Sailing Like a Celebrity -- Day 5

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Day 5 -- Charleston, SC
Sunny, 80°

All ashore was at 8:40 am, so there was a lot of activity at the buffet restaurant early in the morning. One of the nice things about this stop is that we were docked at the pier, so we could just walk off the ship, rather than tendering to shore. Once again, we opted not to purchase a shore excursion. I would have loved to have visited Fort Sumter, but we wouldn't have been able to do that all together. So instead, we again did our own walking tour of the area; and we got to see quite a bit. We visited the historic Charleston City Market. This is a series of buildings that extends 4 or 5 blocks and is filled with local vendors. We walked through two of the buildings, but you could've spent multiple hours if you wanted to see all of it.

The US Customs House is directly across the street from our pier, and we walked by on the way to the Market.

We enjoyed Washington Square, named in honor of George. There was a Confederate Memorial Day ceremony about to start, but we didn't stay to observe.

We then stopped into a couple churches and the Rutledge House. Originally owned by John Rutledge, who was the first Governor of South Carolina. He also served on the South Carolina Supreme Court and later served as Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court.

We got back to the ship for a late lunch at Oceanview, and found some really nice options on the buffet. The Asian station had a great fish curry, and there was also a really good beef and pork stew, both of which I enjoyed a lot. After lunch, I decided to grab a chair in the sun, next to the pool. Was really nice, but there was one thing that bothered me. When there's no live music by the pool, they play classic rock/pop hits, but they're re-mixed with dance club beats. It's really kind of awful. They're songs that you love, but they're ruined by adding the ridiculous "club version" rhythm track. And it wasn't just once. That's the music that we heard on Day 1 when we first explored Deck 10. So it's used repeatedly. I heard "Don't Stop Believing" five times in four days at one stretch. It didn't ruin the experience, but it was a little annoying.

I wanted to get in the water, but the pool was COLD! So I went into the Solarium for a dip. (The Solarium pool is salt water, by the way.) Then went back outdoors to sit in the sun for a long time. Felt so good after the cool days in our New England ports.

 

Our evening started by relaxing in the Rendezvous Lounge and listening to one of the ship's live bands. This one was a male guitarist and female vocalist. They were ok, not great. The most memorable moment was when they performed The Police's "Roxanne". It was memorable because the vocalist pronounced it "Rox-aine" for the entire song. Very odd rendition.

Anyway, after the musical entertainment, the main evening show was a second performance from the magician Jason Bird. I thought he was very good. I enjoyed his interaction with the audience. (Although one of his jokes fell completely flat, which in itself was kind of funny.) To me, the highlight of the show was a close-up trick where he covers 4 coins with 4 different playing cards, and each time he picks up one of the playing cards, the coin under it has disappeared and "moved" so that it's under a different card, until eventually all four coins were under just one of the cards. It was honestly amazing.

Later in the cruise, I was waiting with a group of people for an elevator. When it arrived, Jason Bird was already in it. The whole group of us got in the elevator and Jason was pushed all the way to the back corner. I said, "Ok, nobody's getting off this elevator until you tell us how you did the trick with the 4 cards and coins"! Everybody laughed and he was very good-natured about it. But no, he didn't tell us. Sorry.

There were lots of interesting choices for entrees at dinner, but no appetizers that caught my eye. Dale got the pâté, which she said was excellent, and Kath got the quinoa salad. She liked the Celebrity dressing so much that she got the recipe from our Head Server Eva. (Unfortunately the recipe makes 500 servings, so we'll have to adjust it when we try to make it at home.)

For my entrée, I got the beef bourguignon. Reynaldo warned me that some people like the dish, but some don't. I liked the description, so I took a chance, and turned out that I enjoyed it. The meat may have been a touch dried out, but the sauce had a wonderful depth of flavor, and I would get it again. Kathryn got the sea bass, which was excellent; and we shared the pasta in cream sauce, which was just ok.

For dessert, I got the chocolate cake, which was pretty average. Dale got a wam apple crumble, which she liked. And Kathryn got the coffee pot-de-crème, which she loved.

Quinoa salad:

Dale's pâté, with fruit cubes.

Sea Bass

Beef Bourguignon:

Disappointing pasta and cream sauce

Apple crumble

Pots-de-crème

Chocolate cake

After all the walking we'd done in Charleston, nobody had a ton of energy for late-night activities, so we called it a night a little early at around 10:30pm.