{"id":1866,"date":"2012-07-11T10:46:27","date_gmt":"2012-07-11T16:46:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/blog\/?p=1866"},"modified":"2012-07-11T10:46:27","modified_gmt":"2012-07-11T16:46:27","slug":"american-queen-entertainment-activities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/blog\/?p=1866","title":{"rendered":"American Queen &#8211; Entertainment &#038; Activities"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For most of the day there was some sort of music or activity going on, aboard or ashore, often more than one thing at a time.\u00a0 We had a few occasions where it was necessary to choose which activity to do.<\/p>\n<p>Off the boat (when docked) there were the <strong>free<\/strong> &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.greatamericansteamboatcompany.com\/shore-excursions\/\">Hop-On Hop-Off<\/a>&#8221;\u00a0 bus tours which took passengers around the town and would stop at a few of significant locations to let passengers shop, see the sights or visit local attractions.\u00a0 The buses are made up to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/69462124@N08\/7489182524\/\" target=\"_blank\">look like the AQ<\/a> itself.\u00a0 The quality of these tours varied depending the town.\u00a0 As I commented elsewhere the river towns suffered when the riverboats shut down and now are rebuilding the attractions that used to bring tourists in off the river.<\/p>\n<p>There were also other tours (for a fee) that were more extensive or went farther afield.\u00a0 We didn&#8217;t take any of these so I can&#8217;t comment on them except to say they were available.<\/p>\n<p>Later in the day there were movies, bingo, and lectures by <em>Riverlorian<\/em> and author Jerry Hay.\u00a0 In the various bars and other locations there was music by the &#8216;house&#8217; musicians (The Riverboat Syncopaters)<a href=\"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Syncopaters.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft  wp-image-1873\" style=\"margin: 4px;\" title=\"Syncopaters\" src=\"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Syncopaters-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"210\" height=\"140\" \/><\/a> either as the full group, duo, trio or singly.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Jackie.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-1874 alignright\" style=\"margin: 4px;\" title=\"Jackie\" src=\"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Jackie-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"210\" height=\"140\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>There were additional musicians such as Jackie Bankston who we had first met on Windstar cruises and enjoy her performances a lot.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Juggernaut-Jug-Band.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft  wp-image-1875\" style=\"margin: 4px;\" title=\"Juggernaut-Jug-Band\" src=\"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Juggernaut-Jug-Band-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"210\" height=\"140\" \/><\/a>The evenings always had a show in the theater.\u00a0 For our cruise these included; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.juggernautjugband.com\/\" target=\"_blank\"><em>The Juggernaut Jug Band<\/em>.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>A Mark Twain impersonator who we did not see.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Blend1.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-1886 alignright\" style=\"margin: 4px;\" title=\"Blend\" src=\"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Blend1-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"210\" height=\"140\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.blend-acappella.com\/bios.html\" target=\"_blank\">Blend<\/a>, a Doo-Wop quartet &#8211; these guys were <em><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>good<\/strong><\/span><\/em> and had a great variety of 50&#8217;s &amp; 60&#8217;s music.\u00a0 They even had an Elvis Impersonator.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Bodine-Balasco.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft  wp-image-1877\" style=\"margin: 4px;\" title=\"Bodine-Balasco\" src=\"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Bodine-Balasco-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"210\" height=\"140\" \/><\/a>Bodine Balasco &#8220;The Last of the Riverboat Gamblers&#8221; a stage magician.\u00a0 He also provided instruction in the Mark Twain Gallery on card tricks and\u00a0 riverboat gambler card ploys.<\/p>\n<p>and ?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The theater shows always had two performances, one during the early dinner seating so the late diners could see the late show and vice versa.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Calliope.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-1893 alignright\" style=\"margin: 4px;\" title=\"Calliope\" src=\"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Calliope-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"210\" height=\"140\" \/><\/a>I&#8217;m not sure you can call it music or entertainment but one thing you shouldn&#8217;t miss is the calliope.\u00a0 It is located on the top deck, just above the River Grill and produces an awesome sound that echos back and forth across the river.\u00a0 Believe me this is one fearsome musical instrument!\u00a0 But once is enough if you value your hearing!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For most of the day there was some sort of music or activity going on, aboard or ashore, often more than one thing at a time.\u00a0 We had a few occasions where it was necessary to choose which activity to do. Off the boat (when docked) there were the free &#8220;Hop-On Hop-Off&#8221;\u00a0 bus tours which [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1866"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1866\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}