Roadtripping

American Queen: 'Substantial changes' being made

(Guests gather on the decks of the American Queen for its christening ceremony Friday afternoon in Memphis.)

Priscilla Presley broke a bottle of champagne on the bow of the American Queen in Memphis Friday afternoon, and the newly christened steamboat sailed up the Mississippi River, its calliope wailing in farewell.

On board were a new executive chef and a hotel manager and a new contract for a team from the Apollo Group to oversee and train dining and housekeeping staff, a hurriedly arranged response to complaints by guests on two pre-christening cruises about poor dining room service and other issues.

Christopher Kyte, president of Great American Steamboat Co., announced the "substantial changes ... that I believe will greatly elevate the onboard experience" in a letter to guests who disembarked from a New Orleans-to-Memphis cruise Friday morning. "We are grateful to all of you for your patience and good cheer on this, since this crew is trying terribly hard to do their best," Kyte wrote in the letter, which also offered guests a 50 percent discount on another 2012 cruise.

Great American Steamboat had hired about 200 new crew members, many of whom had little or no experience in the jobs they were hired for. Instead, Kyte and CEO Jeff Krida said, they were hired for their friendliness and helpful attitudes.

While many guests praised the staff for exactly those qualities -- in comments to the cruise line as well as to The Miami Herald -- they also complained about slow and haphazard food service and the quality of some food.

"It takes a long period of time for any new crew to gel and work together well," Kyte told the Herald. "The best restaurants tend to have staffs that have been there for years, they can work together almost without words. I think it will take another month before we get to that stage. I don't know how to leapfrog to that point."

Kyte and Krida hope the hiring of Apollo, which provides dining services to two small but high-end cruise cruise lines, Regent Seven Seas and Oceania Cruises, will speed the process.

They also noted the hiring of a new executive chef, Eric Aldis, from the Ritz-Carlton in Houston, and a new hotel manager, Malcolm Chapple, from the Seabourn luxury cruise line.

Kyte said Aldis will complement Regina Charboneau, the ship's chef de cuisine. Charboneau, cookbook author and former San Francisco restaurateur, created Southern-themed menus and recipes for the ship but doesn't run the kitchen.

(At left, in her home in Natchez, Miss., Regina Charboneau talks to American Queen guests about entertaining and preparing food.)

Some of those dishes were not well-executed -- beignets with a cream crawfish sauce were served at room temperature instead of hot, some salads were made with wilted lettuce, pompano baked with julienned vegetables lacked seasoning.

"That is unacceptable. If you have a great recipe, you don't tamper with it," Kyte said. "We have hired a new executive chef who will execute Regina's menu."

On the American Queen: Getting ready for her big day

When the American Queen's engine went still -- or at least relatively still -- about 1:30 this morning, I suddenly realized what was happening: We were starting our dress rehearsal for the morning's arrival at the unfinished Beale Street Landing in Memphis.

I put on a coat, grabbed my camera and ran up to the top deck.

Indeed, we were slowly, very slowly, lining up next to the floating dock at the new landing that the city is building specifically for the American Queen and another riverboat due to start operating in August, Queen of the Mississippi.

 

(A note about Beale Street Landing, above: The dock -- readied with red carpet for the christening ceremony -- floats so it can rise and fall with the river. People will walk up the spiral walkway at right, and exit through the building at left, which will eventually have a restaurant and other amenities. The new landing was scheduled to be completed in time for the American Queen's arrival, but, uh, it didn't happen.)

Memphis is the American Queen's home port, but it had never docked at the new landing. The crew was practicing now, after the city had gone to sleep, for a docking that would be recorded by television cameras in the morning. Or at least most of the city had gone to sleep. A couple cars had pulled over on the otherwise empty street above the landing, and the occupants had gotten out to watch. A little further down the street, half a dozen people lined up behind the construction fence.

Two searchlights, one on each side of the boat, played their light over the water, the landing, the foot of the DeSoto Bridge. The boat was skewed so that its right front side would gently kiss the landing, then the rest of the boat glided smoothly into place. No bumps. I stood at the rail of the top deck with a few crew members, who grinned.

After much conferring between the boat crew and the land crew, we backed out and headed upriver. About 2:15 a.m., just before we got to the DeSoto Bridge, I heard a voice on the radio crackle "Better get those stacks down." The top of the stacks is about 100 feet above the surface of the water. Then I watched one of the eeriest sights of the trip. First one, then the other smokestack tipped forward, dropping 90 degrees until they were parallel to the deck, then just a few more degrees forward until they had settled into cradles. It reminded me of a slow-motion scene from the disaster movie "Earthquake," scary but impressive. A little smoke burped out of the open stumps of the stacks as we glided under the bridge.

When I woke up not too many hours later, the boat was docking again at the end of Beale Street, this time in daylight. The mayor and other local dignitaries were on hand for the grand arrival, as were executives of Great American Steamboat Co., plus the media. Travis Vasconcelos, one of the boat's riverlorians, played the calliope to tell the town the boat had arrived. The calliope, like the accordion or bagpipes, is an acquired taste that I have not acquired yet.

Anthony Petrina, the Duck Master from the Peabody Hotel, arrived with a covered crate containing five ducks. The ducks, who march through the Peabody's lobby every morning and afternoon, were there to "inspect" the boat. Petrina let them out of their crate and onto their circular red carpet at the foot of the main staircase. The ducks scurried about on the red carpet, Petrina herding them back anytime one tried to step off. Passengers crowded around but stayed clear of the carpet. The ducks didn't look all that comfortable, but when the Duck Master tried to guide them back into their crate, they refused to go. One turned and fled into the crowd, to the delight of the passengers. Eventually the Duck Master, with assistance from a couple bystanders, got all five back into the crate.

After that, I took off to explore Memphis with a friend. Later, while I was visiting the Rock and Soul Museum and Sun Studios, where Elvis recorded his first album, Priscilla Presley, godmother of the ship, came aboard for a celebratory brunch.
The Great American Steamboat Co. supplied this photo of her with the company's CEO, Jeff Krida. Friday, she will crack a bottle of champagne on the boat at its christening ceremony.

On the American Queen: Helena's blues

When the American Queen docked in Helena, Ark., this morning, I made a beeline for the Delta Cultural Center. Well, as much of a beeline as you can when you're riding a hop-on, hop-off tour bus. The center has a wing dedicated to the history of the blues, in which Helena played a crucial part, and it has the studio from which the King Biscuit Hour, a blues show that dates to 1941, is broadcast every weekday.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Story boards tell the history of the blues and its performers, and the center has a number of memorabilia, including a bust of Sonny Boy Williamson (right), Ellis Cedell Davis's 1954 Epiphone guitar and the knife he used as a slide (left), and Albert King's Gibson "Flying V" guitar.

Helena claims some blues artists as its own and others as having strong ties to the town, including Robert Johnson, Sonny Boy Williamson, Robert Nighthawk, Robert Lockwood Jr., Joe Willie "Pinetop" Perkins, Ellis Cedell Davis and Levon Helm.

Helm (at left on the story board), who grew up in nearby Elaine, used to hang out at the KFFA radio studios, where King Biscuit Time was broadcast, so he could watch Sonny Boy Williamson back when the show featured live music. Helm made his own debut as a teen on the show, and performed a number of times at the annual King Biscuit Blues Festival. Helm, best known as a member of The Band, died last week. When I visited, the center was playing a video of him and The Band in his honor.

"Sunshine" Sunny Payne, who has hosted the show since 1951, was in the studio, preparing for his show and talked to visitors at the center. Payne, who is 87, has had some role in the show -- starting with a mop and broom -- since 1941. The show, which was sponsored from the start by Interstate Grocery Co., maker of King Biscuit flour, is broadcast live on KFFA, but can also be heard on the Internet here. Although most of the music on the show is recorded, it features live music about once a week.

Learn more about the show here, and about the Delta Cultural Center here.

On the American Queen: Southern cooking

It feels like Sunday on the American Queen because instead of lunch, we had a jazz brunch, New Orleans style. Coming down the staircase leading to the dining room, I was met by the bleats of a tuba and the rest of a jazz quartet playing "Hello Dolly." Among items on the buffet were a variation on Eggs Benedict, smoked brisket, fried chicken and about 18 kinds of dessert (that's only a small exaggeration). There's a strong New Orleans influence on the daily menus, which are Southern themed to begin with. They were designed by Regina Charboneau, cookbook author and former San Francisco restaurateur. Charboneau is a Natchez native and has built the menus around Southern food -- crabs, shrimp, catfish, okra, grits, Andouille sausage, blackberries, pecans and the like -- and Southern recipes, although there are also plenty of non-Southern options. Among the Southern dishes I've eaten on the boat: shrimp and grits, biscuits and sausage gravy, blueberry pie, grapefruit and avocado salad, crab corn chowder, fried frogs legs, crawfish beignets, roast duck, bananas Foster french toast, and more. I missed Charboneau's smoked catfish BLT on the lunch menu and hope I get another shot at it before we disembark Friday morning. When the boat was in Natchez, I took the shore excursion to Twin Oaks, Charboneau's antebellum home and B&B, where she talked to us about some of her secrets of entertaining, fed us some of the finger foods that she prepares for guests (smoked salmon torte, biscuits with smoked turkey and cranberry chutney, tiny open-faced tomato sandwiches with shreds of bacon, jelly roll trifle) and plied us with peach champagne cocktails, milk punch with bourbon, and her colorful fruit-flavored martinis. When I woke up from my nap, I just wanted to go cook.

On the American Queen: Leaving Vicksburg

When I awoke  Monday morning, the American Queen was tied up at Vicksburg. Before I got off the ship to explore the town, there was an opportunity for a tour of the pilothouse and a talk about how the steamboat works.

It was fascinating stuff.

The American Queen runs on a vintage 1932 steam engine that burns marine-grade diesel fuel. That kind of engine is no longer made, so the boat has a machine shop on board where the crew can manufacture parts as needed.

The Queen is a tall ship. The tops of its smokestacks are 100 feet above the water line, so they can fold down, parallel to the deck, as the boat approaches a low bridge. Even the pilothouse, mounted on scissor jacks, can be lowered, and the cute gingerbread top can be lifted off with an on-board crane.

When the stacks and the pilothouse are lowered, the tallest point on the ship is the wings that reach out on either side of the pilothouse, platforms with consoles (pictured at left) where a pilot has a clearer view of the river and can steer the boat. The railings on those platforms are 57 feet above the water.

We noticed that we were docked along an awfully narrow stretch of the Mississippi River and asked about that. No, we learned, we weren't on the river, we were on the Yazoo Canal. Looking back the way we came, we saw a bridge and learned that we had turned into the canal right after we had passed under the bridge, well before sunrise. The canal is too narrow for the boat to turn around, so in the afternoon, the captain was going to back the boat down the canal and back into the Mississippi River, then proceed upriver again.

We were fascinated.

 

 

 

After lunch, a lot of passengers gathered at the back of the boat to watch. You can see the Mississippi River bridge in the background.

On shore, the crew untied the first of four lines that secured the boat ...

... and on the boat, three crew members lined up to drag the heavy line -- as big around as a man's forearm and sodden with river water -- on board.

 

 

 (Note: Out in the middle of the Mississippi, away from cities, we've had little or no Internet service since soon after we left Vicksburg on Monday)

Continued in next post....

On the American Queen: Leaving Vicksburg Part 2

A tale of backing down the Yazoo Canal, continued:

The last of the crew on shore climbed onto the gangway, it was raised, and swung around to the front on Deck 1.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The thrusters went into action, roiling the water, and the boat moved sideways away from the shore and into the middle of the canal.

 

 

 

 

 

From the deck above, guests watched the paddlewheel go into action.

Smoke starts coming from the stacks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As the boat backs into the Mississippi, we can see by the change in water color where the Yazoo Canal meets the Mississippi -- the Yazoo is muddier.

 

 

 

Then we're back on the river, chugging forward toward West Helena, Ark.

 

 

 

On the American Queen: Food service

Sunday, I met Jeff Krida, CEO of the Great American Steamboat Co., on a shore excursion, and I asked him how he thought things were going on the American Queen as he prepares for the boat's christening on Friday.

Krida said he had hoped the performance of the boat and crew would be at 90 percent by now. With a new crew and a ship that has been in mothballs for almost four years, he hadn't expected 100 percent at this point. But, he said, progress has been slower than he hoped, especially when it came to dining, which he said was at about 78 percent.

This was of great interest to me, since Topic A with my tablemates is food and food service, which has been pretty haphazard. Most of us are fairly good-natured about the situation, in large part because the staff is friendly and works hard, and because we've seen improvement. Adjustments have been made in response to guests' complaints. But there is a certain amount of exasperation.

Every night at our 8 p.m. seating has been a race between dessert and the 10 p.m. show in the theater; usually we have to choose one or the other. The wait staff can't seem to keep straight who ordered what, and we are regularly served each other's entrees and salads. Most of us thought breakfast and lunch were buffet-only, and only learned a few days into the trip that we can also order from a menu that no one had seen. Just this morning, the waiter forgot my orange juice and the cream for my coffee.

I'm not saying that dining is an unpleasant experience. The food is well-conceived and varied, and there are enough choices for the one who avoids spicy foods, the one doesn't eat red meat, the one who likes to try new dishes, and the one who doesn't like vegetables. Although few dishes have risen to the level of excellent, most are good -- although on our first night, the pompano was so bland that even the diner who avoids spicy food was dismayed.

But there is always some joking at the beginning of our meal -- will the waiter forget to serve bread again, how many times will someone have to ask for bottled water, will service be so slow that we miss the 10 p.m. Dixieland jazz show.

One reason the settling in is taking so long, Krida said, is that the company hired more for attitude than experience. His reasoning was that he could teach staff members job skills but he couldn't teach them a friendly, positive demeanor. So some dining room staff has no previous experience in food service.

If he had to do it again, he said, he'd hire more staff with restaurant experience. And, he added, some senior staff members have been hired and will be joining the crew over the next few days.

I appreciate Krida's reasoning in hiring people for attitude rather than experience -- we've all commented on how friendly the staff is and how helpful they try to be. But if the company wants to do that again, it needs to factor in more training time before there are paying guests on board.

Natchez: More Mississippi tamales

With the American Queen docked at Natchez for the day, I rode the hop-on, hop-off tour bus into town, where I found another stop on my quest for Mississippi tamales: Fat Mama's Tamales.

I ordered six tamales, the minimum, although I knew I wouldn't be able to finish them. (I declined the offer of a knock-you-naked Margarita. I didn't want to scare anyone.)

The counterman handed me a basket of Saltines and a jumbo bottle of Tabasco sauce. I took them, wondering why I needed either. I like spicy food, but the tamales didn't need any Tabasco. They were already plenty hot, just leaving a happy tingling on my palate. I figured out that the Saltines were intended to dilute any excess heat, but they weren't necessary without any added heat from Tabasco.

These were different from the tamales I ate in D'Iberville, near Biloxi. They contained a mixture of beef and pork, were made with masa instead of cornmeal and were wrapped in dried corn husks. But like the D'Iberville tamales, they were simmered in liquid instead of steamed, and the spices were mixed into the dough as well as the filling.

The tamales were small, and I ate four, then walked off my lunch getting back to the boat.

The American Queen: A day in the life

In many ways, a cruise on the American Queen is like an ocean cruise. There are port calls and shore excursions, multiple bars, bingo, a main dining room with two dinner seatings, room stewards, evening shows, quiet corners where guests can read, and entirely too many opportunities to eat.

But it is the differences that define it: The ship is small enough -- six public decks, space for 436 guests -- that it takes only a day before you know your way around. There is no ship's photographer constantly taking -- and later hawking -- photos. The passengers are older, so there are no kids clubs and the music is from the '60s or earlier. Much of the travel is in daylight so guests can watch the scenery; most port calls end by early afternoon. 

Here's what a day is like.

As on most cruise ships, breakfast starts early -- 6:30 a.m. But it's more crucial here because organized shore excursions start early. At most stops, free hop-on, hop-off buses with a tour guide are available throughout the morning. In addition, there are more specialized excursions that cost $50 and up. On most days, everyone must be back on the boat by 12:30 for departure at 1 p.m. 

(Rosedown Plantation in St. Francisville, Louisiana was an extra on today's shore excursion. I'm cheating a little here: This is a photo I took when I hit St. Francisville on a road trip in 2008 -- which is why I didn't visit it again today.)

Lunch is a buffet in the main dining room, and it is jammed. x Most popular is the dessert bar, which typically has about half a dozen kinds of baked goods, and people aren't shy about trying several. That may be why a lot of people slip off to their rooms for a nap in the afternoon.

The star of the afternoon is the scenery, the Mississippi sliding by, muddy with silt from the Missouri River. We pass barges and other river traffic, the woods and the processing plants that line the banks, evidence of high water and erosion at some points. There is also low-key entertainment: bingo, educational talks by "riverlorians," games and music. The boat has a pool, but it has been closed so far on this cruise, and there's a tiny fitness room. The staterooms have flat-screen TVs, but I haven't turned mine on yet or heard them playing in adjoining rooms. There's free Wi-Fi, but it's iffy, which seems to be breaking some people's Internet addiction (but not mine). 

This is also prime time for people with a sweet tooth -- and that appears to be most of us. After the lunch dessert station closes, there's afternoon tea with sweets, and the Front Porch lounge has soft-serve ice cream and a constantly replenished tray of newly baked cookies.

There are two dinner seatings, of which the 5:30 seating is the more popular. Being a Miamian, of course, I opted for the 8 p.m. seating, but there are empty seats. 

(Photo: The main dining room. Credit: Great American Steamboat Co.)

In the evening, at least one of the bars has live entertainment, there are shows in the Grand Saloon (a Mark Twain impersonator the first night, four singers performing a medley of river-related songs last night), and late-night dancing. There is no casino. But this is an early-to-bed crowd, and when I've been in the public areas at 1 a.m., I am sometimes the only one. We dock at our next port before sunrise, and then the cycle begins again.

On the American Queen: Oak Alley Plantation

On Friday the American Queen docked in Vacherie, Louisiana, next to Oak Alley, a former sugar plantation known for the double row of ancient live oaks that form a canopy over the walkway to the plantation house. I was more interested in the swamp tour, but there was time on the way back to wander through the grounds.

We had passed several large plantations on our way to the swamp tour, and our guide on the bus, noting that for the most part the main houses were not impressive, told us: “It’s what goes on behind the main house that’s important” – meaning crops, barns, and any kind of processing facilities.

Oak Alley might be the exception, a large Greek Revival style house built in the 1830s and the Grande Dame of River Road. But the oak trees are older, maybe as much as 300 years old. The view above is of the back of the house, which doesn’t have the enormous double row of oak trees, although it does have some very large and very old oaks. But what caught my attention was the big sugar kettle, maybe 6 to 8 feet across, that is used now as an above-ground lily pond.

For information on Oak Alley, click here.