The 75% All New Trip! - All done! Bonus Material finished, Link to new TR!

[Paula Sedley-Burke]

Love the boat! Nice room and amazing balcony. Was there no disabled wet room/shower type stateroom?

I love the map on the wall of the missisippi River in one of the photos. I love those chairs for gentlemen with swords! You have one at home? How neat.

Cool expresso machine and fresh baked cookies. How great. Your table buddies sound nice.

I've always wanted to try fry green tomatoes since watching the movie. One of my favorite movies/books. Your dinner looks wonderful. I love beef and halibut!

Lovely photos thank you.

 

[afwdwfan]

was really pleased with our cabin.

I can see why! It looks amazing!

And the balcony outside was huge! It wasn’t completely private, but many people came out onto the balcony and would see the sign and assume it applied to the entire balcony. I thought it was just the immediate area outside the cabin and the farther part away was open to all. We rarely had visitors on the patio so it was nice and private.

That's nice!

It was so quaint, our stateroom unlocked with a real key!

What? A key? How does it work????

Because Fran couldn’t do the stairs, they just let us wait in the foyer outside our stateroom until it was over and then we headed back to the room.

I'm sorry, but you can't do stairs so in the event of a real fire or hull breach, you're screwed. Thanks for sailing with us!

We were underway and I still had no wine, so I decided to rectify that and not knowing the ship, looked at our map and decided the bar on deck 5 was my best option. It turns out that was the farthest bar from our cabin!

Well, at least you got out there and did some good exploration of the boat right away!

You could find photocopied crosswords and Sudoku on that counter every morning. I never tried them because they were only Medium and Hard no Easy.

I laugh, but I'm right there with you. They're only fun if you can beat them without having to erase anything.

Wine was included with dinner and they poured it heartily. Turns out our dinner companions were also big wine collectors. It sounds like his collection puts mine to shame as he had a room and not just a refrigerated closet.

Sounds like you need to befriend them and take a trip to South Africa.

 

[EJ4Disney]

OH Alison, I am loving this!

Now that Lent is over I have a LOT more time I can play. Your trip report was the first one I wanted to catch up on. LOVE IT!!

So sorry you fell. Dang. The boat is beautiful. I know you are home now but I can't wait for the next update.

 

[IowaTater]

I can understand the no vehicles, skateboards, etc. But reptiles? Did they really need to add that or was it just for the lost crocodile who didn’t realize they weren’t welcome?

I don't know why but this makes me think of this:

Oh, so pretty! I love that cabinet. It reminds me of my grandmother's old wardrobe she had growing up.

That's do nice that you had stuff in common with your tablemates. I'm always worried about awkwardness when I'm seated with people I don't know.

 

[dolphingirl47]

Then we arrived at the dock and made our way down to the ship.

The ship looks rather regal.

I was really pleased with our cabin.

That cabin looks absolutely amazing. I love the old-fashioned look.

And the balcony outside was huge! It wasn’t completely private, but many people came out onto the balcony and would see the sign and assume it applied to the entire balcony. I thought it was just the immediate area outside the cabin and the farther part away was open to all. We rarely had visitors on the patio so it was nice and private.

How nice that you ended up with an almost private balcony. It does look very nice.

My “gift” bottle of wine never arrived in the stateroom and I called the purser’s office and they said that they would have one in time for sail away.

What a pain. I am glad that it turned up shortly afterwards.

We did the muster drill and it was painless for us. Because Fran couldn’t do the stairs, they just let us wait in the foyer outside our stateroom until it was over and then we headed back to the room.

That seems a strange way of doing things.

This looks really spectacular.

The public spaces all look really nice and interesting.

Directly behind me in this picture was a case that was always full of fresh baked cookies. Chocolate Chip, Oatmeal and White chocolate chip macadamia nut.

That would have been a serious temptation for us and the coffee machine looks great.

I love those photos.

It turns out the nice couple that I ran into at the coffee machine were our tablemates for dinner. They were from South Africa and their names were Jenny and Nigel.

It is nice that you had already met them. Dinner looked lovely.

Turns out our dinner companions were also big wine collectors.

Nice that you had something in common.

Corinna

 

[pkondz]

Those are definitely what I think of as small planes and I would classify them as puddle jumpers.

Now I know.

Well when you go on a 1-3 hour excursion, no one expects you to bring a full wardrobe change. Plus I have never experienced a wardrobe malfunction.

Wardrobe malfunction coming up on my TR's next update...

You can. I will avoid arachnids!

As will I!

Sort of. Not really.

Oy.

Going back to read now.

 

[pkondz]

Love those stacks.

So is the ship called the American Queen? Or is that the company name?

I was really pleased with our cabin.

Love the furniture!

And the balcony outside was huge! It wasn’t completely private, but many people came out onto the balcony and would see the sign and assume it applied to the entire balcony.

Of which you did nothing to correct them.

It was so quaint, our stateroom unlocked with a real key!

What is this "key" thing you speak of?

We did the muster drill and it was painless for us. Because Fran couldn’t do the stairs, they just let us wait in the foyer outside our stateroom until it was over and then we headed back to the room.

Not too difficult to manage.

We were underway and I still had no wine, so I decided to rectify that and not knowing the ship, looked at our map and decided the bar on deck 5 was my best option. It turns out that was the farthest bar from our cabin!

Of course.

There was an old fashioned steam calliope playing and it was LOUD!

Cool! I've never heard one IRL.

This is the area just outside the Gift shop, you can see the purser’s office on the right hand side of the picture. The stairway in the middle descends down to the Main Dining Room.

Did anyone play the piano while you were aboard?

Here is the Mark Twain Room.

Gorgeous.
But then again, you can apply that to the entire ship, it seems.

This was my spot where I would compute.

Looks cozy!

Hence my earlier question about the ship's name.
Or was this the original that your ship was based on?

We have a single chair like this at our house, it is intended for gentlemen wearing swords.

You get many gentlemen callers wearing swords?

Directly behind me in this picture was a case that was always full of fresh baked cookies.

I'd be all over that... all the time.

OMG! Is that Yogi with a picnic basket?????

It turns out the nice couple that I ran into at the coffee machine were our tablemates for dinner.

Huh! What are the odds?

For our main course, I had the beef tenderloin. This was fantastic and cooked perfectly.

Looks like it. Yum. Want.

 

[Steppesister]

Just settling in after my own trip and the first week of school. I had NO idea they made luxury paddle wheel ships like that! Very nice accommodations and meals looks like! They seemed very accommodating to bring your wine in time. I'll mention this experience to my parents- they may want to give it a try living so close.

@pkondz - ever heard of a Yak 40? The Russian version of a "puddle jumper" that we used to fly ALL the time. Scary as hell. Oh man, do I have stories.....

 

[rentayenta]

Yay for good tablemates! Double yay for good tablemates who imbibe.

Your first dinner on the ship looks delicious but whats that red thing on the asparagus? Looks like a blanched and skinned tomato.

The ship looks fabulous as does your cabin.

Hope you didn't stay too sore the whole trip.

 

[ACDSNY]

Cool. Never been to Memphis - but I know were I walking around in Memphis I would be constantly humming that Marc Cohn song "Walking In Memphis".

The song has been going through my head the whole time I've been reading this.

The boat looks lovely and all your pics are making me want to take a trip like this someday.

 

[franandaj]

Interesting how wide the ship is! I wonder how the dimensions compare to the modern river cruise boats you see here in Europe. I think they are less high as there are so many bridges that are rather low. Those bridges were built well before anyone invented steam boats.

I'm not sure if the perspective is off, it wasn't all that wide, but then again European rivers are much smaller than the Mississippi. Maybe the European boats are less wide, at least the newer ones.

The cabin looks gorgeous and I really like the "bed protector". I have seen that on other cruise lines as well and miss that at Disney. They only have the blanket, but that is not really sturdy enough in my opinion. Another thing that is different besides the lack of the boarding picture! ;-)

We actually didn't see it again until the end of the trip when our cabin steward put it back on the bed with the taunting words, "Bon Voyage" on the other side.

I think this looks really great and I would really like that! I know that on some cruise ships they have cabins that open up to the promenade deck and I think for me that would be perfect as I prefer being in a public space to being on my own little balcony.

Most of the outside staterooms did open up to some sort of promenade deck. I can see where that would be OK, except that I liked to go out early in the morning in my robe and I wouldn't feel comfortable doing that if I knew people would be walking by!

Interesting to read through! And I like that they tell people that you need to be at your table by the latest 15 minutes past your dining time!

I liked that too. They did have a pretty set service schedule. Unfortunately we were always receiving our appetizers when most everyone else was getting their soups/salads or even their mains. Our orders seemed to be the last to be taken for our section, some of the other tables had their starters before we had even placed our orders, but I got used to it.

Looks like a great sailaway despite the drink hiccup!

It was nice, Fran usually doesn't join me out on the balcony, so that way nice!

That looks really interesting that they have all those books there!!

They had a ton of books on the Mississippi, Mark Twain, and all kinds of other things

Great computing spot! All the public areas look wonderful!

I liked it because there was a plug and table was large enough to hold the computer comfortably.

A WMF machine! That's German coffee engineering! ;-) Many places here have those and I find that they do make a rather decent coffee. I would prefer a coffee from this to the stuff they made for me at the Cove Cafe...

I thought it made pretty good coffee and easier to use than the other machine upstairs. I don't think I got a picture of that one.

Those look delicious!!!

They were! We are quite a few over the course of the week.

Not being on FB, you missed my picture from later in the week. I'll share it here at the right time.

Oh, fancy plates!!

They were!

Sounds like dinner was a great success with table mates and food! The food all looked really good, especially that tenderloin!

Yes it worked out quite nicely for the most part.

Oh my gosh, I love the cabin! Definitely different from the DCL cabins but very cool.

Everything about the boat was different from DCL!

We were given real keys when we went away for my 'relaxing' weekend and I was pretty shocked myself!

I mean how many places really still have them?

I think this is so cool! Do waters get rough on rivers?

On some rivers I'm sure they could be rough, but until you see it, you can't even fathom the size of the Mississippi. It was never rough for us, and I have some pictures from when it was at its most turbulent that I saw.

Nice spot

Thanks!

Pretty and dainty! So not me.

It wasn't really me either.

Ah, here we go!

The taxidermy sort of freaked me out a bit. I liked the room with the model ships.

Dinner looked pretty amazing. I was excited to see the pics of it, wanted to compare to DCL but the serving portions all look about the same. But wine included?!

At dinner wine and beer were included. It probably saved us a good chunk of cash as they were very generous with their pours and always refilled your glass if you asked!

Wowzers! You're still the only person I know with a huge collection so still number one in my book

Gawrsh, thanks!

Saturday Night Live, actually.

I stopped being able to stay up that late long ago, and then the humor went over my head so I never bothered to DVR it once we had the technology.

The ship looks really cool!

It was!

Bonus! That's just perfect.

I'd rather keep to myself when I can so it worked out great!

A what?

I know! We don't even use keys to get into our home!

Pretty snazzy. I think I like that room better than the men's or women's lounges.

It was definitely my favorite of the three.

Get a lot of visitors like that, do you?

That's pretty interesting, though.

Actually it was one of the pieces that we inherited from her parents. I have no idea why they had it other than her mom had really bizarre tastes.

Oh man. You just sold me on the cruise. I wouldn't leave the room. Except to find Sudoku for Dummies.

Yeah there were cookies all day except in the morning I found pastries and cinnamon rolls.

I would have been able to build a wine room if I didn't have so many kids.

but would you want one?

Beautiful room! Love the balcony area too. Love the pics around the ship, the public seating areas look nice and inviting. Nice that they have the cappuccino machine and yummy looking cookies out for people to enjoy. Sounds like you lucked out with good tablemates. I always enjoyed that part of cfruising but it is always a little scary waiting to see if everyone will get along.

Thanks it was a very nice boat and we did luck out with tablemates for the most part.

I'd love to do this cruise some day! I can cope with river cruising.....just not open sea!

I'm sure you would like it. The pesky vegetarian might be challenged with some of the food options.

Wow! What a great room and balcony.

It was!

Pity that the bottle of wine wasn't available on arrival!

I did have to scramble.

Love the ladies' parlour.....and that's a great spot for computing.
I think I would have loved to have been able to browse in that shop too!

It was very quaint, as was the shop.

How cool is that? That's one heck of a happychance to run into the people you would be sitting with for dinner!

And they turned out to be very nice people as well!

 

[dizneeat]

All caught up again!
I thought with you on vacation I was in the clear not to fall too far behind while on vacation too. Well, seems that you were FAR busier than I was and I was 5 pages behind.

Comments:
Wow! What a long travel day and getting a room at the hotel sounded painful. Loved your breakfast plate on the plane though!

Boy, what a nasty fall. I was glad to hear that you were able to get up and go on with your vacation, but that could have been the end of it. Your knee looks VERY painful and I can imagine what your hip and elbow looked and felt like.

Your room and the ship look lovely! And how funny that the people you chatted with were your tablemates - small world. (Just needed a Disney touch here).

I am sure there was more to comment on, but I can't remember now. You may NOW go on with your TR.

 

[franandaj]

Love the boat! Nice room and amazing balcony. Was there no disabled wet room/shower type stateroom?

That was a disabled room. I'm not sure they had any "roll in" shower options on the boat. I assume the other rooms did not have quite so many grab bars on the walls.

I love the map on the wall of the missisippi River in one of the photos. I love those chairs for gentlemen with swords! You have one at home? How neat.

They had a lot of neat touches like that map through out the boat.

Cool expresso machine and fresh baked cookies. How great. Your table buddies sound nice.

It was great!

I've always wanted to try fry green tomatoes since watching the movie. One of my favorite movies/books. Your dinner looks wonderful. I love beef and halibut.

I've had fried green tomatoes and they weren't my favorite, but the meat and fish were fantastic!

I can see why! It looks amazing!

Very quaint and the bed was very comfy!

What? A key? How does it work????

I know pretty soon no one is going to know how to use them!

I'm sorry, but you can't do stairs so in the event of a real fire or hull beach, you're screwed. Thanks for sailing with us!

Actually they said that in the event of a real emergency crew members would come for her and help her down the stairs and get her to safety. They just didn't feel the need to reenact carrying her down the stairs.

Well, at least you got out there and did some good exploration of the boat right away!

Yeah it just turns out that what became my favorite bar was just down the hall on the same level as our room.

I laugh, but I'm right there with you. They're only fun if you can beat them without having to erase anything.

I like a challenge and all, but there's a fine line between a challenge and frustration.

Sounds like you need to befriend them and take a trip to South Africa.

Well Nigel did give us his business card. I owe them an email.

OH Alison, I am loving this!

Now that Lent is over I have a LOT more time I can play. Your trip report was the first one I wanted to catch up on. LOVE IT!!

Well I'm honored that I was the first one you caught up on!

So sorry you fell. Dang. The boat is beautiful. I know you are home now but I can't wait for the next update.

I'm glad I recovered from the fall. Actually when I read this for the first time I wasn't quite home but in the airport waiting to board the flight.

 

[Paula Sedley-Burke]

I might stay with the romantic view I have then of fried green tomotoes!

One other thing I meant to say was I was wondering ( please forgive my ignorance I have never done river cruise ) what position in the river does your boat sail? Are you close to one river bank or more in the middle? if more on one side like a road system are you far from the bank of the river? I've been thinking about that! Is there a river boat etiquette with other boats! Like you sail down the left or the right. Sorry if that's a stupid question.

 

[franandaj]

I don't know why but this makes me think of this:

It was a much more mild mannered pig.

Oh, so pretty! I love that cabinet. It reminds me of my grandmother's old wardrobe she had growing up.

This was just a dresser though, the top compartment was just a small one foot by 18 inch compartment behind glass and the rest were all drawers, but it worked well for all our clothes.

That's do nice that you had stuff in common with your tablemates. I'm always worried about awkwardness when I'm seated with people I don't know.

We can usually find something to talk about with tablemates, but these were particularly friendly ones. At least the two from this last night.

The ship looks rather regal.

It sure was!

That cabin looks absolutely amazing. I love the old-fashioned look.

It was very homey and easy to relax in.

How nice that you ended up with an almost private balcony. It does look very nice.

I'm not one who necessarily enjoys striking up a conversation with everyone who walks by, so for me it was perfect.

What a pain. I am glad that it turned up shortly afterwards.

Yeah, after I ran up three fights of steps and to the back of the boat!

That seems a strange way of doing things.

Well everyone on our deck went to the front of the boat and descended the staircase to the main deck. If Fran had gone there, by the time she started to descend the staircase, the rest of the people would have been coming back up and just trampled her. In the event of an emergency, someone would have helped her down the steps.

This looks really spectacular.

Everything about the ship was very special, made me feel like royalty.

The public spaces all look really nice and interesting.

They were all very elegant, but not so much so that they were uncomfortable.

That would have been a serious temptation for us and the coffee machine looks great.

I probably got a coffee, almost every day, and we probably hit the cookies as much. I stopped taking pictures every time I grabbed some!

I love those photos.

Thank you.

It is nice that you had already met them. Dinner looked lovely.

I didn't recognize them at first until Jenny asked me if I had ever located whatever it was that I mentioned to them I was looking for.

Nice that you had something in common.

Yes, we actually had quite a bit in common.

Wardrobe malfunction coming up on my TR's next update...

Uh-oh

Love those stacks.

They're even retractable.

So is the ship called the American Queen? Or is that the company name?

The ship is the American Queen and the company is the American Queen Steamboat Company. They have another smaller ship out in Washington and Oregon called the American Empress.

Love the furniture!

It was very quaint.

Of which you did nothing to correct them.

Well, I might not have said, "Yes it's all private" but that's what they seemed to take away because most of the time they left.

What is this "key" thing you speak of?

Oh come on! You're as old as I am, you can't have forgotten...wait? what were we talking about?

Not too difficult to manage.

It was nice and we didn't even get trampled like at the Disney ones.

Cool! I've never heard one IRL.

It was L - O - U - D ! ! ! ! !

Did anyone play the piano while you were aboard?

Not that piano, but they had plenty of entertainers on board who played in the different lounges.

Gorgeous.
But then again, you can apply that to the entire ship, it seems.

Yes, and a more in depth tour coming in the next update.

Hence my earlier question about the ship's name.
Or was this the original that your ship was based on?

The ship is based on the Delta Queen, who is in dry dock awaiting a special dispensation from Congress to allow a ship with a wooden frame to travel on the rivers.

You get many gentlemen callers wearing swords?

No but I bet my in laws who we inherited it from did!

I'd be all over that... all the time.

We were all over it more than we should have been.

OMG! Is that Yogi with a picnic basket?????

Huh! What are the odds?

Well there were 350 people on board, if you figure roughly half are couples (pairs traveling together), I'd say 2 in 174 or 1 in 87.

Looks like it. Yum. Want.

It was very good!

Just settling in after my own trip and the first week of school. I had NO idea they made luxury paddle wheel ships like that! Very nice accommodations and meals looks like! They seemed very accommodating to bring your wine in time. I'll mention this experience to my parents- they may want to give it a try living so close.

This boat was built in 1995, but the original company who it was built for went out of business. I believe it began running again in 2008 under the AQSC. They have departures out of all sorts of cities along the river. They could even to Tennessee to Chattanooga or vice versa. We looked at booking one of those for October 2017. One is a Civil War Cruise and stops at lots of famous battle fields.

Yay for good tablemates! Double yay for good tablemates who imbibe.

It did make for a fun table!

Your first dinner on the ship looks delicious but whats that red thing on the asparagus? Looks like a blanched and skinned tomato.

It was a blanched and unskinned tomato. I had to look at the picture again and it still has the skin on it.

The ship looks fabulous as does your cabin.

Hope you didn't stay too sore the whole trip.

I tried to work that out starting the next day.

The song has been going through my head the whole time I've been reading this.

The boat looks lovely and all your pics are making me want to take a trip like this someday.

You guys would probably like it, just skip 3-4 Disney cruises to fit it into your budget.

All caught up again!
I thought with you on vacation I was in the clear not to fall too far behind while on vacation too. Well, seems that you were FAR busier than I was and I was 5 pages behind.

I'm glad you're back and caught up. I just don't want to get too far behind with the WDW trip only weeks away now!

Comments:
Wow! What a long travel day and getting a room at the hotel sounded painful. Loved your breakfast plate on the plane though!

It was long and painful. We learned a valuable lesson about travel time.

Boy, what a nasty fall. I was glad to hear that you were able to get up and go on with your vacation, but that could have been the end of it. Your knee looks VERY painful and I can imagine what your hip and elbow looked and felt like.

I know. I was thinking for a few seconds, ugh, I haven't even got on the boat and here I am screwing it up already!

Your room and the ship look lovely! And how funny that the people you chatted with were your tablemates - small world. (Just needed a Disney touch here).

Thanks for the Disney touch!

I am sure there was more to comment on, but I can't remember now. You may NOW go on with your TR.

I'm glad that I have your blessing to move on. I need to scan some more Navigators first.

 

[ACDSNY]

Yikes, I have to skip 3 or 4 DCL cruises.

 

[pkondz]

They're even retractable.

Cool! But I suppose that makes sense.

The ship is the American Queen and the company is the American Queen Steamboat Company. They have another smaller ship out in Washington and Oregon called the American Empress.

Check.

Oh come on! You're as old as I am, you can't have forgotten...wait? what were we talking about?

Actually, whenever I'm at a hotel and the stupid card stops working,
I usually say (out loud) "I miss keys."

It was L - O - U - D ! ! ! ! !

OKAY!

Not that piano, but they had plenty of entertainers on board who played in the different lounges.

Playing period appropriate music, I hope?

Yes, and a more in depth tour coming in the next update.

Great!

The ship is based on the Delta Queen, who is in dry dock awaiting a special dispensation from Congress to allow a ship with a wooden frame to travel on the rivers.

Oh? Because of contamination?

No but I bet my in laws who we inherited it from did!

We were all over it more than we should have been.

Calories don't count on vacation.

Well there were 350 people on board, if you figure roughly half are couples (pairs traveling together), I'd say 2 in 174 or 1 in 87.

You actually did the math!

 

[DVCjj]

I really love your trip reports and this was no exception. Your pictures are always wonderful, give so much insight and your writing is honest and fun.

Thank you for letting us come along on the journey.

 

[franandaj]

I might stay with the romantic view I have then of fried green tomotoes!

Who knows? You might like them. They have a crispy outside and a sort of tougher inside as the tomatoes are still not ripe. That's why they're still green. Some people love them!

One other thing I meant to say was I was wondering ( please forgive my ignorance I have never done river cruise ) what position in the river does your boat sail? Are you close to one river bank or more in the middle? if more on one side like a road system are you far from the bank of the river? I've been thinking about that! Is there a river boat etiquette with other boats! Like you sail down the left or the right. Sorry if that's a stupid question.

That is not a dumb question and I will be addressing some of that in the next update. If it's not clear after that update, ask me what you would like to know that I didn't already cover.

Yikes, I have to skip 3 or 4 DCL cruises.

You don't have to do anything, but as far as pricing goes, this cruise cost what 4 DCL Dream 4-night cruises would have cost (or pretty close). On the other hand, our DCL Alaskan cruise costs about 80% of what this one cost. The thing is the ship's registry is not Bahamas. I got talking to a bartender on the boat and she is not on any contract like the DCL employees. She is a regular employee who gets her paycheck deposited in her bank every other week, gets benefits and earns a living American wage, which is more than you can say for the folks who work on DCL.

 

[franandaj]

Greenville, MS

Let’s start off this day with some show and tell. Here is the layout of the boat.



Here is the map of where we’re going.



Here is our River Times for the Day










At every stop there was a Hop On/Hop Off Bus and they always gave you a map of the route and a page with a paragraph highlighting the stops.







So now that you have all the information that we had to plan our day, let’s get started!

I woke up somewhat early the next morning. Because of our placement on the boat, I didn’t think we were going to be seeing any sunrises, however, I didn’t take into account how the river meanders and the boat is turned in many which ways at any given time. So I lucked out with catching the sunrise, just as it crested over the trees.





Throughout the cruise debris like this would float by the ship randomly.



After my sunrise photos, I got dressed (no funny ideas there, they let you use a complimentary bath robe while you’re staying), and decided to get some cappuccino.



We headed down to breakfast around 7:30AM, and we were seated with a nice couple from Houston Texas. What was neat about this voyage was that they sat you with other folks at breakfast and lunch and you got to meet a bunch of different people on the trip. If you wanted to sit alone they did have tables for two on the side of the room.



Instead of a served breakfast, we opted for the buffet. There were two parts to the buffet, the cold items…









Under these domes you could find, scrambled eggs, eggs that were scrambled with something extra (varied daily) bacon, sausage, potatoes, biscuits & gravy and oatmeal.



We could have really pigged out if we wanted. But all day yesterday we felt really bloated, so we didn’t want to repeat that and ate a very light breakfast. Fran’s plate



My plate, well the bagel and cream cheese was for Fran.



At 8:30AM there was a talk by the Riverlorian in the Grand Saloon. This was a fascinating talk about the history of Steamships on the Mississippi.







He told us about the barges and how important they are to commerce on the river. They transport raw cargo. You’ll never find TVs on a barge, nor will you find a “Walmart” barge. What you will find is grain, coal, seed, gravel, things that require processing. And many of the plants that process the cargo can be found along the banks of the Mississippi.

He also explained about how the Military Corps of engineers structures the river and has done so since the early 1800s. Like in the 1800s before the Civil War, there was so much silt build up in St. Louis that ships were not able to dock there any longer. An Engineer named Robert E Lee, came up with a plan of dumping rocks and dirt at a key location to create a berm which would the route the water in a particular direction. It ended up changing the current, washing away all the silt deposits in St. Louis and the port reopened. I thought of some engineers out there who might have enjoyed this part of the discussion.

We also learned that we are on a boat, not a ship. If the boat can be placed on a larger vessel, the larger vessel is the ship and the smaller is a boat.

He told us about right of way on the river. Boats going down stream have the right of way and when they pass barges or other vessels on the river, the downstream boat will signal to the barge captain on which side he intends to pass. Because we didn’t encounter a whole lot of river traffic until we neared the end of our journey, the boat was mainly able to ride right down the middle of the river most of the time.

Another thing that they also talked about was the river level. It varies all the time, Spring is heavier than Fall. Right now we are experiencing unusually high river levels. You may have heard of the flooding in other parts of the Mississippi Valley. The tributaries are really filling the river and raising the level far above normal, which you will see in photos to come.

After the talk, we went back to the room. Fran laid down to rest. We wouldn’t reach our destination until around noon, so I took off to explore the boat.

[Continued in Next Post]