Mississippi River to Gulf,

Last year while on the Serenade of the Seas cruising down the Mississippi River, I said, "I'd love to do this during the day" since most of the journey was after the sunset until midnight. Click here for last year's journey.  I got my wish this year---not quite how I'd thought it would happen.

We got a text message to delay boarding since a pipe had broken on the ship damaging the electrical panels in the front of the ship (cabins, health center, theater, on board television).  We arrived at 11:30 expecting to board shortly after noon, but we didn't board until 4 PM.  We were among the fortunate ones because we were allowed to wait inside out of the chilling rain.  We also had hotdogs, pizza and lemonade in our waiting area.  Some spent the whole time outside and didn't board until 7 PM.  Part of the problem was 1/4 of the passengers had to stay behind because their rooms were in the front of the ship.

Around 3 AM, I could feel the ship moving, but the next morning showed we hadn't gone far---about a mile down the river to allow other ships at the dock.  The Coast Guard gave us the go ahead to leave at noon.  We sat on our balcony as we sailed down the Mississippi for 8 hours.

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Where we were docked----across from Navy Yards but still on Government property.  On our way. . .most of the trip was industrial and river traffic, but we did pass a few houses and at least one school.

Eventually, the sun went down, but we could see that we had reached the delta---wonderful experience, although not many other passengers agreed.