 6AM this morning, it would take until 10PM tonight to reach our next step of Brunswick, GA. Depending on which provided itinerary you consult, Brunswick is also listed as Jekyll Island or St. Simons Island, GA. To her credit, Ali did add a couple extra things to today's schedule since we were all a captive audience.

You've heard of dinner and a show, well today it was breakfast and a show. But first, le menu:

Steak last night becomes Tenderloin Mignonette of Beef with Scrambled Eggs and Lobster Scampi this morning:

For the show - diners started to notice that we had slowed down considerably and soon a bridge could be seen outside the many windows lining the dining salon. Rachel ran out of the room to use the intercom alerting everyone that this was a bridge they'd been working on for ages and she was so shocked to see that we were allowed to pass under it. As we passed you could see the work crew standing off to the sides like they had paused just for us.

After breakfast I decided to check out today's "Ali's Acrylic Art" session and found a decent sized group already enjoying the fun. Another new friend I'd gotten to know during a previous tour soon joined me and we had the second table to ourselves for a while. Ali's instructions were simply to paint something we saw on our trip thus far so I created a painting of the Hilton Head lighthouse and a dolphin playing in the water. It was quite therapeutic and I found myself still sitting there painting even after everyone else had left. Ali did spend a little time chatting with us about our pictures but she was a lot more laid back of an art teacher than the previous week. 

By now, the rest of the lounge was being used for Rachel's latest lecture so I had the back tables to myself. Ali instructed us all to leave our pictures sitting on the back bookshelf so she could do an art show herself at the end of the cruise. Never saw an art show mentioned again so I'm pretty sure my priceless work of art is currently in the dump somewhere. At least I had the foresight to take a picture of my picture before I left it.

Next on the schedule was well lunch as nothing else was planned until 1:45PM. Be prepared to really entertain yourself on a cruise like this.

It's the return of the great appetizer, it's mixed, it's green, and it's salad!

And the unique presentation of Meatloaf with a Tangy Tomato Sauce with Sautéed Peas and Smashed Roasted Fingerling Potatoes. Apparently the smashing part comes when you stack the meatloaf slice on top of the potato. We got a good laugh when Rachel pointed out I must have won the sautéed pea lottery compared to the small amount everyone else got.

And thanks to Hotel Director Cheree borrowing Rachel's car during our extended day in Savannah to go grocery shopping, we now once again have vanilla ice cream!

Rather than a movie broadcast on the ACL channel on our cabin TV today, Ali scheduled "Gone with the Wind" to be put on the larger TV in the back of the Chesapeake Lounge starting at 1:45PM for cruisers to watch together. Popcorn and a Bloody Mary Bar was offered for movie time. I'd say it was a pretty popular thing to offer as about 1/3rd of the ship chose to gather to watch. I did randomly find it playing on the cabin TV later this evening so I guess by putting it on anywhere, it goes everywhere on their network? Or perhaps they chose to then put it on the cabin TVs after playing it in the lounge. The concept of showing a movie, especially one set in the area we're visiting, was a good idea. Not a good idea was picking a movie that you didn't double check the run time on. Ali dedicated 2 hours and 30 minutes on the schedule for the movie and then scheduled a Blackjack game to be held also in the back of the lounge 30 minutes later at 4:45PM to be concluded by the start of cocktail hour at 5:30PM. We headed down to the lounge around 4PM figuring we'd sit and hang out until the start of Blackjack. Instead, we ended up alternating between watching the last 90 minutes of Gone with the Wind and watching Ali keep coming back and forth down the hall to see if the movie was done yet. The rest of the chairs soon filled up with everyone coming in for the cocktail hour also watching the end of the movie. Alas, our Blackjack plans ended up...you guessed it...Gone with the Wind.

What happens when you have a lot of leftover lobster meat? You throw some on steak for breakfast and throw some on lettuce for dinner and call it a salad. The crostini is the tiny piece of toasted bread hidden under the lemon on steroids.

And what cruise in the fall doesn't feature a Thanksgiving inspired entrée? Meet the Roast Turkey with stuffing, mashed potatoes, green beans and cranberry relish:

I can't recall if I asked to omit the cranberry relish or it just never came. And for dessert I found something other than ice cream to try, the Flourless Chocolate Torte. Reminded me more of a chocolate mousse cake but still tasty.

Tonight Ali changed it up and instead of having a booked act to perform, she used a speaker and her phone to host her own version of "The Singing Bee." The premise was sort of like name that tune except instead of guessing the title and/or artist, she'd play part of a song and then you'd have to guess the next line of the song. Ali came in to do her usual overview of the next day's events and then announced "We're going to do a little something different tonight. There's no formal entertainment..." Before she could explain that she was going to run the game, a lot of people took that to mean no scheduled activity at all and left. Around 20 or so people stayed and I was really excited to see a fun game like I'm used to on the big ships. Ali split us up into groups by where we had chosen to sit. Then it was revealed that her list of songs for the game would all be from the 1920s through the 1960s. Okay, I know this is an older crowd but... Though to her credit, she was singing and dancing along to these songs as they played so that could have been her regular playlist. A good bit of the songs, unless they were standards anyone would know, fell flat with barely anyone guessing at the lyric. After a while people started calling out certain artists and later decades to request but I don't think we ever got past 1970. Regardless, everyone had loads of fun dancing, singing along, and teasing the other groups about the score tally. Personally, I think it was the best entertainment option we'd had all cruise.