I drove a Coast Guard ship — luckily, on a giant simulated screen — in Paducah, KY, today.
Like many of the all-American experiences on my river cruise down the Mississippi, it was not the kind of experience, or the kind of town, one sees on a big ship.
The museum in which the simulator is housed had a hard time accommodating the 25 of us who showed up.
But Paducah is bigger than Cape Girardeau, where we stopped yesterday, or Chester IL, birthplace of Popeye the Sailor Man, which we toured on Sunday.
It’s not Paris or London, I grant you. Or even the Caribbean. But there is a distinct charm to this leisurely cruise and its flock of friendly and devoted repeat customers.
Most everyone seems to have done the big ships many times (one couple is on its 50th cruise), and given them up for the pleasures of small and intimate and quiet.
I hear American Cruise Lines today announced it is building more ships, and adding another Mississippi River itinerary for next year.
The repeat customers on my cruise will be happy to hear it. They tell me the Queen of the Mississippi has the best accommodations on the river, and the best food. They give her four stars, and the best of other US small ship lines just three.
As I said in my first blog, you do have to reset your expectations a little when you take to the river. Besides the confluence of the Mississippi and the Ohio, the biggest highlight so far is an ice cream soda and a banjo player, who also will teach you if you’d like to learn.
There is no spa, no midnight chocolate buffet.
There is just America, her towns and her rivers, her history and her sunsets, her sons and daughters, rolling south through the heartland.
For most of those on board, that seems to work out just fine.
By Cheryl Rosen
