American Cruise Lines - Day 9 - Beaufort S.C. (Part 1)

Feeling a bit of deja vu seeing the name Beaufort in the title of this post? No, we didn't retrace our steps. Today we visit South Carolina's tribute to the same person, only this time it's pronounced "Bu-fert" like Beautiful.

Today's excursion choices were both paid options but one took up most of your morning while the other didn't start until 2PM so you could do both if you so desired. This was also a unique list of excursions in that it was the first time we'd been offered an excursion that had to be done in shifts due to a capacity limit. Ali would arrange who was scheduled in what time frame and post the schedule on the bulletin board outside the dining salon. You were responsible for going down there to see what time slot you'd been given.

The morning excursion was your basic city tour bus ride called the Lowcountry Heritage Experience. It ran from 9AM to 12PM and cost $50 per person. This tour is wheelchair and scooter accessible, a level 1 in activity, cameras permitted, and restrooms available. This tour is described as a "Back in Time Tour" with guides in period dress who tell stories and sing songs. Visit the Gullah communities and learn about the life of southern planters and their slaves. You also visit Lady's Island and St. Helena to see the grounds of a plantation, slave cemetery, and an old praise house. Learn about the history of Penn Center, the first school for newly freed slaves and discover what happened to the former slave communities.

If you didn't want to do the long bus tour, guest speaker Rachel was offering a casual walk at 9:30AM to look at Antebellum homes and do some shopping. This option was of course free and a last minute addition to the schedule. Those who chose to go on the walk later described it as more of a walk into the wooded areas and neighborhoods versus the rows of small shops that were just a short stroll from the dock.

The afternoon option was for a Horse Drawn Carriage Ride that cost $30 per person. The cart could in theory hold 4 people per row and about 4-5 rows but unless you all were tiny, it would be cramped. We were concerned when Ali had scheduled so many people in our same time slot but Rachel assured us the rows were wide. It was reassuring to hear that since I was picturing the horse drawn carriages you see people taking for romantic dates. I'll chat, dine, and put together a puzzle with you but I don't want to get that up close and personal with my fellow cruisers.

We had been assigned into the group that was the last run around 4PM. I got a good chuckle out of seeing us suddenly listed as Mr. & Mrs. I know it's a tiny town in the south but I don't recall marrying my father overnight. This option is NOT wheelchair or scooter accessible and you had to be able to climb a stair platform (about 5 steps) and step up onto the carriage. There was plenty of help there if you only needed a little extra stability and there was railings on both the stair platform and the carriage to hold onto during the transfer. The ride is narrated by a guide as they operate the cart and each session ran for 45 minutes.

But first for us of course was breakfast!

I finally got to fulfill my tradition of trying each ship's egg benedict option and ordered the Lobster Benedict this morning. Lobster was a little cold so it seemed out of place with warm eggs and the toasted English muffin. Also, to continue the updates on items they run out of; vanilla ice cream was absent from the first day of the new week, there was no English muffins for a couple days, and one morning Dad had tried to order his bagel and they had none. I suppose if you think about it as chocolate was out so everyone went for vanilla and chocolate syrup instead which depleted the vanilla plus when English muffins ran out, everyone switched to bagels.

Now that we didn't have the stress of trying to find the nearest grocery store or pharmacy, we chose to head out after breakfast and browse the shops. This was the first port that there was a good mix of regular shops and souvenir shops right by the port so it was nice to just wander. Only drawback was that we were out there about 30-40 minutes before most of the shops opened for the day. Since it is Sunday, some of the shops didn't even open until late morning or the afternoon. We ended up walking down one side checking out all the options and then back up the other side of the street before settling on a bench to kill time people watching.

One of the benches we rested on turned out to be just outside where a movie production crew had taken over a building to use as their temporary headquarters. In the future if you're watching a movie called Stars Fell on Alabama, I hope you'll think back fondly on my little blog and also on why they were trying to pass off Beaufort, SC as a town in Alabama.

After a while, Dad got bored and headed back to the ship. I chose to stick around and do some shopping without a shadow.

For my fellow Harry Potter fans, there was a store called 9 3/4. They didn't open until 11AM today but I loved their "closed" sign. I came by later when they had opened and their "open" sign said "open and still awesome." The store had some Harry Potter merchandise but was also like the old Spencer's Gifts store with comic book character memorabilia and pop culture themed shirts and toys.

Thought this store sign was cute:

In addition to the several shops with outdoor seating having doggie water bowls, I also spotted this little sharing library:

A quick visit to a store called Carolina Me Crazy earned the main prize I was seeking, another wooden magnet. I love that it includes the town name, a cute turtle with my favorite color background, and a little factoid about the area. Plus the tiny anchors on the sides made it seem like this magnet was meant to be my next cruise souvenir. 

And award for the most original use of a closed sign for your store window goes to Cook on Bay:

The ship was docked by a quaint area dubbed the Henry C. Chambers Waterfront Park. In addition to the shops, there was a playground, a café with outdoor seating, a dock to fish from, and lots of wooden swings where you could relax in the shade while watching the water.

The view from one of the little side streets full of shops that empties out into the waterfront park:

It was a nice way to spend the morning without having to stray too far from the ship:

Our balcony looked onto these wooden swings lining the waterfront so it was nice to watch all the people who came down to sit on the swings and gawk at our ship.

The light brown squares in the walkway had seashells inlaid within the concrete when it was poured. After I noticed it, I enjoyed sitting on one of these benches watching other people suddenly notice it too.

One of the other things my vantage point afforded me was the opportunity to catch the drawbridge in action. I had looked up and wondered why all of the cars seemed stopped so far back at the start of the bridge. As I watched, the center section of the bridge completely separated and slowly turned sideways to let a boat pass through on the water.

I enjoyed the quiet serene nature of this little port and kept wandering the shops over and over to delay having to go back on board. I picked up a chocolate bar sample in a homemade candy and ice cream shop and chatted with a teenage employee of a nostalgic candy store about how this was making me relive my childhood. Don't worry dentists of America, I didn't buy anymore candy here. I eventually reunited back with Dad onboard where he swiped my chocolate bar sample and we decided to find lunch in town.