TinCan782

Same with the Duchess.

Found this link on a post by AQV on Linkedin: "American Queen Voyages has made the difficult decision to shut down." https://www.aqvinfo.com/ AQV Customer Claims Portal https://www.aqvrefunds.com/capture/upload

Haven't used it since my last cruise in 2021. I pretty much agree with ericosmith's comment above. The port info was nice to have available and the bus tracking wasn't particularly good. It can be used any time - aboard or ashore. No harm downloading it and trying it out to see for yourself. You can always delete it if is not what you want.

IIRC there are two show times which roughly correspond to the two evening dining times. I don't recall the actual times its been a few years. If you have early dining you can go to the later show and vice versa. Same thing on the Duchess a couple of years ago.

I was on that cruise in 2016 and IIRC the bus(s) departed Spokane early to mid-afternoon. There are several buses and passengers are assigned. We wound up on one of the later buses.

BTW, Lock #19 at Keokuk can be viewed any time here:

This video from August 7, 2021 caught my attention because my wife and I were aboard the Duchess (Red Wing to New Orleans) in this video. We were in the dining room having dinner at the time. I do remember this lock as I have a photo of the power plant that I shot from our dining room table. Until I saw this video I had no idea we locked through with another boat. The lock is more than capable of doing this. Being in the dining room at the time I wasn't outside (like I usually am) while locking through and wasn't aware of this (dang, I missed it!). While the video is a bit longer than an hour,if you fast-forward to about 54:00 the Hertiage has exited and the Duchess comes into view as she exits.

Based on the boat names, I think this should be on the American Cruise Lines board rather than here. We did the equivalent cruise on the American Duchess in August 2021. Since it was summer, we chose the port side of the boat so we would have sun in the AM and shade in the PM. Side of the boat didn't seem to matter beyond that.

Not to mention the cost of the actual repairs! Thanks.

Hopefully someone with more recent experience will chime in. Also, we were on the boat 2 weeks. A shorter cruise....I don't know. Like I said, I have not seen anything in writing from AQ about this.

We were on the Duchess last year for two weeks (Aug 2-16). I have never seen laundry services mentioned on AQSC's website. That said, we were able to have laundry done a couple times during the cruise. On inquiry I was told to check with our cabin attendent. Indeed she provided a bag on request and it was returned the next day. Although we were told $20 a bag, charges never appeared on our statement when the cruise was over. This seems to be an unwritten amenity. Also, we were aboard for two weeks. Don't know what others may have experienced.

V-drive or Z-drive? I ask because the Duchess (was on her last year) uses three Schottel Z-Drives. Anyway, thanks for the info.

As viewed on the Virtual Railfan camera at Fort Madison, it appears the Countess is getting an assist from a tug. vitrualrailfan dot com