There I was, sitting in a rocking chair on the bow of the vessel, enjoying the sights of Kentucky on the right and Indiana on the left, all the while rocking gently.
This, I thought, was the last thing I would catch myself doing. It was hard to imagine that I had allowed myself to take a cruise on the Delta Queen, an overnight paddlewheeler (built in 1926), along the Ohio River to such ports of call as Cincinnati, Madison, Ind., and Louisville. Really, this is something old folks might do-there was nothing exotic about being on a river, calling on American cities and towns. Or so I thought.
But I must confess that after four days on the Delta Queen, I’d readily sign up again. I’d look for more of these non-exotic ports and gladly travel again on the Ohio, Tennessee, Cumberland or Mississippi Rivers.
On what other vessel can you experience a genuine piece of Americana; go down to the engine room-day or night-and join the crew for a cup of coffee; be hypnotized by a giant paddlewheel powering you on your journey; be welcomed aboard by the call of a calliope; wave to folks along the riverbanks; join in an old-fashioned sing-along; or fly a kite on the deck?
This is America. This is riverboating.
And the Delta Queen is the genuine article, a registered National Landmark and one of only two riverboats offering overnight cruises (the other is the line’s Mississippi Queen). It’s a journey of nostalgia, history and pure pleasure.
We board the Delta Queen in Cincinnati, just off Pete Rose Boulevard and behind Riverfront Stadium; a couple of hundred feet across the river is Kentucky. The Delta Queen is not the most glamorous sight at first. Granted, it’s colorful, but it is also old, boxy, small-looking, and-as someone who has sailed on some glamorous and exciting ships-I found myself saying, “Thank God this is only for four days.”
We are welcomed at the gangway by a costumed Southern belle and a man who by his clothing looks as if he might have manned a gambling table on one of the old steamboats-but there is no gambling on this vessel. We are quickly led aboard to our cabin.
It is a comfortable-looking cabin on the first deck just off the Cabin Lounge. On the other two decks, all the cabins open directly on to the deck. We have twin beds separated by a night table, there are two large windows overlooking the deck and the river, and there is a small bathroom with shower. The sink, with its old-fashioned mirror, is in the room. We also have a closet, dresser and a chair. The room is light and cheerful with its white paint and warm wood trim.
We have the Indiana Suite, which is appropriate on this sail, for half our journey will be overlooking the Indiana countryside.
Down the hall, we see a cabin where actor Van Johnson stayed; another, Princess Margaret; and on the top deck, the cabin where Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter stayed.
One of my misgivings about traveling on the Delta Queen is having heard that passengers on board were predominantly elderly. While I am no longer as young as I think, I still have some uncertainties about traveling with the senior set. A few days aboard the Delta Queen, and I no longer have any age considerations. On this September cruise, the passengers are just about all retirees, but there is nothing retiring about them. All are active, strolling the decks, joining in the sing-alongs and dancing into the night.
I begin to wonder about myself, because the relaxing pace-we never go much faster than 5 or 6 miles an hour-has me retiring before the retirees and sleeping soundly through the night.
We will be traveling from Cincinnati to Louisville and back, taking four days for what could be accomplished by car in a few hours. Riverboating, though, once was the way to travel, and, from my own experience, a grander and more interesting way is hard to imagine.
The Ohio River helped make Cincinnati the “Queen City of the West” as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow called it; others not as kindly referred to it as Porkopolis-at one time it was the largest pork market in the country.
The steamboat created not only a form of transportation but also a glamorous era, and it gave birth to the world of cruising we now know. Grand stairways became a fixture of the boats; elegant lounges and decorations were found aboard, and the boats became famous for their food and entertainment.
The Delta Queen continues this tradition. Aboard we find a grand central stairway, elegant lounges, crystal chandeliers. The boat is built with the finest woods.
The wood that made this boat, though, almost killed it. In the 1960s, the government set new standards of safety at sea, and wooden vessels that could burn were banned. A major outpouring of letters by fans of the vessel saved it. Now this National Landmark operates with a congressional exception from many of the safety laws. Nonetheless, sprinklers are placed throughout. Paint and other material that do not detract from the boat’s history are fire-retardant.
On this journey, we stop only in Louisville and in Madison, Ind. In Louisville, we have time to visit Churchill Downs, where the Kentucky Derby is held, among other sites.
At Madison, the Delta Queen pulls up along a sloping paved area used to put boats in the river, lowers its stage onto the sloping bank, and we walk ashore. The scene is so different from a Caribbean cruise-no throngs of people selling handicrafts or taxi drivers hustling you for rides. Only a few people are gathered on land to watch us, waving us ashore.
On the river, there is a constantly changing landscape. We can see farms, huge electric generating plants and lots of river traffic ranging from long barges carrying coal or steel to pleasure boats.
We attend a navigational talk and learn that the Ohio is a controlled river, with dams along its route. And on our short journey, we pass through two locks going and coming-it is a fascinating experience to enter a long narrow lock with walls that tower above us, and then rise slowly as water is let in until we are overlooking the landscape. On our cruise, the river is very low, which means we must stay in the main channel. But when the river is high, the Delta Queen can ride over areas we see as land. If the river is too high, however, the boat cannot go. Its stacks will not fit under some bridges.
There are no radios or TVs on the Delta Queen, and no telephones either. (Well, one, at least, is listed for ship-to-shore communication.) Our days are spent relaxing on the open deck area or standing by the giant red paddlewheel and being mesmerized by its churning up the water. The wheel weighs nearly 44 tons and is 18 feet wide and 29 feet in diameter. It is powered by two original oil-burning engines.
On this trip, I am impressed with one man in his 80s. He is everywhere. Later I learn he is the son of the man who built the Delta Queen’s hull in Glasgow, Scotland, in the 1920s. After the steel hulls of the Queen were built, they were taken apart and shipped to California, where the superstructure was built of oak, teak, mahogany and Oregon cedar. It and the Delta King, now permanently anchored along the Sacramento River, were popular riverboats during the Prohibition era, when passengers could legally drink and gamble once the vessels left the riverbank. During World War II, the Delta Queen served in the Navy, and at war’s end was towed 5,000 miles through the Panama Canal and up the Gulf of Mexico to the Mississippi River, where, under its own power, it sailed to Pittsburgh where it was redone to become the “floating palace,” as some now refer to it.
The Delta Queen is small, just 285 feet long, 58 feet wide, but it is big on pleasure. There is a Victorian parlor for relaxing, or sipping coffee and juices. Above on the Texas deck, there is a wood-paneled bar with a piano.
On the lower deck, another grand stairway leads to the dining room, where American fare, along with Southern treats, is the specialty. At night, the room becomes the place for dancing and entertainment. The music ranges from Scott Joplin and W.C. Handy to the sounds of the big bands. Entertainers Steve Spracklin and Bud Black know their music (Black challenges the audience to name a song he doesn’t know) and easily bring back the great steamboat days.
