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On Board The American Queen |
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Email: Sue@PrintsPublishing.com HomePage: www.PrintsPublishing.com |
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It was a beautiful site. We boarded The American Queen down in Greenville, Mississippi, on Monday, March 11th, after an overnight in Memphis, Tennessee, which the ship couldn’t reach because of high water and flooding. |
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Our room wasn’t as big as we thought it would be, but it had a bathtub and two sinks and French doors to our large and rather private deck. |
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We had the TV on every morning before we went down for breakfast. Our room also had a bowl of fresh fruit. |
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I sat here when I tried to get my laptop to work, but the wifi wasn’t strong enough no matter where we were on the river. |
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They also had a bottle of wine waiting for us and two personal water containers. We never needed the little frig. |
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We explored the ship and found the calliope, which gave us a concert each evening as we left the various ports. |
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We found the swimming pool but never used it. Too cool outside for us and we didn’t have our suits along anyhow. |
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The river was always “prettier” at night because during the day you could see that the water is brown, the color of the soil. |
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Riverlorian Jerry Hay introduced us to the Pilot House and pulled the whistle for us. Sounded like Amtrak’s whistle. |
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Steam poured out of the three whistle chambers when it whistled. |
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The captain of the ship said she wanted to be the captain of a ship since she was a little girl. She followed in her father’s footsteps and her first boat job was scrubbing the deck. |
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The American Queen wasn’t wearing its bonnet while we were on the river. Probably too difficult to put on and take off every time we went under a bridge. The river was 25 feet higher than normal. |
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My panorama shows the gangways in front and the five decks, but not the paddle wheel in back. |
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There it is — a real working paddle wheel. |
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We learned the paddle wheel weighs 50 tons and is 30 feet wide. |
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The American Queen is the grandest and largest steam powered boat that’s ever been built. |
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We always had to sign in and sign out before leaving the boat or getting back on it. They never left anyone behind at a port. |
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We always enjoyed seeing riverboat traffic. |
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Every evening we had live entertainment in the Grand Saloon Theater. The vocalists and musicians were very good. |
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Every night after the show there was music in the Captain’s Bar. Usually it was Greg Lupton, an outstanding piano player and singer. |
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We always walked the stairs from the dining room deck up to our fifth floor deck. |
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We didn’t have to dress up for lunch but in the evening we couldn’t wear sandals or jeans or hoodies. The meals were outstanding both here in the formal dining room and also at The Front Porch Dining room. |
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People sat here and had coffee and read a newspaper. It definitely was not a TV room. I loved the furniture. |
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Women played bridge here every day (the table is on the right). Men put together 1,000-piece puzzles. |
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The American Queen was built in 1995. |
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And it was christened by the wife of Paul Harvey, the former popular radio host who always ended his programs with “ … and now you know the rest of the story.” |
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If you take a picture of the plaque, you don’t have to repeat it. |
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Our stateroom was on the Promenade Deck and so we had the most privacy on the ship, and the best views. |
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I took a picture of the Mississippi Queen as it moved in on us. We learned it’s not a true paddle wheel steam boat. |
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But it was good looking. I couldn’t believe how it could navigate so precisely and then park right next to us. |
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And it dropped its gang plank right by ours, on this side of working railroad tracks! So the first thing we had to do was not get hit by a train. |
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We were earlier surprised how the captain could maneuver our steamboat right next to trees in the water. |
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The American Queen is 418 feet long and 89 feet high and has room for 436 passengers. |
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The paddle wheel was always warmed up and inspected before we left port. See the piston on side of the paddle wheel? |
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The calliope sent music into the air as we left port each evening. |
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Jay Chalmers was at the calliope keyboard. He also played the piano and sang in the Engine Room Bar. |
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At my suggestion, Jay played the Beer Barrel Polka and the calliope didn’t mind at all. |