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 via safety at PBI was a snap (our first time to make use of TSA Precheck — value each penny). Our Delta flights took off on time and arrived early, each in Atlanta and Louisville.
From the Louisville airport, we had 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 lodge 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 lodge’s actual declare to fame is the Sizzling Brown, an open-faced sandwich launched by lodge chef Fred Ok. Schmidt within the Nineteen Twenties, that includes sliced turkey and bacon in a Mornay sauce. Not solely was it wildly widespread with the locals, but in addition grew to become well-known world-wide via TV meals applications and documentaries.
After all we needed to order one. The decision? The raves are all well-deserved. It was completely scrumptious.
However the principle enterprise of the day was the pre-boarding preliminaries, and that brings me to the not-so-good information. For those who recall within the earlier publish, I made point out American Queen has not too long ago 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 advised me sorry for the confusion, however our cruise can be the final one requiring testing. And I, in actual fact, would maintain the respect of being the final journalist examined. Having already had virtually a dozen exams on totally different cruises, it wasn’t an enormous deal, apart from the conflicting messages. One last word — this was first take a look at we had that was self-administered.
After getting our damaging outcome, we accomplished the pre-boarding course of by getting a ticket for our bus switch from the lodge to the boat, had our image taken and given our “sea cross” card.
The subsequent morning, American Queen is internet hosting all of the visitors for breakfast within the lodge’s Crystal Ballroom. For this cruise, there are about 250 of us (the boat has a capability of simply over 400, plus crew). We will likely be on the three pm bus that can take us to the beginning of our journey on the Ohio River.
Nearly time to see for ourselves what Mark Twain made so well-known in his literary works.
PHOTOS by Gerry Barker
- The well-known Sizzling 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)
