{"id":11124,"date":"2012-02-17T01:42:07","date_gmt":"2012-02-17T09:42:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cruisingdoneright.com\/?p=11124"},"modified":"2012-02-17T01:42:07","modified_gmt":"2012-02-17T09:42:07","slug":"american-queen-more-than-a-horse-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/?p=11124","title":{"rendered":"American Queen \u2014 Plus a Horse Race"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>In another life, as a sports writer, there were five big sports events I hoped to see before moving on to another profession. One of them was the Kentucky Derby.<\/a><\/p>\n

I made it, in 1978, when Affirmed left the favorite, Alydar, a length-and-a-half behind at the finish line of the famous Run For The Roses. I had no way of imagining that all these years later Affirmed would still be the last Triple Crown winner and, yes, there is a cruise connection to this.<\/p>\n

It happens the first Saturday in May which, as any casual horse race fan knows, is Derby Day. Passengers on the American Queen<\/a> will have the opportunity to watch the race, in \"\"<\/a>person, because a ticket is included in their river cruise fare. The trip \u2014 and seeing the Kentucky Derby is<\/em> a trip \u2014 lasts five days, Cincinnati return.<\/p>\n

The Derby is on Day 2 of the cruise. The cost starts at $1,395 per person and includes one night’s hotel before or after the cruise, and free shore excursions and an on-board credit of up to $150 per stateroom.<\/p>\n

Now before you think that’s a lot for five days, packages for three nights in Louisville for the Derby start at $1,600 \u2014 and that’s four to a room! A horse racing aficionado who just wants to see the Derby would love those prices.<\/p>\n

The price Affirmed paid that Saturday in May 1978 was $5.20. I had a $5 win ticket worth $12.80 and, yes, today it would probably be worth a large fortune…or at least a small one.<\/p>\n

If only I hadn’t cashed it.<\/p>\n

Photo Courtesy: Kentuckytourism.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

DAILY DEAL:<\/strong><\/span>
\nCelebrity Century<\/a>
\n15 nights
\nApril 20, 2012
\nSan Diego (return): Honolulu,<\/a> Lahaina<\/a> (Maui), Kona, Kilauea Volcano (cruising) and Hilo<\/a> (Big Island), Ensenada<\/a>
\nBalcony\u00a0 $2,049
\nwww.celebritycruises.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In another life, as a sports writer, there were five big sports events I hoped to see before moving on to another profession. One of them was the Kentucky Derby. I made it, in 1978, when Affirmed left the favorite, Alydar, a length-and-a-half behind at the finish line of the famous Run For The Roses.… Continue reading American Queen \u2014 Plus a Horse Race<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,32,25,31,19,15],"tags":[804,607,138,72,35,528,836,42,697,321],"class_list":["post-11124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cruise-industry-news","category-deals","category-people","category-ports","category-ships","category-stories","tag-bargains","tag-celebrity-century","tag-celebrity-cruises","tag-cruise-deals","tag-cruises","tag-hawaii","tag-kentucky-derby","tag-river-cruises","tag-the-american-queen","tag-theme-cruises","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11124\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}