Interesting announcement from ACL

Paul,

Most likely they will travel down the Intracoastal waterway and along the shoreline of the Carolinas and east Florida. Then up the coast of west Florida back into the Gulf Intercoastal to the Harvey Canal into New Orleans. Of course, this is assuming they want to start the operation there. It could be they take the Tenn-Tom to another port to start operations on another river/waterway. I guess we will find out when they make it official and publish schedules, etc.

Either way, there are many ways to make it there safely with a shallow draft boat. Their coastal boats all have 6 foot drafts and have made it to Florida safely many times. Not to mention the ACCL/Blount boats who have made it to New Orleans many times with their 5 foot draft.

What'd be fun is to get a job on her and ride her around from Chesapeke Shipbuilding. Perhaps you will get the Cruise Director job you didn't get to do (because of the "renovation") on the MQ and I can come over and be your Riverlorian after all! Or maybe I could be a Assistant? Who knows what will happen...but, I haven't stopped dreaming since I left the river. Dreams are what got me back to the river the last time. I am already excited for them and wish American Cruise Lines the best success on the river...and hope I can be part of it with them!

Travis

Yeah, they should be able to take the east coast intracoastals (which start at New Jersey) down to Florida, then across thru Lake Okeechobee, up the gulf coast intracoastals to Mobile Bay, then TomBigbee to the Tennessee River. Not sure about height and draft restrictions on parts of this route...

.... Looks like Travis also posted on this at the same time I did! Anyway, it's possible....

Travis Vasconcelos;22870 wrote: Paul,

Most likely they will travel down the Intracoastal waterway and along the shoreline of the Carolinas and east Florida. Then up the coast of west Florida back into the Gulf Intercoastal to the Harvey Canal into New Orleans.

Travis

I'm with Steve here on the route in FL. No reason to go all the way down and around, especially since it can get a bit dicey down there. I'm drawing on my experience with the Key West Shuttle boats. They now have only one boat that summers as a whale watch boat on Cape Cod (they used to have two) and the trip between the Cape and Marco Island (or Ft Myers) always went across the Lake. They tried a Miami to Key West run in season but it was too rough, even with a cat. Imagine a paddlewheeler,

QOW

No one seems interested in the QOW thread I started, but since it is ACL, I thought I'd finish it out here, in case anyone is interested. The Queen of the West has started operations. All entertainment is step on. My old boss on the Empress of the North works three nights a week in the lounge as a step on. I received further information from a former Empress step on entertainer as follows:

"Yeah, it's step-on, but I think only 3 days a week, if that. The stage is gone, and they have replaced the tables and chairs with white couches. It actually looks nice. No bartender at night. People pour their own drinks earlier in the day. Everyone on staff pulls double duty, including the cruise director."

Paul

rates

and with less crew and service, of course the rates are lower?