The tour is called Historic Beaufort Exploration and uses a 1967 English double-decker bus with local narration covering tales of Beaufort's rich past of pirates, star-crossed lovers, and Confederate spies. Following the excursion, there will be visits to the Josiah Bell House, the Apothecary, and the Old Courthouse. It is unfortunately due to the transportation, not wheelchair or scooter accessible. It is a level 1 in activity, 2 hours long, cameras permitted, and restrooms available.
We signed up for the 2PM tour time so we gave ourselves plenty of time to get up and get down to breakfast. There was an earlier breakfast time of 7AM to 9AM for those on the early tour. This morning is when I first started noticing how ingredients from the previous evening's dishes would show up as the "Feature of the Day" at breakfast. Remember last night's blue cheese crusted steak? Meet today's Steak and Eggs!
It literally looked like they merely cut those leftover steaks in half (or even 1/3rds as what we got looked more like what one might have left behind after deciding they were full) and stuck them on a plate with fried eggs. I must commend them on giving me the over medium style of fried eggs that I prefer without having to explain how to make them. It was years of trying to describe this where the yolk is cooked until solid to waiters until one Princess waiter says "Oh you mean over medium?" Total light bulb moment! Wait, you mean this style had a name that I could have been using all this time? Thank you sir! The Bernaise sauce on the steak was great. I wish it had been on last night's steak or even the potato. The one drawback (aside from those breakfast potatoes always being badly cooked and bad tasting) is that my already small piece of steak had 1/3rd of its contents as fat/gristle.
On the buffet style table today they had two new additions, smoked salmon and caramelized bananas. Normally Dad loves the slices of cold smoked salmon with cream cheese on a bagel but this is the first time we'd ever seen it offered like this:
I'm guessing it's just me that saw this setup and wasn't sure whether or not we were supposed to take the whole dish or scoop some out onto our plates:
As we were finishing up breakfast, Ali makes an announcement over the intercom that there would be a shuttle service into town this morning. Huh what? Wasn't she just insisting last night that there would be no such shuttle service today? No hey I'll look into that or yeah that would have been good to offer, a straight out refusal. Unfortunately she didn't give much clear information in her announcement this morning either about where and when to pick up said shuttle. We headed back to the cabin to grab the camera and our jackets before heading off the ship. The ship was docked behind a shipyard/construction company so it was a bit of a maze figuring out how to get up to street level. Then we stood there at first all alone waiting and wondering if a shuttle was coming soon or were we even at the right place? Soon our cabin neighbors joined us and we both stood there looking confused. Finally a white passenger van pulls over and we pile in. The downtown area that we'd been told by Ali was 30-40 minutes away, our driver says no just about 10 minutes from here. Dad asked him when he'd been told about having to drive the shuttle and he said they called him at 8AM this morning. Not only was this a last minute arrangement but our driver was the double decker bus driver hired for the tours today. He had to get to the dock with the bus, take those passengers and guide into downtown, park the bus while they got off to explore, retrieve the shuttle van and make these runs. He had to stop shuttle service at 12PM so he could make it back in time to pick up the bus at the end of their tour!
After looking at the first couple shop windows together, the four of us went different ways to browse the shops. Dad had realized that he'd rather have his preferred brand of eye drops so we wanted to find a pharmacy or grocery store. After browsing a couple streets worth of antique shops, I tried to use Google Maps on my phone to find the nearest store for us. Maps showed that a pharmacy was about 1.5 miles up the road so Dad said that was close enough to walk. About 4 blocks in he changes his mind and instead we resort to randomly wandering (aka "I'm a man so we should follow my directions on how to get back to the shuttle"). I didn't expect to find 10 Diamonds International and Del Sol shops in these ports but I didn't realize how hard it would be to find a nearby drugstore! Getting frustrated at the situation and each other, I insisted on trying to make it to the nearest grocery store that came up in my Google Maps search. Turns out this "grocery store" was more of a gas station mini mart/bodega mash up. No eye drops but you can get sodas and shoes in neighboring aisles. By now we were just happy to find a place to get a cold drink and picked up a couple soda bottles. Dad also picked up a couple candy bars because that's his answer to any ailment and ate the first one on the walk back to the shuttle pick up spot.
As we walked, we passed by where the double decker bus was parked and watched the morning tour cruisers walking back and forth between these couple blocks. Guest speaker Rachel was on this tour and she explained to us when we passed on the street that the tour was merely parking here in the downtown area and having the passengers wander amongst the historic buildings.
By now we were both thinking how unappealing having to turn around and come back out here for an afternoon tour was. That thought was even more solidified when we spotted the shuttle driver coming down the street and waved him over. This time the van was almost full with people who'd been on that morning tour and chose to bail. We rode about another block before the driver pulled over to pick up another couple that turned out to be Phiz and Tony completely filling our van. They'd spent the morning exploring the local architecture on their own. It was sweet to chat with Phiz on the way back as she was fascinated by all the different materials used to build houses here. According to her, all the buildings back in Australia are only made of brick.
Once back at the ship, we ran into Ali in the hallway so we stopped to tell her that we'd changed our minds about taking the afternoon tour. Dad felt compelled to explain that it was because we'd run into the morning tour group who didn't like their tour. Ali was somewhat sympathetic to hear this report and of course didn't care that we were canceling. Now if only that stopped her from still trying to charge us for the tour anyway at the end of the week, it wouldn't have been an issue.
Unfortunately, the frustration of the day grew even more when Dad developed a large blister on his foot from the walking. For the next several ports, our quest went from trying to find eye drops to trying to find eye drops and large Band-Aids since our standard travel first aid kit only had regular sized Band-Aids. There were times where I was so close to just using my phone to order from Amazon Prime Now and seeing if they'd come to the ship. Now you might be thinking "why not just call a taxi or Uber to take you to the nearest drugstore?" For some reason, that wasn't an option as Dad was sure there'd be someplace near the ship.
Once we relaxed for a bit, we headed down to the dining salon for lunch.
I was pleasantly surprised to find today that repeated a few times throughout the cruise - Old Bay seasoning on rolls. It was just enough to get the taste without the burn of eating a whole snack bag of crab chips. That's not to say I haven't gladly enjoyed many bags of crab chips over the years but it's an acquired taste sensation.
Here is where I took advantage of requesting differences to the menu. I was really curious to try the BBQ Pulled Pork Grilled Cheese Sandwich but also was interested in the Spaghetti and Meat Balls. To make sure I had the appetite for both, I asked for just the sandwich itself and then have the spaghetti as well. That threw Kevin a little bit as he just kept confirming that I want only the sandwich. Sure enough, that's what he brought out, a single plate with just the sandwich. I must say though, it was a great sandwich! A tablemate got the whole dish and I think I would have been fine as well since the tomato soup barely filled a ramekin sized bowl.
Dad had gotten the spaghetti and meatballs so once I confirmed with him that the meatballs were indeed only beef, I asked Kevin to bring me a plate of that as well. The noodles were good but you could tell that the meatballs were the kind you can buy frozen from the grocery store. Still tasty though.
Dad chose the peach cobbler dish from the dessert menu and while he thought it tasted okay but clearly looked like canned peaches in syrup, a couple other cruisers later lamented that it tasted like something was wrong with the peaches in taste and consistency.
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