Calliope

On 3/7/2022 at 2:25 PM, AQJazz said:

Calliope

Loss of goodwill indeed. I’m also shocked at the prices, tests in our area are closer to $100.

 

After that terrible start, I’m curious how the rest of the cruise went. Please provide some commentary, I’m eager to hear.

 

Thank you

The price per test at the Gretna medical Center was $200.00 per test and then since I paid with a credit card there was the extra $7.00 charge per test. And, of course, there was the costs for Uber to and from the clinic and vacation time spent in Mardi Gras parade traffic which need to be taken into account.

With that being said the trip on the AQ was wonderful. The food and our  waitress Charne were fantastic. Also the evening shows and Mardi Gras party were great fun. Some people were disappointed that we did not land at St. Francisville. Instead  we landed at Pointe Coupee on the west bank and  the hop-on hop off tour of New Roads, La. was offered. I have never been to New Roads, so I enjoyed visiting a new town.  Unfortunately, landing on the other side of the river necessitated canceling the shore tour to Angola Prison which was a disappointment to those whom had prebooked the prison excursion.  Due to a rapidly rising Mississippi River the stop at Greenville, Miss. was scrubbed. There was some grumbling amongst some passengers, but that certainly didn't match what there would have been if we had to end the trip way below Memphis in Tunica. Personally, I really enjoyed the two days of steamboatin' in  row. and wished that more of those days were offered.

On 3/1/2022 at 10:44 PM, ericosmith said:

In other words, they messed up big time by changing the rules midstream trying to save a few bucks.  

Exactly, and it cost me $414.00 plus the Uber ride to Gretna last month for the two of us to comply. I'm not happy about it either! When we did arrive for pre cruise check in at the hotel PCR tests were being offered at $400. for the two tests when I was told by the boat's reservation office three days before none would be offered. They screwed up and it cost them a boatload of good will.

11 hours ago, adstz said:

EDIT: I just read some other posts. It seems things have changed (as they always do). Please check the current requirements on their website. It looks as though you now need to do your own test 48 hours before embarkation. Sorry.

They have indeed changed. Proof of a negative PCR test less than 48 hours old is required to be obtained by the departing passenger on their own before arrival at check in.  Also it is a PCR test and not an antigen test that is required. Information sent with the tickets clearly states those with an antigen test will be denied boarding.

On 2/14/2022 at 11:01 PM, ericosmith said:

According to Walgreens and CVS they offer free test with results in less than 24 hours at many locations.  My understanding is that the rapid molecular test is processed at the store.  

In the US covid tests are not covered by insurance or  free if being used to verify that you are Covid free for personal travel. They are covered by insurance or free under certain limiting circumstances such as possible contact with a known covid carrier or signs/symptoms of being infected present, etc.

I just received my documents today for an upcoming Str. AMERICAN QUEEN cruise. Clearly stated within the precruise/check-in information  is the new Covid testing policy. It is now the passenger's responsibility to obtain within 48 hours of boarding a PCR test. And furthermore it must be a PCR test. Antigen tests will not be accepted. 

I found a walk-in location, or make an appointment, across the river in Gretna, LA that provides rapid PCR testing 7 days a week. It's not too far, just across the Greater New Orleans Connecter Bridge from downtown New Orleans. It is quite price though at $200.00 per test.

My husband and I are on the same trip with you. Hopefully, our tickets will come tomorrow from the travel agent.

There is one question that you can answer here for myself and the English women with the Covid testing questions. Is Covid testing offered by the American Queen Co. during the check in at the hotel the afternoon before or is it now our responsibility to find a testing location and be tested?

Thanks.

Cunard reports 10 passengers as having Covid while SKY News and The Express in England are saying that 60 souls onboard the QM2 have Covid. Certainly an interesting slant on all parts. Am I right to gather that 10 passengers and 50 crew are infected with this pernicious virus? Also could this be a statement on the efficacy of the one shot J&J vaccine which the majority of ships' crews have received as opposed to the more robust Moderna and Pfeizer vaccines?

Can anything be perfect?  Of course not!  Even if tested at the pier a person may be infected but the virus hasn't started to replicate yet. So, yes, you are right. I was too zealous about testing those in transit. A test then would be negative, but allowing someone to board that had a negative Covid test two days before seems  especially careless in light of the Omicron's rapid ability to spread.

Cunard already has let the QM2's passengers boarding in Brooklyn that they are responsible for obtaining their own COVID test before arriving at the dock. The test must be taken two days or less before arrival at the terminal. And that terminal is in a city that now seems to be  the epicenter for the Omicron Variant in the U.S. If Cunard doesn't rethink this  ill conceived policy about not providing Covid testing upon arrival at the dock, I fear that there could be a serious outbreak of Covid on the ship. 

I have ordered a testing kit and will be testing myself before I leave home two days before boarding. I want to make sure I don't leave home infected. During those two days I will be on a train overnight, staying in a Manhattan hotel, dining in Manhattan restaurants, and being hauled by taxi around a city rife with the disease. That's two days of possible exposure without any knowledge of my status when I step over the gangway. Luckily, the testing kit has two separate swabs for two separate tests. 

The only way to truly guarantee the ship's health is to check all those boarding in Brooklyn, and those in transit whom have gone ashore for the day.

1 minute ago, Oak Hill Cruisers said:

Thank you all for your comments & suggestions.

 

We're now looking into considering the American Countess (153sf interior cabins) and the American Duchess (150sf interior cabins) which may be a little better than the 130sf interior cabins on the American Queen.

 

Having a writing desk and even only one chair would be nice.

Honestly, I would make my first trip on the Mississippi River on a genuine paddlewheel steamboat. Although paddlewheelers the AMERICAN DUCHESS and COUNTESS are not real steamboats, and the U.S. Coast Guard requires stricter manning arrangements on steam powered vessels. There seems to be more entertainment onboard the larger AMERICAN QUEEN than what was offered on the AMERICAN DUCHESS in July.  Also the decor on the AMERICAN QUEEN is more charming and evokes the days of riverboat gamblers and hooped skirted belles. I found the AMERICAN DUCHESS to be rather sterile and even cold. The AMERICAN QUEEN offers charming public rooms to sit inside and watch America go by, and the DUCHESS does not. The other suggestion that I would make is to think about the outside staterooms on the Cabin Deck. They are one category up from the inside rooms. Each has a bay window which depending on the room has either a shelf at the base of the bay or a nice little alcove to place your chair and watch the river. Actually, those are my favorite rooms.

On 10/27/2021 at 8:26 PM, wandb said:

Thank you, Calliope!  I knew I could count on you for good honest opinion!  I’ve benefited from your posts in the past. Hope to meet you on a cruise one day. 

 

Thanks,

Barb

 

 

 

Thank you for the kind compliment. I too hope that we can meet on a steamboat trip one day.

There's definitely no room in an inside stateroom on the AQ for a small table. There use to be a small chair or seat in the inside rooms when the boat came out in 1995, but I'm not sure that there is one now in each room.  With that being said my next two trips booked on the AQ are in an inside room due to the heavily discounted fare offered.

I recently made a trip on the Upper Miss from Alton up to Red Wing on the AMERICAN DUCHESS. IMHO I would go from Alton up river to Red Wing. I did so just because of the extra day of being out on the river. The scenery on the Upper is 180 degrees different than what is down south on the Lower. There will be plenty of islands, hills and bluffs, and twenty three locks to go through, and that day out on the river gives you the opportunity to enjoy the scenery during day light.

I have no desire to go on the DUCHESS again; it's been there done that. Honestly, I don't think her interior appoints are that attractive. She has all the charm of a modern convention hotel and none of the warmth of an old time paddle wheel steamboat.  My choice would be to book the AMERICAN QUEEN up to Red Wing.

Perhaps my husband and I are on the same cruise that you are on. Next month we leave on the MARINA from Barcelona with the first stop being Funchal three days later. I certainly read the same information that you have about a PLF being necessary for entrance to Portugal and its territories. Yes, the form and the information provided all refer to air travel. My hope is that when Oceania sends out the final boarding information your question, and I'm sure many other questions concerning international cruise travel during the time of COVID will be answered in the forthcoming information. Your other option is calling the Portuguese Embassy or Consulates for clarification. 

23 hours ago, Calliope said:

You are correct about the EMPRESS, but not correct about the AMERICAN QUEEN. The majority of the push that the AQ gets under normal operating conditions is from the sternwheel. The US Coast Guard recognizes this and on the USCG permit to operate, known as a Certificate of Inspection, the USCG has her as being steam propulsion.

Sorry for any confusion. I added the word permit so what I wrote previously makes sense.

On 9/30/2021 at 9:32 PM, ericosmith said:

My recollection of both the Queen and the Empress is that they both only get about 20 percent of their propulsion from the paddlewheel.  The primary thrust is provided by z-drives or as they are know on the big ships, azi-pods.  

You are correct about the EMPRESS, but not correct about the AMERICAN QUEEN. The majority of the push that the AQ gets under normal operating conditions is from the sternwheel. The US Coast Guard recognizes this and on the USCG to operate, known as a Certificate of Inspection, the USCG has her as being steam propulsion.

Z-drives and Azi-Pods are not the same thing. Both are  electric motor driven propellers, but with  a Z-drive the motor is housed above the bottom of the hull in a water tight compartment and the propellers hang below. The AQ's  two Z-drives are housed on either side of the paddlewheel each on either fantail. Through a system of gears and links in a Z shape the props are turned and can rotate 360 degrees. Azi-Pods hang below the hull and the electric motor is in the torpedo shaped pod adjacent to the propeller under the vessel's waterline. They too can be rotated 360 degree.

2 hours ago, DaveinCharlotte said:

Thank you.  I was under the misapprehension that the American Queen steam power was just an auxiliary -- thank you (and oldone79 and ericosmith) for setting me straight.  Amazing that such old technology can still be put to good use.

 

Spent a week on the Delta Queen when it was docked as a boutique hotel in Chattanooga.  They were running the boilers just to keep things from rusting up.  They told us regulations prevented them from running the boilers are more than 50% capacity, but out of prudence they never ran them over 25%.    

Back in the early 1950s my dad was Chief Engineer on the DELTA QUEEN, and was very familiar with those two WW I surplus water tube boilers. When she comes out again she will have two new high efficiency boilers. 

Yea, I can understand the confusion about the AQ's propulsion, but he USCG Certificate of Inspection does list her primary power as steam. I was on her once when she cracked her paddlewheel shaft and it was the electric Z-drives that brought her home.

On 9/26/2021 at 9:43 PM, midwestchick said:

Good question. Does AQS have a walking track or walking area on board? I am not able to tell looking at the deck plan.  We sail on the Queen in November. 

Yes, both the Observation Deck and Promenade Deck can be fully circled.  Neither are designed for running or jogging. The former though can get some spray at the stern from the paddlewheel while the boat is running, but the guards (the river term for the open deck running down along the side between the superstructure and the railings.) are wide and easy to pass other passengers. The Promenade Deck's  guards are not as wide and there is an area forward that is under cover that you have to carefully go through due to stairs from the pilothouse and a hallway intersecting the deck there.

2 hours ago, Frncie said:

I see from cruisemapper that the Queen is currently in Vicksburg. Good for them. On our northbound cruise last week, we had to skip Vicksburg, Nottoway, and Greenville due to a 28-hour delay departing New Orleans. Replacement portable generator finally allowed us to get started. 
 

Between the Covid-19 onboard, the missing ports, the seedy New Orleans hotel, the disastrous disembarkation in Tunica (a couple dozen people missed their flights due to hours-long delays), I would never dream of booking another cruise with this company, no matter where, when or how. 
 

(Edited to add: One more thing. They lied to us. They told us we could not dock in Vicksburg because of low water levels. Amazing how that water level could have improved so much in less than a week that they are docked there today! The communication on this trip was disgraceful. I wonder what else they lied about.)
 

Everyone onboard the September 20 cruise should have gotten 100% refund. 

I have read your comments and those from other media sources about your recent trip on the AMERICAN QUEEN. It truly does sound as if the river cruise you were promised and paid for was far from the experience you, and others expected.  I have not read anywhere though that there was a covid  outbreak onboard as you mentioned.  How was that handled by the company ? I'd be interested in hearing about that, and I'm sure others would too.

I would like to educate you so that  you might like to rethink what you wrote about the ability of the boat to head up the Yazoo River to land at Vicksburg. First of all I have no connection to the American Queen Steamboat Co. other than being a past passenger and having friends whom work on the their boats. My great grandfather was a steamboat captain, and my father a steamboat chief engineer, but were deceased before The American Queen Steamboat Company ever existed. I too have worked on the river, but not for this company.  I do though have more of an understanding of the rivers ways than the average person or passenger on one of the riverboats. Your claim that the water could not have risen enough in less than a week to allow the AMERICAN QUEEN to land at Vicksburg is patently wrong. The water could rise in hours or conversely drop in a short period of time. They did not lie to you nor anyone else when they told you that. I've seen the water in the normally placid Ohio River come up over six feet in less than three hours in Cincinnati Harbor during the city's last Tall Stacks Celebration. At Marietta, Ohio, after Hurricane Ivan came up the Ohio River valley I witnessed the river rise from near pool stage to the highest recent flood overnight. In less than 24 hours the main streets of that town were covered by not inches but feet of Ohio and Muskingum River water. The rise on the lower Mississippi River can even be more dramatic without the locks & dams that are on the Ohio, Upper Mississippi, and other tributaries.  There are many factors that can determine the stage of water at the Vicksburg landing that come into play. I won't bore you with all of those, but do understand when they do come into play it can be feast or famine for any boat's crew to deal with safely and wisely.

On 9/28/2021 at 9:27 AM, DaveinCharlotte said:

Are you referring to AQSC's American Queen, or to the old Delta Queen?

I am referring to the Str. AMERICAN QUEEN. Her steam engines were removed from the retired USACE dredge KENNEDY for use on the AQ. Unfortunately, at this time the Str. DELTA QUEEN is not operating and is laid up in Houma, LA.

I have been on the Upper Mississippi "between the Saints" several times. The most recent was this past July on the M/V AMMERICAN DUCHESS. In short the river is beautiful, with high bluffs and mountains, historic river towns, and many locks and dams to go through. The old steamboat brochures touted the Upper Mississippi region as "The Land of Sky Tinted Waters."  That still holds true today.

I would recommend the  Str. AMERICAN QUEEN as she is real steam with nearly 100 year old steam engines, a melodic steam whistle and  calliope that add to her charm, also more activities are offered during the day than the company's smaller diesel boats. IMHO the upriver trip is the better of either heading north or south bound. Traveling north gives an extra day of steaming up the "Father of Waters" and enjoying the scenery instead of spending the day tied up in a town.

On 9/22/2021 at 6:01 PM, Frncie said:

This is a beautiful section of the River and the weather this afternoon is gorgeous. 

The Upper Mississippi, and the entire Ohio, Cumberland, and Tennessee are for more beautiful than the Lower Mississippi. Hopefully, one day soon you'll book a trip on the Upper Miss  or other rivers.

It has been my experience that hotel placement depends on the type of stateroom you are booked in. Passengers booking "Commodore Service" suites are placed in better shoreside hotel rooms.  If you choose to opt out of the provided hotel room a $100.00 per stateroom onboard credit is provided.

I've never been on ACL nor will I ever. And it's not because the AMERICAN JAZZ was stuck in the mud for over a week either. The owners of ACL spent nearly $1,000,000.00 with Washington, DC. lobby firm Blank Rome, LLP to keep Congress from renewing the National Historic Landmark Str. DELTA QUEEN"s exemption from SOLAS regulations. If not for all of that the DELTA QUEEN might be running today being the only overnight river cruise vessel operating from the early Twentieth Century.

I can comment on the American Queen Steamboat Co. though. I have been on all but the AMERICAN COUNTESS and have two cruises booked during 2022 both on the AMERICAN QUEEN. I find the food, accommodations  and entertainment on each of their boats wonderful. The Hop On Hop Off bus tours are particularly nice on their coaches that have plenty of leg room as I'm 6'4".Also right now during the Covid crisis all passengers and crew must be vaccinated, and last week while onboard the AMERICAN DUCHESS I found that particularly comforting.

Just got our docs yesterday  for the trip up to Red Wing. We're certainly looking forward to an exciting adventure on an old river by a new boat.