Astoria Wine & Seafood Excursion?

[skandls]

Anyone done this tour? How much time on the bus? Will DH be bored? Is the seafood tasting good? Wine tasting OK?

[cereo]

Sorry I can't really help, as I haven't been there yet. DH and I are planning to do this excursion during our Mercury April 27, 2007 cruise, so if you find anything out elsewhere would you please post it here? When/what ship are you going on?

[skandls]

We are on the Radiance Sep 16, 2006 Repo cruise (7 day) from Vancouver to Los Angeles. DH and I signed up for the tour. I will let you know how it goes. The cooking part is supposed to be at the University. So I will post when we get back.

 

I am so glad to see the cruise lines adding food and wine tours - for the people with only marginal interest in shopping. I don't really like to shop until I drop unless I have something very specific I want or need.

[Daniexpress]

If you're talking about the crab and seafood festival in April, it's not really a tour. It's a festival lovated in the county arena.

 

Buses run continuously around town to bring people to the festival. The bus rides are pretty short, 15-30 minutes from anywhere in town, and they come between two and four times and hour.

 

Think of it as a county fair for grown-ups. There are rides, but there are a few hundred vendors. Some sell seafood a few sell gourmet food, a handfull of local artists show their stuff, and about one hundred vendors sell wine you can taste for $.50 to $1.50 a taste.

 

The local rotary club sells a crab dinner for something like $9 for a half crab and $14 for a full. (Not sure on the price but it's in that range.)

 

The crab is pretty good and it can be fun to sit with strangers at a big table, cracking the crab legs with the blocks of wood they leave at the tables.

 

It's crowded and a bit loud and there are many, many tipsy people milling around, so it's not the most family friendly place, despite the petting zoo, bounce house, and a few activities for children.

 

If your spouse likes to drink and eat, you'll do fine. But you also be getting plenty of that on the cruise.

 

One amusing word of warning, if you break a glass, as someone is always going to do with so many people drinking in close quarters, you will hear a low roar of "oooooooooooh"s starting from the people nearest you and growing until the entire arena is mocking your mishap.

 

It's both embarrassing and very funny to be teased by hundreds of strangers at once.

[skandls]

We are back from our cruise. The tour was a 'demo' cooking of crab cakes, fried oysters and brie with salmon. We got a good serving of each. There are a lot of recipes available for various types of seafood.

 

The wine tasting was in a wine store. They had 4 wines all from oregon. 2 whites and 2 reds. The owners are very helpful - but the space was small and it was difficult to move around. We bought 4 bottles for home and had no problem bringing them on board and straight into our cabin. They need aging so we did not take them to the dining room.

 

Bus rides were all very short. Since I enjoy food and wine things I had a good time. DH goes along for the food.

[Happy ks]

We went on this tour last May when we did a little repo to Vancouver. It was very enjoyable, the food he cooked was yummy. We also bought wine, but had it shipped home. I'd love to visit Astoria again, the port time was much too short.

 

I purchased a piece of glass jewelry from the artist at the little market outside the gate at port, I think it is called Dichrotic glass :confused: , anyway, I am very much enjoying my new necklace :) .