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We sailed in the ocean after we left Beaufort last night. The Captain made the announcement, but no reason was given. We left at 9:30pm as originally scheduled. We arrived here in Wilmington a bit over an hour and a half behind schedule. At last night’s overview and in the Ship to Shore, we were told a complimentary trolley bus would be provided.all afternoon. We were told it would drop off and pick up.in downtown at the Tobacco Warehouse, no address. The dock address is 10 Harnett St. The problem is we had never heard of a Tobacco Warehouse here and neither had Google. We wondered if they meant the Cotton Exchange. But it covers a full city block, so you’d still need an address to find it on time. ACL had one tour that left on said trolley just after arrival.
We sailed in the ocean after we left Beaufort last night. The Captain made the announcement, but no reason was given. We left at 9:30pm as originally scheduled. We arrived here in Wilmington a bit over an hour and a half behind schedule. At last night’s overview and in the Ship to Shore, we were told a complimentary trolley bus would be provided.all afternoon. We were told it would drop off and pick up.in downtown at the Tobacco Warehouse, no address. The dock address is 10 Harnett St. The problem is we had never heard of a Tobacco Warehouse here and neither had Google. We wondered if they meant the Cotton Exchange. But it covers a full city block, so you’d still need an address to find it on time. ACL had one tour that left on said trolley just after arrival.
Anne did her morning table touch at breakfast to make sure
everyone is set for the day, provide last minute info and answer questions. We’d
kept quiet last night, but this morning with just our table, we tried to pin
Anne down. She got pretty upset, but bottom line was she didn’t know. Clay pointed out to her that it wasn’t an unreasonable.expectation
to be given a street address or at least an intersection corner as a place to
meet. She disagreed and said if we rode the trolley to town, we’d see where it
dropped. I pointed out that we planned to walk in this am and ride back in the
pm. She finally understood but she all but said if we were on the tour it
wouldn’t be a problem, or not her problem. Then she raised the other discrepancy
from last night. She said it was 2 or 3 miles from our deck to downtown and
Harold said it was about 3 long blocks. Google said it was 14 minute walk from dock to
Cotton Exchange but we couldn’t get confirmation that was the pickup point. Finally
with other passenger support, she agreed to get an address. When we got off the
ship, on a table by the bulletin board was a stack of laser printed maps showing
the dock and giving 121 N. Font St. as the address. That wasn’t so hard.
We walked along the River Walk, so went out of our way and walked
further. We shopped through the Cotton Exchange. We went to lunch at an old
fashioned counter grill place called Pender’s. We had burgers. They served
breakfast and lunch only. After seeing the huge servings of grits, I may have
to try them on board one morning as they are always on the menu. We walked on
to find Kilwin’s for dessert. Clay had ice cream and I had caramel covered
marshmallows. We crossed to the median of the short side street to some benches
and found ourselves at the start point of a horse drawn carriage tour. They
pulled up and unloaded as we were finishing up. We could go next for $12 each for just
us. It was about an hour and went through part of downtown and part of the
historic district. It had finally started misting heavily enough to be cold,
wet and miserable, so we were glad to be under the carriage cover and her wool
blankets. We walked back and caught the
3 pm trolley back to the ship. The last trolley is 5 pm, all aboard is 5:30 pm and we
depart at 6 pm.
We are scheduled to arrive in Charleston, SC tomorrow at
noon. I guess we’ll find out at tonight’s overview if we’ll sail in the ocean
again or not. We’ll be in Charleston overnight. We’ve already been warned that we'll be docked way out of town at Megadock. We’ve signed up for complimentary shuttle
rides on Friday and the free Magnolia Plantation tour Saturday morning and $35 each
Ft. Sumter tours in the afternoon.
