American Cruise Lines - Day 9 - Beaufort, S.C. (Part 4)

When I see potato soup I think of a nice creamy soup that warms your insides. This Loaded Potato Soup appetizer though seemed to have everything but the potato.

Pot roast with whipped mashed potatoes, peas, and carrots. The pot roast was good and tender but I would have preferred that my meat portion be at least as big as these carrots. A big hello to our other new friends Jack and "Mama" Libbie who we enjoyed chatting and dining with many days. I jokingly called Libbie "Mom" when she chastised me for only eating a few bites from these carrots tonight. Don't worry Mom, I ate healthy when it came to dessert tonight. There was milk in the ice cream so it counts right? Here's hoping you haven't lost anymore hearing aids in your popcorn!

Tonight's evening entertainment was a little break from the usual singing acts with an interactive presentation by a local Gullah culture re-enactor named Evelene Stevenson. This is the woman who served as the guide on the morning tour and I heard from a lot of passengers that she left them with a story cliffhanger that she promised to complete during the evening presentation. Fear not, it was recapped for those of us who didn't go on the morning tour.

But first, ice cream sundaes and popcorn. I finally decided to try the popcorn and was surprised to find the bags only about 1/8th full. However, I'd had my fill before ever finishing the bag so maybe there's some thought to the strict rationing.

The presentation was a good mix of storytelling, history, songs, and involvement by the audience though several felt that it ran a little too long. It certainly was the longest nightly entertainment we'd had thus far. I decided to volunteer with a handful of other women to use her colorful fans to demonstrate how Gullah woman would use the fans to signal to the men at parties. That included a much more sinister movement directed at the other women who might be waving their fans at your intended suitor. 

Evelene next tried to use the women who volunteered to serve as group dance demonstrators encouraging the respective husbands to join them. 

Having no such husband to entice, I quickly bowed out and two solo cruisers stepped up in my place to be the final couple. After all, someone had to capture the moment on video:

Once back in our cabin for the night, we discovered the latest Eagle Society special gift, a wooden picture frame with a photo of the Independence. Ours was engraved with the start date of the first week's cruise and it made me wonder whether the people only on this second week's cruise got one and if it still said the same date. Still a very nice photo and frame and I now have it displayed on our coffee table.

American Cruise Lines - Day 9 - Beaufort S.C. (Part 3)

In the words of Frank Sinatra, "Love and Marriage, they go together like a horse and carriage" it was finally time for our turn at the carriage ride.

Ali had us all gather together just off the ship so she could escort us back up to the top parking lot and hand us over to the carriage operators. We had one couple from the ship that never showed and a couple that booked on their own as visitors to the city but it was easy to spread out and if you wanted it, to have rows for each couple. We lucked out with continued beautiful weather with only a need for a light jacket so the open carriage setup was fine. 

To get up into the carriage, they rolled over a set of stairs that had a railing on the opposite side and nestled up against the carriage on the other side. The carriage driver would line up the stairs with one row and let those people board, then move to the next row and so forth until we were all seated. 

We learned about how all the horses this company uses are treated well and how our particular horse Maximus seemed to only bond with our driver Charlotte so now she's the only one who drives with him. The tour goes at a slow pace and is a gentle ride on paved roads so there's no issues being jostled around or motion sickness. It was cute to watch how trained Maximus was to stop at stop signs and red lights only to get anxious to start walking again. Charlotte would tell him that it wasn't time yet to proceed only for him to move up just enough to trigger the light to change. She told us he's figured out how to trip the lights now. Charlotte was a great storyteller covering everything from war history to movie sets to local lore. She kept you engaged and interested the whole ride. At one point Max decided to relieve himself and she cheered because he made it totally in the collection bag hanging behind them. She told us that whenever they don't make it in the bag, she has to call her boss to come clean it up. Charlotte joked that she's had to call so much that her boss just answers the phone with "What street?"

Beaufort's version of the neighborhood watch:

An example of the two sided staircase common in the south to enter a home. One side was for the men and one side was for the ladies. The ladies would have to lift their skirts or dresses to climb the stairs and the opposite sides prevented the men from seeing the ladies' ankles, as such a viewing would mean you had to marry her. 

We learned about the Spanish moss that is so prevalent in the area. It was first used as filling to stuff blankets, mattresses, and clothing until they realized that little bugs like to make their nests in the moss and would reward the user with rashes and bug bites.

It turns out that being the last ride of the day worked out well scenery wise because the sun was just starting to set as we made our way back to the ship. 

We followed the reverse process to use the stairs to get off the carriage and were welcomed to take pictures and pet Maximus as the owner rewarded him with a bucket of dinner.

I learned the hard way though that if you want to come up and pet a horse that's just been enjoying his snack from a bucket placed under his nose, don't leave your camera hanging from your neck at the same distance from his nose. While I'm looking him in the eye, petting his face, and thanking him for the ride, he tried to have dessert in the form of my camera lens! Thankfully I had put the lens cap back on just after snapping the above photo so it only meant spending the next 10 minutes wiping crumbs and horse slobber off the outside where I adjust the zoom level. I guess he didn't care for all the shots I got of him from behind. :)

This afternoon was also this week's Eagle Society members only cocktail party and we figured we'd miss it totally due to our assigned tour slot. Once back on board, they still had some of the food left and we helped ourselves to some sodas and water as I worked to clean off my lens. Dad was happy to see that they'd served eclairs in addition to a prosciutto and melon platter. 

There was a bin of hats by the drink table but Dad decided he didn't want one for himself. Another gentleman asked to have one but gave up when the housekeeping manager asked if he was an Eagle Society member. They had given out more wooden cheese boards so Dad grabbed a couple more of them. The housekeeping manager saw us take our drinks and snacks over to a couch and rushed over with small bowls of crunchy party mix, a touch I've never seen them offer even at cocktail hour. It was nice to see her recognize us even though the party had winded down.

American Cruise Lines - Day 9 - Beaufort S.C. (Part 2)

For continuity's sake, here's what those who stayed onboard for lunch got to partake:

You might expect to hear we dined on local seafood or southern staples like okra and gumbo as we had lunch in town but that's not the case when you travel with Mr. Picky Eater. In reality, we needed a break from fine dining style meals and headed to Hearth Wood Fired Pizza and Eatery. It was a cute little place with great service and we managed to swoop in before the lunch rush.

Here's the menu for your salivating pleasure and to get an idea of the pricing:

I finally redeemed the situation from our Pride of America cruise and found mozzarella sticks on a cruise! Okay it was in a local restaurant on land but we got there via a cruise so that counts right? Nice ratio of breading to gooey cheesy goodness.

For the main course we split a pizza known as "The Meat" topped with pepperoni, bacon lardons, house fennel sausage, and meatballs. Great cheese to meat ratio so it tasted more like the combo was meant to go together all along. 

By the time we returned to the ship, the tide had gone out. Our original exit/entry on the 1st deck was now a couple feet below the dock so we had to climb in via the second deck lounge. I rushed downstairs to deck 1 and was able to snap this picture before the crew shut the door.

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.

American Cruise Lines - Day 5 - Beaufort, N.C. (Part 2)

While I could have attended today's art class with a theme of making gift tags at 2PM because we chose not to go on our tour, I opted not to in favor of relaxing in the cabin. Today was also the first time Ali started including "Movies in your cabin" on the schedule because she would set up the ACL themed TV channel to show certain movies. Today's feature was the 1955 movie "To Catch A Thief" starring Grace Kelly and Cary (or Gary as Ali wrote) Grant. I did notice another day that the movie on the schedule was still playing on that channel later in the evening so I'm guessing once it's put in the system, it just runs on a loop. Despite always being close to shore, our cabin TV would pick up New York based local stations. Threw us a couple times to be half listening to the TV and hear them say it snowed today when we're looking out the window at cold but sunny skies. We soon learned that shows like Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy air at the same time in NY as here at home but on ABC so we'd end up watching them between dinner and evening plans. Even though we'd randomly lose signal to several national channels during the trip, we watched a lot of crime drama and Friends reruns since TBS, TNT, and USA Network were the easiest to find something to watch on throughout the day. A few times we ended up watching shows live on the broadcast networks that we'd set to record at home in the evenings because we were already back in our cabins with nothing else to do.

While we didn't think much of needing sunscreen, the further south we sailed, the more bugs we noticed. At times stepping out onto our balcony was like trying to play a life size game of Frogger except the cars you were trying to avoid were gnats and mosquitos. Several times I'd step out to get some air or grab a photo only to jump back in when the bugs would try to come inside the room. I did hear one of the stewards talking about using a vacuum to try and get rid of the bugs on another cruiser's balcony after they'd asked if something could be done. Thankfully a couple ports later, the bug population seemed to go back into hibernation or the crew found a remedy to make our balconies usable again.

Dad headed down to hear Rachel's talk in the Chesapeake Lounge on The Late Great Lord Proprietors while I stayed in the cabin. As I started getting ready for the Cocktail Hour and dinner, I noticed a great looking sunset out the window. It was the perfect moment to capture as the sun disappeared behind the cliffside as fast as I was snapping photos.

Plenty of artichoke left over when it was time to prepare snacks for cocktail hour:

It's always good for a chuckle when I see a cruise menu item listed as Maryland Crab Cakes. It's a fancy nicer way of saying from frozen patties. I must say though seeing Maryland Walnut Cake on tonight's dessert choices was a first. Though the mention of "Apple-woo" bacon in the Organic Spinach Salad sounded intriguing. Yes, I'm that nerd that delights in finding typos in books. 

The Lobster Cake appetizer with Mixed Greens, Saffron Mayo, and Roasted Red Peppers:

How could I resist a Crab Stuffed Beef Tenderloin:

Reminded me of a Beef Wellington where instead of pastry it was the tenderloin encasing the crab. 

Dad decided to try the Maryland Walnut Cake for dessert but said he couldn't tell there had been any walnuts in it. I pointed out the tiny chopped up walnut pieces that had been sprinkled on the top for garnish.

I normally love cheesecake but am not a big fan of apple or caramel and mentioned that to Andre, our waiter tonight. He offered to get me a plain cheesecake and I thought that sounded delightful. He started rattling off other toppings he could add instead and begged me to let him play around because he loved decorating desserts. I told him no nuts or berries and he brought me out this beautiful personalized plate of plain cheesecake with chocolate drizzle:

It was perfect and delicious and my tablemates were impressed that Andre had brought out a special cheesecake just for me. One of them did order the regular caramel apple cheesecake and it turned out to be a piece of plain cheesecake that they'd added a couple slices of cooked apple on top with a drizzle of caramel sauce for decoration. Lifting off the apple topping would have given me a plain cheesecake anyway but the gesture was much appreciated. 

Tonight was another performance by Tim Sells but this time the theme was "Music Through the Ages." He joked about overlapping with some of Robert and Stephanie's song choices and encouraged couples to get up and dance.

Feel free to comment below if you spot yourself in these dancing photos or if you're in the cruise protection program and need your photo removed:

Back in the cabin for the night we discovered a new Eagle Society themed present of one hat. A while back I noticed that I was accruing a collection of cruise line branded baseball caps mostly because they were trivia prizes or for participating in an onboard activity so it was cool to still get one from ACL. We noticed at the next week's Eagle Society cocktail party that they had a bin with tons of extra hats so if we really wanted a second one, it was there for the asking. One gentleman who'd come in for the regular cocktail party right afterwards asked about being able to take a hat from the bin. By then we had a more hands on housekeeping manager on board and when she asked if he was an Eagle Society member, he dropped the hat like a hot potato and left. If he'd have pressed the issue, I have no doubt she would have let him take one.