Complete Mississippi - Day 2

Photos

Sunday, August 10, 2014



We slept until the sun woke us. We were still up and about before breakfast and toured the ship then took a walk along the Dubuque river walk. We walked only within sight of the boat in the end. We walked down to the Star Brewery and Shot Tower and the walkway ended in stairs there at the railroad bridge. The walkway left the levee and went under the railroad tracks. We could see that the walkway did continue on the other side of the tracks. As we were discussing it, we realized that the swinging bridge had closed and from beside the tracks we could see a hole in the bluff across the river where a train was coming onto the bridge. We were stunned. We had seen the trains going along beside the far shore of the river but either couldn't see or hadn't realized that there was a railroad tunnel coming out onto the bridge over there. Also, we had not seen the bridge close since our arrival and it looked so old that we assumed it did not close. Surprise!

When docked Queen of the Mississippi has a deckhand at the stage or gangway and you just give them your cabin number when you come and go. The stage is what they call the long walkway off the front of the boat. Of course, you also have to be wearing your lanyard/nametag. Clay & I have also been keeping our keycards in that plastic nametag pocket.

Full breakfast was at 7:30am today and was extensive! They have a table of cold things set up as you enter the door and they ask you to stop there first and pick up what you want before going to take a seat. I had perfect Eggs Benedict this morning after a perfect raspberry/granola parfait. Good thing it was so perfect because it didn’t arrive until more than 45 minutes after we had ordered it, which seems an excessive wait.

Last night we were offered a choice of 2 tours this morning in Dubuque. Either a self-guided walk through the National Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium (about a $15 value) or a bus tour of historic Dubuque & visit to Eagle Point Park with a view of Lock & Dam #11. This morning as it was time to report to your 9am tours at 8:45am, they announced that you could do both. The bus would return at 10:30am and if you had chosen the aquarium at 9am that you could finish up early and take the bus tour, or if you were on the early bus tour that you could walk on into the aquarium and be back onboard at 12:30pm for 1pm sailing. That worked for everyone and was a good thing. Though the consensus from those who did both was that we all could have spent more time at the Museum & Aquarium.

We had to pre-request all our complimentary tours for the week today. (If there are any non-complimentary I haven’t heard about them with the exception of they would go online and book for you St. Louis arch tickets if you wanted. Clay looked and could save $3 each with his parks pass so we are doing that Saturday morning on our own.) The rest of the week then we have booked 8/11 9am Davenport IA John Hauberg  Indian Museum 2pm John Deere Pavilion. 8/12 2 tours at 2pm are Old Fort Madison Tour or Burlington IA City Tour, we chose Burlington City. 8/14 9am Hannibal, MO 9am Trolley tour with Rockcliffe Mansion and 2pm Mark Twain Boyhood Home. 8/15 2pm Discover St. Louis tour.

Today on our city tour we learned that there are 24 locks between St. Paul and St. Louis. We rode to the overlook for #11, so we will have to traverse the other 13 to get to St. Louis. I guess that must be what we do all day on the 13^th! As I am typing this, we are entering our first lock so I need to go! More later. This is lock #12 at Bellevue, IA. We are getting lower as we pass each dam and lock on our way downstream. Clay tells me the next lock is in 34 miles. I am not sure now why we are sailing for a solid 24 hours without a stop on the 13^th. Comparing our original itinerary with our revised one, they have added a port at Burlington, IA. Otherwise, they are not substituting or replacing the 2 ports we missed at the beginning of our trip in Red Wing and LaCrosse (and no I don’t consider lunch at the Radisson as a port day in LaCrosse!). Also, we also lost our first morning in St. Paul as well. (We don't consider that a loss since we had a full day here by coming in early.) Oh, well. It is what it is. When you buy a cruise, you are going wherever they take you and that is the deal you make. It would have been good customer service policy for ACL to do, say or offer something in compensation for the lost first 3 days of our itinerary, but they decided not.

Lunch today was at 12:30am and we sailed at 1pm. It took an hour and a ½ to be served lunch which definitely seems excessive so we were at the table when we sailed. Lunch choices were corn chowder or mixed lettuce for 1^st. 2^nd choices were chicken summer salad or cornmeal crusted catfish. I had the chicken salad and liked it since it was cold slices of chicken with iceberg lettuce. Clay had the corn chowder and the catfish. Dessert was blueberry streusel pie or ice cream. It was good but 1.5 hours for lunch is crazy. It seems we’ll spend as much time in the dining room as on shore each day. There were chocolate chip cookies at 10am. Afternoon tea is at 3:30pm and cocktails and hors d’oeuvres at 5:30pm. (I didn't make a note and so I don't remember the details, but I do know that I looked and the dinnerware was made in America. A nice touch.)

They had the following this afternoon while sailing: tours presentation, crew introduction, old gospel sing-along on top deck with the calliope (I didn’t go but my Grandpa would have loved that!) and the Riverlorian lectured on the formation of the MS River. We didn’t even go to cocktail hour except Clay got a Bass Ale and drank it on the balcony and later he scored some scallops. I got a glass of Riesling and we went up front on deck 3 and sat in rockers with a forward view. It was nice. It was a perfect view, it was shady and the wind kept the bugs off. (These little flies are thick on the boat inside and outside. You can’t leave the balcony door open any longer than necessary and even then they fill the cabin.) We didn’t spot it (I don’t know how we missed it!) but we heard the people below us yelling about an eagle nest and there it was on the port side. There was one bald eagle in the dead tree with the nest and then a 2^nd one landed with it. Exciting!

Dinner tonight is at 6:30pm. First course is a choice of field salad or gumbo. Second choices are lamb shank, pasta with shrimp & sausage, or breast of chicken. I should point out that ACL served airline breasts when the menu said chicken breast. This is a chicken breast that has a piece of bone and a piece of skin. If you are used to boneless/skinless chicken breasts, this is not going to make you happy. Dessert is chocolate bread pudding or blueberry-cornmeal cake.

Entertainment is usually some kind of live musical performance as far as I can tell. It has been for 2 nights now, so after dinner we went to the room with a DVD we borrowed from the jigsaw puzzle lounge on Deck 2 beside the elevator. The DVD just quit playing before the end of the movie but Clay was already asleep and it turned out to be a documentary that we had seen before anyway. Lights out a little after 9pm.

Photos