6/25/26 - Underway Day – Partly Cloudy – Hot – 94F

 6/25/26 - Underway Day – Partly Cloudy – Hot – 94F

On river boats, there are, obviously, no sea days. Instead they are called “Underway Days”.

Balconies are getting cleaned today so curtains are closed until they're done. Hoping that the crew can get rid of the fishflies so we can use the veranda.

Early Breakfast was again (and will be the entire cruise) in the Sky Lounge at 7:00 AM. Today, I was able to catch the sunrise.

There were more cereal options this morning including Special K w Berries and Raison Bran. I had the Special K w Berries and coffee.  Today, there are two large coffee dispensers (regular and decaf) besides the machine made coffee. I actually like this coffee better than the machine made version.  No outside seating (cleaning). The seats inside the lounge come in two types – deep ones and regular ones – the deep ones are hard to get out of because they have only half-arms and, of course, they are deep. 

The Mississippi seems muddier than usual today. Would not want to be in that water.

Again, Ellen and I went to the Restaurant for real breakfast. 

Today’s menu featured pancakes with different kinds of fillings. I opted for the chocolate (white chocolate) chip pancakes with eggs OM. Really good pancakes – almost like flapjacks. The service is slow even though they have a lot of people.  It is hard to get a refill on coffee. NOTE: We found out that this is a new crew just out of training, which may explain some of the issues in the Restaurant.

We spent the morning out on the Sun Deck in the shade in a comfortable chair – 

Ellen is stretched out on a couch. 

As long as the boat is moving, the breeze is enough to ward off the heat.  I also got the iconic railing shot.

The view off the deck is certainy different than the sea days on those big ships.

his morning we put in special orders for lunch as there was nothing on the menu we could eat. I ordered a tuna sandwich and French fries. The sandwich was ok but the very thin fries were oily and weird. I suspect that they were not deep fried but pan fried. Ellen ordered the tuna pita but they forgot the tuna. I gave her some of mine. I had a Blue Moon beer, 

which made up for some of the other strangeness. “Gooey Cake”,  the actual name for what must be a Cajun item, was dessert.

We spent the afternoon in the Sky Lounge. Beer (bottles and cans - Coors and Corona) is in a cooler filled with ice - bottled water is not in the portable fridge in the louge (Cokes are; thank goodness).  Pouring bottle water into ice made with tap water seems like defeating the purpose. One thing I really like about this and the Paddlewheel Lounge is the availability of snacks (Chex Mix, Trail Mix, Fig Newtons, etc.).  The River Lounge doesn't have snacks but they do have popcorn.

Water is a rare item on this ship because I don't think they can make potable water from the muddy river. This afternoon, I took my first shower.  Not a bad shower - the water pressure was low but okay.  I planned on reusing bath towels due to the water issue but the towel I put on the towel bar was replaced with a new one - I tried. 

Dinner was in the Restaurant. I started off a nice iceberg wedge w onions and tomatoes and good Ranch dressing. My entree tonight was Sun-dried Tomato and asparagus risotto (not bad). Ellen had pre-ordered Salmon w rice - the kitchen didn't have the special order but managed to put together a pretty good piece of fish, which we shared. We both had Spiked Georgia Iced Tea, the cocktail of the day – it was OK. The service was very slow and we took the dessert up to Sky Lounge. I didn't like the Banana Foster bread pudding and Ellen didn't like the red velvet cake). The Lounge was really noisy - headache level.

Spent a little time on the back deck outside the Sky Lounge (and passed by Natchez MS) and then went to the River lounge to catch James DeLisco do his tribute to Michael Jackson. 

As we expected the show was very loud so we didn't stay long. Ellen went to the Sky Lounge and I went to the room with a headache to get some Tylenol.