LOUISVILLE, KY._Today brings excellent news and never so excellent news.
The excellent news is, our journey from Palm Seaside to Louisville was uneventful. Going by way of safety at PBI was a snap (our first time to make use of TSA Precheck — price each penny). Our Delta flights took off on time and arrived early, each in Atlanta and Louisville.
From the Louisville airport, we have been in a position to catch a shuttle to our subsequent cease, the Brown Resort, the place American Queen has housed all of the passengers who’ll board the ship Monday for the beginning of our eight-day tour on the Ohio River.
The Brown is an historic, 16-story resort in downtown Louisville. Getting into the expansive, ornate foyer is like taking a step again in time, when founder J. Graham Brown opened the doorways in 1923. As you may count on within the metropolis that hosts the Kentucky Derby, portraits of horses adorn the partitions all through, as do equine sculptures and lamps.
However greater than well-known guests and fancy decor, the resort’s actual declare to fame is the Scorching Brown, an open-faced sandwich launched by resort chef Fred Ok. Schmidt within the Nineteen Twenties, that includes sliced turkey and bacon in a Mornay sauce. Not solely was it wildly in style with the locals, but additionally grew to become well-known world-wide by way of TV meals packages and documentaries.
After all we needed to order one. The decision? The raves are all well-deserved. It was completely scrumptious.
However the primary enterprise of the day was the pre-boarding preliminaries, and that brings me to the not-so-good information. In the event you recall within the earlier put up, I made point out American Queen has just lately canceled pre-cruise COVID testing for his or her river cruises. It turned out our cruise was an exception.
After checking with American Queen administration, they instructed me sorry for the confusion, however our cruise can be the final one requiring testing. And I, in reality, would maintain the consideration of being the final journalist examined. Having already had virtually a dozen exams on completely different cruises, it wasn’t a giant deal, aside from the conflicting messages. One closing be aware — this was first take a look at we had that was self-administered.
After getting our detrimental end result, we accomplished the pre-boarding course of by getting a ticket for our bus switch from the resort to the boat, had our image taken and given our “sea move” card.
The subsequent morning, American Queen is internet hosting all of the company for breakfast within the resort’s Crystal Ballroom. For this cruise, there are about 250 of us (the boat has a capability of simply over 400, plus crew). We shall be on the three pm bus that can take us to the beginning of our journey on the Ohio River.
Virtually time to see for ourselves what Mark Twain made so well-known in his literary works.
PHOTOS by Gerry Barker
- The well-known Scorching Brown sandwich (Cowl Photograph)
- The Brown Resort foyer
- A statue of Brown Resort founder J. Graham Brown
- Greeted by the Colonel himself on the Louisville Airport
See sailings right here American Queen Voyages Cruises (cruisecompete.com)
