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Tours don’t always go as planned. These four Short Tales are a tribute to the flexibility, adaptability, perseverance and patience of CAC docents. Emily Clott, 2012, describes an interesting first-of-the-season river cruise. Bill Page, 2001, recounts a tour greatly influenced by bicycles. Then, back to the river on a rainy day with Claudia Winkler, 2007. Finally, Joan Johns, 2008, relates a logistics nightmare on the Tiffany tour.

Rust Cruise Chaos
By Emily Clott, Class of 2012

River Cruisers call the first cruise of the season the “Rust Cruise,” as our narration has gotten a bit rusty during the off season. This year, my Rust Cruise in April was gliding along fairly well when the captain pulled me aside as the boat paused at the turning basin so guests could take photos and drink in the gorgeous skyline.

“We’re going to have to hang out here for a while until we’re cleared to go back to the dock. There’s been some sort of police situation that includes a gun at Trump Tower, so the River Walk is closed,” he said.

As advertised, the boat paused just a little longer than usual, then resumed, passengers none the wiser. But soon, the captain informed me that we’d have to disembark at dock 5, further east than usual.  Two minutes later, it’s OK, we’re going back to dock 1. Two minutes after that, no, it has to be dock 5. By this time my narration is out the window, the passengers are a little restless, and I’m getting a sense of whiplash. The captain explained the situation to those on board, we disembarked at Dock 5, then had to climb up the stairs to the Columbus Drive Bridge and Upper Wacker to leave the area. The River Walk was indeed closed due to a domestic violence situation involving a gun at the Trump Tower. No one was hurt, the tale has a happy ending, but my Rust Cruise this year might well be re-christened the Chaos Cruise.

Bill’s Bicycle Dilemma
By Bill Page, Class of 2001

A few years ago, probably shortly before Covid, I had an afternoon tour with a particularly patient group. Right at tour time, a woman came running up wheeling a bicycle. She said she and her husband had reserved tickets and traveled to Chicago for the tour, but he’d lagged behind and would be right with us. The group agreed to wait. “Right with us” turned into ten minutes, and when he arrived he asked where they could park their bicycles. That led to a brief discussion, with the two of them taking the bikes outside — somewhere — and “rushing” back while the rest of the group was still there waiting patiently. By the time we got going it was twenty minutes late. Nobody complained — to me, anyway — and the tour itself ran smoothly. How, fellow docents, how would you have handled it?

River Rising, Claudia Coping,
Claudia Winkler, Class of 2007

About 8 years ago, I was doing a Friday morning river tour after several days of rain. Fortunately for this tour, it was just grey, no rain. But while we were on the main branch going west, the MWRD let a lot of water out into the river.  We were on one of the small, high boats and as we approached the confluence, a deckhand came up and said that the water level had risen way too high for us to get under any of the bridges going north or south.  He also said we would be going into Lake Michigan –  a first for me!  I shared the news and continued with my tour going east until we got near the Michigan Avenue bridge.  At that time, the captain asked everyone (about 40 on the boat) to please come to the front of the boat to weigh it down so that we could get under the bridge!!  I did mention this was a first for me, but everyone loved doing what the captain asked us to do.

We got to the Lock and as we were waiting for the water to rise, I told everyone about the buildings we could see from there. And to fill some time, I asked if anyone had questions.  Unfortunately, the St. Regis wasn’t there or I certainly wouldn’t have run out of things to say.

While in the lock, I kept wondering if we would go north or south.  That was a wasted effort because as soon as we left the lock and were in Lake Michigan, we immediately turned around and went back into the Lock because the captain had to get back to the dock for the next tour.  I fully expected everyone to demand a refund.  Much to my surprise, when people disembarked, they were all saying what a great experience it had been and no one seemed at all unhappy.  And no one realized how much architecture they missed seeing and hearing about on the north and south branches!  As Shakespeare would say, “All’s well that ends well!”

Joan Juggles The Tiffany Tour
Joan Johns, Class of 2008

This Tiffany tour had 11 people: 2 groups of 2 (from Chicago and Washington DC) and a group of 7 people who were all from Tiffany Company on an outing to see some of his works. All were great tour takers…attentive and engaged.

A major installation was being set up at our first stop – the Cultural Center. The set up was just beginning in GAR but security let us in for about 5 minutes as the set up crew began work.

The Preston Bradley Hall was halfway set up but again security let us in for 10+ minutes.  He stood and listened as I went on and on about the hall.

Since I knew about the pending closing of these spaces, I had taken everyone upstairs without any background info usually given at the beginning of the tour downstairs. Still, I managed to weave in all of the stories and details – just at different times during the tour. Flexibility.

We moved on to Macy’s, our next stop. The Pedway had a sleeper on the floor … but the group loved seeing the spider windows.

In Macy’s the elevators didn’t work. But, when I had previously walked the store, a security guy showed me a different elevator, so we went straight up to the fourth floor for a view of the Tiffany vault.

No problems at Marquette Building. The group all took notes on their phones and looked up the book Clara & Mr. T.  I think they enjoyed the tour…all of them.   Phew!

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