Steamboat Cruises in America

Steamboat Cruises: What Is Real, and What Remains

Steamboat cruises are the romance of the American river: tall twin stacks, a churning red paddlewheel, a calliope piping across the water. For more than a century steamboats carried passengers and cotton up and down the Mississippi and its tributaries. Today only a handful of real steamboats still carry passengers, all of them on day trips, while overnight river cruising has moved to modern riverboats.

This site tells that story honestly. It explains the steamboat era, the fate of the famous American Queen and Delta Queen, and where you can still feel a steam engine under your feet: the Natchez in New Orleans and the Belle of Louisville. When you are ready for a multi-night river cruise, our cruise advisors at Mister Cruise can quote today’s riverboats, and our sister site Mississippi River Cruises compares the lines.

Steam Versus Paddle: Clearing Up the Confusion

Travel listings often use “steamboat” loosely. A true steamboat burns fuel to boil water, and the steam drives pistons connected to the paddlewheel. You hear the engine breathe, see the pitmans (the long arms) move, and on some boats hear the steam whistle and calliope.

Most modern overnight riverboats on American rivers are diesel or diesel-electric. Some carry a paddlewheel at the stern for character, and on some it contributes to propulsion; on others it is largely decorative. The Viking Mississippi has no paddlewheel at all. None of that makes them worse ships, but if steam itself is what you want, a day cruise on one of the surviving steamboats is the way to get it. Sternwheeler Cruises explains the different boat types in more detail.

The Steamboat Spirit on Today’s Cruises

If you want a week on the river with a little of the old atmosphere, today’s Mississippi cruises still deliver much of it: Victorian-style lounges on the paddlewheelers, riverlorians who tell steamboat stories, Dixieland bands, and stops at the river towns the packets once served. See our Mississippi cruising today page, or compare the two halves of the river at Upper Mississippi Riverboat Cruising and Lower Mississippi Riverboat Cruising.

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From Our Cruise Network