A sea day on a river cruise?

Ever thought you'd see a sea day on a river cruise? The travel time it took for us to go from The Dalles to our next actual port of Richland, WA, required spending from 8AM until 12 midnight traveling through a long series of locks. It was nice to see that CD Rhiannon had planned ahead offering more than the usual activities since everyone would be remaining on board today.

Those who were feeling peppy this morning could join Rhiannon in the Sky Lounge at 8:30AM for a Sailaway & Rock the Lock Party. Dad and I chose to take advantage of the slower schedule and dine in the restaurant for breakfast. 

Checked out the view of our first lock as we finished getting ready in our cabin.

We joined a table already halfway full but had already met some of the passengers working together on a puzzle for most of the voyage. 

Apparently I wasn't too awake this morning because I neglected to take pictures of our food. I ordered the French Toast and sausage with a cup of fruit on the side. It tasted good but I would have preferred to pour my own syrup as the plate was swimming in this overly sweet maple syrup. Dad went with a standard cheese omelette and bacon.

After breakfast, I stepped outside to watch our ship maneuver more of the locks.

The rest of the morning was devoted to a Veterans Appreciation Ceremony and Doug's next presentation covering the history of The Astorians. 

We opted not to try lunch in the restaurant but here's the menu:

Instead I grabbed a quick pepperoni (this time not invisible) pizza from the cafe.

A real literal treat came after lunch with the next Rhiannon planned event of an ice cream social. Of course it was conveniently combined with the Hotel Officers being around ready to help you book that next cruise. Vanilla ice cream and a rainbow sherbert were offered scooped out by Rhiannon and her team while you had the ability to add your own toppings. There was a good variety of toppings ranging from chopped nuts to chocolate candies and gummy bears. There was also a few cans of Barq's Root Beer set aside for those who wanted a root beer float. The line of interested passengers looped around the room and it was funny to watch the crew try to get the flavored syrups and whipped cream containers to dispense when they'd been in cold storage. 

After the ice cream social, Dad and I split up so he could attend a bridge tournament (a handful of passengers who play together when they travel asked to hold one), and I went to the Culinary Demonstration put on by Executive Chef Ricardo Montalvan. Chef Montalvan chose to demonstrate how to make the Red Wine Demi Glace sauce that he'd be using on tonight's Prime Rib dinner entree. Small disposable spoons were provided for anyone who wished to come up and sample the sauce at the end of the demonstration. Chef Montalvan also took the time to answer questions about food prep, his training, and what it's like having to cook for so many passengers on a daily basis. Rhiannon passed around a piece of paper on a clipboard so anyone who wanted the recipe could write down their cabin number and get it slipped under their door later. 

Dad chose to attend Doug's afternoon presentation covering Lewis and Clark's Corps of Discovery's return home. I took some time to watch us travel past more locks and scenery.

Tonight's dinner menu:

Minestrone Soup Appetizer - nice medium sized bowl with plenty of identifiable ingredients

Oregon Salad Appetizer - Spinach, kale, frisee blend, Oregon hazelnuts, strawberries, red onion, goat cheese, and white balsamic vinaigrette. 

Garlic & Herb Infused Prime Rib Entree - Scalloped potatoes, honey glazed baby carrots, red wine demi glace sauce.

Chocolate Lava Cake Dessert 

After dinner, we headed to the River Lounge to hear Doug, Rhiannon, and Lindsay brief everyone on the next port of call and the excursion/onboard plans. Lindsay was ecstatic as she talked about how our chosen tour for tomorrow would include a special visit to a chocolate shop whose owners Lindsay has known for years. 

This was followed by our own passengers providing the evening entertainment by participating in a Not So Newlywed Game hosted by Rhiannon. As always, the unpredictability of the answers to leading questions had the whole audience cracking up. 

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.

Grandeur of the Seas - End of Day 12 (Sea Day) & Disembarkation

So since we were all specialty restaurant -ed out, tonight's dinner was brought to us by the magic number #53, that is the number to room service. Since it was already getting dark (no lights on the balcony?!) and super windy and cold, we opted for an indoor picnic. Sometimes it's nice to just take a moment and eat your dinner while sitting on your cabin floor watching and fantasizing over the replay of other ship's suite cabins and onboard amenities on one of the TV's promotional channels. What? No one else does that?

The one thing we hadn't yet ordered from Grandeur's room service that we did on Oasis was the pizza. This time we ordered pepperoni and cheese and they both came correctly. On Oasis we ordered pepperoni and it came as cheese. Kudos to RCL for including whole pizzas on their room service menu for free (aside of the room service delivery cost). Princess charges extra for the pizzas specifically but nothing else. I also ordered a burger just to try it. This was the first time anyone at room service bothered to ask how many people were eating to confirm how much silverware to send. I recalled after hanging up that they neglected to ask how I wanted my burger cooked. On the plus side, the food came just under 30 minutes later. Not sure why they were less busy at dinnertime on a sea day than they were at lunchtime on a port day.

This is what they call The Royal Burger - it was also nice to see that they always included condiments. My first Celebrity cruise we ordered a room service hot dog and I had to get a very nice crew member cleaning the closed buffet to duck under the ropes and dispense some ketchup for me. Unfortunately, the burger was a little undercooked so I only ate a couple bites.

Someone helped themselves before I could get to the pizza for a picture. I'd say this was comparable to a medium sized pizza at home so depending on how hungry everyone in your family/cabin is, you could easily get one pizza for all. Don't think they'd let you do half pepperoni/half cheese so if your family preferences are as split as Dad made this pizza box, you might as well get one of each.

After dinner we headed over to the theater for the Late Night (10PM) comedy show by Craig Murphy. I liked how the adult shows from these comedians on this trip wasn't just about using curse words and sexual references every other word. We had put our suitcases out in the hallway before heading down and when we came back to the cabin, only one had been taken. I don't know if our cabin was the cutoff for how many luggage pieces each cart could hold or what but it felt weird having our luggage picked up at different times just like it was delivered at different times on day 1. I wanted to get in a quick shower before bed despite the late hour and it reminded me of waking up early on disembarkation morning last Grandeur sailing and finding our cabin bathroom flooded. So when I hopped out of the shower and saw this, I thought history was repeating itself.

In the end, I think it was more remnants of splashed out water from my shower since the showerhead system is at the end of the shower that the floor drain also sits. The sudsy water on the floor never got any bigger and was easily cleaned up. 

By the time we woke up in the morning, our other suitcase had been collected. We packed up our carry on and camera bag and was out of the cabin by around 8AM. This time Carlington had only locked one of the two elevators leading to the concierge lounge so we were able to get upstairs quickly. We could barely step off the elevator before running into the mob of people all standing there waiting for Carlington to send them straight down to the gangway. With no rush to be anywhere, we went over to sit by the windows and wait. Carlington noticed the large group starting to gather and went down in the second elevator with one group so that he could send it back up and keep it locked as well. Everyone swarmed that second elevator when it came back up so we just hung back and waited for the next round. Instead, we watched someone who'd disembarked already get picked up by a stretch limo. Given how these past 12 days had been, I wouldn't have been surprised to learn that that person was a Pinnacle who'd just spent the sailing in the cheapest inside cabin. But I digress...

One of the nice things about being suite passengers (yes and Pinnacle) is that you get priority luggage tags and priority disembarkation which means you get to bypass the line leading into customs and the port employee at the front of the line gives you the next available agent. He compared our faces to our passports, handed them back, and we were on our way to luggage pickup in minutes. We set about searching the suite/pinnacle area for our luggage when I hear a porter yell out our last name from several sections over. I respond and he wheels over my suitcase that either was put in the wrong spot or someone took only to realize it wasn't theirs. We soon found Dad's suitcase in the suite/pinnacle section where both should have been. Thank you to the vigilant mystery porter who recognized the priority tag and returned it! This is the first time we've ever had an issue with luggage not being where it belonged so I hope it's not the start of a new trend.

We hopped into the first taxi in line when we came out of the terminal and unfortunately our return to Baltimore was marred by a crooked cabbie who overcharged us from the start. What normally is a $40 ride back to our house cost us around $75 this time. Dad looked up the same route on Uber and it would have been $35. What a welcome home huh?

Final thoughts - would I sail RCL again? Abso-freakin-lutely! Would I go on a longer cruise like this again? Sure. Would I visit any of these same islands again? Sure but I'd consider things like a resort day pass or just explore the port area if I don't stay on the ship. Would I sail in a 2 bedroom grand suite on the Grandeur again? Probably not. We would have been just as happy if not more comfortable in the same one bedroom grand suite we had last time. Would I buy the Ultimate Dining Package again? It depends. On a bigger ship like Oasis, we would have had more restaurant choices and not been able to work our way through the entire menu. But I think even on a smaller ship like Grandeur, I'd miss not being able to have specialty restaurant meals at least a couple times so I'd go for one of the 2-3 night packages. Would I buy the soda package again? Yes as long as the ship had a Freestyle machine. 

If there's any other questions you'd like answered, please feel free to ask in the comments below each post. Until next time fellow travelers!

Grandeur of the Seas - Day 12 - Sea Day (Part 3)

We headed back to the Schooner Bar next to participate in the Higher or Lower Game hosted by Bitty. It was basically her trying to do a version of the old Card Sharks TV game show. There was a good amount of people who showed up to play so she had us form teams sending one representative from each team to compete in each round of 2 person challenges. She insisted that the representative be a different person each round forcing several of our impromptu team members to participate when they didn't want to. Our team had the worst luck getting a card after making our choice that was one number below or above in the opposite direction of what we chose. I could tell Bitty was still nervous as she kept mixing up which teams were still in the competition and whose turn it should be.

Random query - I wonder if anyone participated in the 50+ age group Rock Wall Climbing sessions. I was surprised to see that as an option. Usually it's a reference to blocks of time reserved for teens etc. Reminds me of our Panama Canal cruise where there was no one on board under 18 so they opened up the games in the Teen Club for a sort of nostalgic adult happy hour on some evenings.

Back to a more treat worthy dessert sampler for the suite treat today. Tried those round things in the concierge lounge one day. It was like someone had rolled a ball of frosting in a coating.

Dad went back to the cabin to relax for a little bit while I went down to participate in the Spelling Bee in the Centrum. The Centrum was pretty full with people just lounging so I asked to share a seat with someone only to realize that it was my fellow St. Maarten tour mates of Kay, her husband, and Scotty. Kay's husband was encouraging her to participate in the spelling bee but she was hesitant. I told her that I'd do it if she did it and that was enough to get us both in contestant's row. Katrina hosted the activity and we had a pretty decent sized group participating. The only guy though was Nick from the Harry Potter loving honeymoon couple from the Love & Marriage game. He lasted a good while until messing up. It was funny to watch his wife's face as he started spelling his final word wrong. He even was cracking up watching her but didn't pick up on her reaction to change his answer. There was a couple words as the game went on that I was so glad it wasn't my turn. Eventually we got down to me and one other woman still standing and we both lasted a couple more rounds. At one point, Katrina gave the other woman the word "tyrannosaur" to spell and neither of us had ever heard the term outside of "Tyrannosaurus Rex." Since we both questioned it, she skipped that word and gave the woman another word. You all should have figured out how much of a nerd I am by now that I had to look the word up when I got home. Turns out tyrannosaur is the word for the general class of dinosaurs that Tyrannosaurus Rex belongs. You learn something new everyday. Hence why I always say, learn the correct answers to the trivia questions you get wrong because they'll come in handy another day. After we both lasted another couple rounds, Katrina declared that the next round if we both got it right we would be crowned co-champions. That was exactly how it turned out and Katrina quickly dug around for an extra prize giving us both pens and highlighters. I suppose in a way that was fitting for a spelling bee challenge. An added bonus was riding the elevator back up with some teens who recognized me from the spelling bee and thought it was so cool how smart we were.

I reunited with Dad next at the 4PM afternoon trivia. The Schooner Bar was packed and we only found seats by joining Bob and his wife. Unfortunately, that meant my new trivia crew didn't have space to join us. They eventually sat with another couple but I took the time to say goodbye to them before the trivia started. Unbeknownst to me, they had watched part of the Spelling Bee from one of the upper decks and gave me high fives now for co-winning. One of the most endearing things they said as we parted ways was that they'd always remember me as "the girl who helped that lady win a hat." Dad had brought down our accumulated highlighters and keychains in the small shopping bag we'd gotten from the vendor in St. Lucia. After one last ditch effort to give them away to other cruisers, we ended up giving the entire bag to Bitty so she could reuse them for future games. She took one look in the bag and there was that shocked expression again. "You won all these?!" I almost replied "No, we came down here in the middle of the night and raided the piano bench where you keep the prizes."

Earlier in the day, Captain Thor had announced that NASA would be firing off a rocket from a base in Virginia right around 4:45PM, and we would be potentially sailing close enough to see it. It was quite the popular attraction and thankfully we got up there before everyone crowded the railing. A small group of crew members even came out with a little video camera to film themselves watching it. We were still so far away that you couldn't tell where anything was in relation to land so it was simply by chance and people's reaction to notice when the rocket was fired. Everyone was shivering as the wind was still strong and the temperatures had dipped by 15-20 degrees as we got closer back to Baltimore. All you could see from our vantage point was the smoke trail:

A lot of excitement for 5 minutes of activity. It also gave me the opportunity to see the results of the repaired crack in the jogging track on the open deck:

A large segment of the crowd that had been hanging out by the railing simply came back inside and went right to the Viking Crown Lounge. Nearly every table was full and we literally got the last table before the wall at the bottom. The bar staff serving happy hour for the Concierge Lounge guests were being run ragged and I'm pretty sure there were several cruisers this afternoon getting free drinks because the bar staff assumed everyone was there for the happy hour perk.

On the plus side, look who finally got fried mozzarella sticks! (Check out my Pride of America blog post for that backstory!) These were the last two left in the pot.

Earlier in the day we had decided to cancel our scheduled dinner reservation in Chops for tonight and play it by ear. As we left our cabin to participate in the Final Pub Quiz (we later learned that our new friend didn't show to play tonight because one of the elderly parents they'd traveled with on this trip had taken ill. She was taken to an ambulance on a stretcher when we disembarked back in Baltimore), I took the last TV watching towel animal that Moses had left me (he was considerate enough to leave them intact until using the towels to make a new friend 2 nights later), and put it sitting on top of my bathroom toilet with the door closed. I wish I could have seen his reaction when he went in there to clean tonight. When we came back to the room, my towel friend was hiding under the sink:

Final post to come featuring dinner and debarkation. I now have all the important papers, dining room menus, and Compass issues scanned in as well so look for those posts to come soon!

Grandeur of the Seas - Day 12 - Sea Day (Part 2)

Our next stop was for some real sustenance at Giovanni's for their Sea Day Brunch. It was listed in the Compass as the "Shrimp Brunch" starting at 10:30AM. It is an extra cost, $30 per person if I recall correctly, but free to us with the Ultimate Dining Package. By the time we got there, there was only a few people still dining and a good bit of the buffet setup had been descended upon. There was still plenty to partake that fit both our palates.

The shrimp on ice for shrimp cocktail was the main thing that was nearly depleted. Giovanni's did a good job of keeping everything else stocked.

We loved the soft rolls pictured in the bottom left of this photo. We tried to ask the waitress why those weren't available all the time but she just kept telling us that everything they make is made fresh that day.

Doesn't everyone enjoy their risotto with a side of fries? It was nice to see a few highlights from Giovanni's main menu as well as typical brunch items.

Deckster was right about having lasagna today, just in much smaller portions

Chicken Parmesan and Beef Tenderloin next to Fried Eggs. Nothing like a brunch.

And of course the lox was represented

That's a bowl of caviar though looking back at this picture, it does look like that watermelon swan left behind a nasty present.

Yummy fruit salad cups - this is definitely how I prefer to use champagne flutes

My smorgasbord of a plate - I tried the chicken parmesan, fried eggs, fries, potato salad, and rolls. The cinnamon roll was a little dry but the rest was tasty. Dad was surprised I didn't get any shrimp. 

We were essentially the last people to dine as they came over a few times to confirm we didn't want to go for seconds before putting everything away. Honestly, unless I'd gone back a few times and hadn't been eating specialty restaurant food all sailing, I don't know if I'd have found this worth the cost. Other than the few Giovanni's menu items and of course the shrimp and caviar, this was all items you could have gotten from Windjammer.

Our next stop was to an event that was new to me on any ship but I'd seen it featured in ParoDeeJay's vlogs on their Grandeur cruise, the Grandeur Fair! This is a fun event where several crew departments set up stations around the Centrum on decks 4 &5 and passengers go around from station to station trying out things somewhat related to their department. Some stations gave you a raffle ticket just for participating but others insisted that you succeed at the challenge to earn a ticket. John and Katrina had printed dollar bills with each of their faces on them known as Johnny Cash and Katrina Kash. The backside of each bill had a line for entering your name and cabin number.

The bar staff's table encouraging passengers to try out bar tricks with drink glasses and one next to it asking passengers to solve riddles with toothpicks was the most popular. Culinary department hosted a table giving you the chance to decorate cupcakes with rolled fondant.

Housekeeping challenged you to make up a bed in a certain amount of time.

Laundry showed us how to fold a shirt - who knew there really was a right way to do that?

The bulk of the stations were about skill games such as bean bag toss or putting golf balls. The youth staff offered face painting. Guess Dad won't be looking for a new job as an exterminator since he missed both times on Splat the Rat. (Note the large bruising that covered his forearm by this point of the trip)

The bar manager featured on the morning show giving out the drink of the day walked around with a riddle to solve. We both tried every answer we could think of and were declared wrong. A guy nearby suggested that the answer is "name" and was also told no. Eventually he gave me a ticket for trying so hard.

We compared failed answers with another cruiser who was just as confused by the riddle. When we saw him again, he told us that he'd learned the answer was "the name." I'm the kind of person that spots typos in books so the thought of how "the name" fit into "Ben is the _______ of John's father" didn't sit right with me. "The the name?" 

The look you get when John spots you sneaking a picture of them:

Followed by how it looks when you dance like no one's watching:

It was a bit of a mad rush to get your raffle tickets filled out as you went around and drop them back into the bin on the stage:

One of the things I regretted not getting last time was a picture with John and/or Katrina so when Katrina wandered past me, I seized my chance to ask for a picture. First she pretended at the last second to be interviewing me:

And then posed for a regular pic as well:

Several raffle tickets were drawn and cruisers won everything from mugs to kids toys. A couple free drink certificates were also given out, including to one name that ended up being a kid. They asked him if mom or dad was around and his mom was very quick to run over and accept the certificate. It was a very cute way to get a taste of what the crew does for all of us. I could see this being done earlier in the cruise even so they can give away other prizes like free dinners or internet.