American Duchess

Very glad we went - would use them again but would want to stay on the smaller ships.

Had a fun time with friends! Food was tasty & fresh, but slow and as time went on, dining ran smoother. Wait staff was attentive but short handed. Purser's desk was well staffed & knowledgeable. Entertainment was good. Ports of call were interesting for the most part. We liked the hop on hop off feature with narration from a guide.

This was an absolutely horrendous experience. We have been on over 90 cruisers and are very careful to book way in advance to get handicap accessible cabins and accessible boats. The American Queen, The Dutchess, is advertised on line, in their brochure, by them personally, as ADA accessible as is the cabin that we book. Neither is true. Just briefly, the cabin was not ADA accessible especially the bathroom; it was a joke. And it was almost impossible to maneuver around the boat as I have multiple sclerosis and I am in a small ladies scooter. There are a high “lips” that you have to go over to get from common room to common room and I was unable to do that as I can’t walk. Also to get outside to enjoy the outdoor common area as well, was not possible, as there is a full step and I am not able to do, as I am confined to a scooter. The scooter just bottoms out and is unable to go any further from room to room or outside, and can get damaged. We were trying to figure out how to get off the boat and what to do and as my spouse was handling this with the horribly egregiously inappropriate, rude and unkind hotel director, I had to go to the bathroom and was told that one certain public bathroom was ADA accessible. I went in with my small scooter and no basket and could not leave and had to be rescued by the EMT on board. We are appalled beyond words that this company is allowed to advertise and sell products that they do not have. This is also the same company that we went on The Queen (same company, another boat) last year which was handicap accessible so we thought this one would be, based on their lies, however we did have a bad experience on that boat and while we did take care of that with the Coast Guard we are now going to publicly have our experience told. What happened was on August 2, 2018 at the southern border of Iowa on the Mississippi river where many of us passengers saw a continuously running oil leak off the boat, flowing into The Mississippi and we were told by the deckhand that it it was a hydraulic oil fluid leak. We all watched it for two hours and I also took photos and videos. I wanted to make sure that this was reported because I remembered how bad other cruise lines like Princess have been with the ocean; wow I never thought that the American Queen steamboat company would not report a spill like this! We all watched it for two hours and I also took photos and videos. I wanted to make sure that this was reported so a few days later we decided to call the Coast Guard who was in charge of that part of the river. We were shocked as he was to find out that this was never reported and he asked for the videos and the pictures which we sent onto them. I would never recommend this company for a multitude of reasons.