Hello from New Orleans

 I am writing you this week as I am on the final days of a Mississippi River cruise onboard American Cruise Lines ship Melody. This 7-night cruise starts in Memphis, TN, and travels downstream all the way to New Orleans. This is a wonderful itinerary if you enjoy learning about Civil War history, southern culture, great food, and music. This is my first time on an American river cruise. I have done several river cruises in Europe and always enjoyed them, so we thought we would take this cruise and compare it with the ones in Europe. Here is the good, the bad, and the ugly about this river cruise:

1. Small ship cruising is the only way to cruise. This cruise has only 150 passengers. This is magical.
2. This cruise is all-inclusive and includes all food, drinks and tours. This is a giant savings to most ocean-going cruises, who charge you for all drinks and most land tours.
3. Small-ship cruising is so compact it takes me only 20 steps to reach the elevator and another 20 steps to arrive in the restaurant.
4. The Mississippi Valley has had little rainfall since July, so the river is at least 20 feet below normal. This caused us to have to bus to docks outside the city in Memphis and other destinations because the ship was unable to reach the normal docks.
5. The average age on this river cruise is probably 80 years old. I feel like a spring chicken.
6. The food is very good, however, they do not offer as strong of main entree’s as European river cruise lines do. I especially noted that they do not offer a great steak at ever meal, like almost every other cruise ship.
7. Your tips are included in your cruise price. This cruise line promotes this as a benefit. I think it is a negative as the staff seems not as “hungry” as they are on other ships.
8. I miss the grand entertainment on a larger cruise ship. I love to go to the Broadway shows and top level entertainment on large ships. This ship has a lot of local talent that is very nice but not at the WOW! Level.
9. The energy level on the ship is very low. This probably matches the age of the passengers.
10. Where is the midnight buffet? Basically, there are no buffets on this ship. I miss the grand buffet!
11. Clean, clean and more clean. This crew does an amazing job of cleaning all day and night long. This place is extremely clean.
12. Largest bathrooms I have ever seen. Our bathroom was almost twice the size of most cruise bathrooms. The amenities of soap, shampoo, etc. were not up to the premium level I expected.
13. Greatest bed on a cruise line. The beds are jumbo sized and I slept like a baby. You can have two beds or pull them together for one jumbo bed.
14. Very large cabin size. Once again, American Cruise Lines has large bathrooms, large beds and large staterooms. Add to that balconies that are delightful to sit and watch the Mississippi River roll by.
15. Great workout rooms. This ship has modern exercise equipment, and they keep it clean and polished.
16. No children on this ship. I did not see one child on the cruise. This is basically an adult only cruise.
17. There is not much glitz and glitter on this ship. The ship is very modern and well designed, but they definitely did not spend much on artwork, atrium design and other WOW features on large ships. Everything is pretty vanilla in design. It is very practical and little things like eliminating a step up to the bathroom (that I normally trip on every night on other ships) have been positively eliminated.
18. The focus on small ship cruising is to simplify everything. No lines, easy and fast access. Keep things simple and easy and friendly.
19. The crew is all American. Almost all large cruise ships have foreign born crews. I think every crew person I met on this ship was an American. They were all very friendly.
20. Small ship river cruising in America is the hot new travel frontier in 2024 for people who love to river cruise Europe but don’t like the hassle of spending 15 hours flying to Europe.

Memphis is now on my 2024 Travel Hot List – This cruise embarked from Memphis. We flew in a day before the cruise departed and stayed at the historic Peabody Hotel in Memphis. Amazing history! (and the smallest bathrooms I have every seen). The Peabody is only 2 blocks from famous Beale Street, This is an amazing area of music, restaurants, bars and shops. I love the neon lights on Beale Street. The food is to die for. And a walk down Beale Street will have you singing, Blues, jazz, rock and roll, R&B and Gospel. With temperatures in the mid 70s in October and 60s in November this should be a town that everyone has on their travel bucket list for an amazing long weekend getaway in 2024. 

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