Worst Cruise I have ever done and the most expensive!!

Cruises: 7+ cruises

Review: 1

Helpful Votes: 35

Review summary

This was a bucket list holiday for my husband and I travelling from Minneapolis, Minnesota to New Orleans. We paid over £6000 each for a 14 day holiday - a majority of Americans paid $20,000 per cabin. We travelled from Redwing Minneapolis to New Orleans in an inside cabin. This was the cheapest cabin available. Our holiday started on 12th September and ended 26th September 2022. The weather throughout our holiday was sunny and warm. Our holiday started with an included city tour of Red Wing before arriving at the American Queen at 4.00pm. This was ridiculously late as the boat was due to depart at 4.30pm. The welcome drink of a glass of a champagne was a shambles and none was available as the coach trips came aboard, We, along with others, hurriedly made our way to our rooms for the compulsory safety drill. Our room had not been vacuumed, there was rubbish on the floor, only one towel between us and no toiletries. After the safety drill we unpacked and went to dinner as we were on a 5.15pm sitting. We requested another towel every day for 4 days (only one was ever left). We were resorting to taking towels from outside housekeeping trollies as we rarely saw any staff. Breakfast was a disaster if ordered from the menu either not arriving, not matching the menu description or fridge cold!! IE ordered eggs benedict this came without ham, no garnish and obviously straight from the fridge. It took 2 complaints to get right. Another example was Croque Monsieur which turned up as a toasted scrambled egg sandwich! Ordered corned beef hash and were given hash browns twice and when I got up to ask if the correct breakfast was coming as I then waited 30 minutes the waiter said sit down its coming! Which it never did!! Finally complained to Hotel Director who agreed level of service was unacceptable and gave us a free bottle of champagne. Service at dinner didn't improve. We did get 2 towels and room was vacuumed but housekeeping were knocking on our door at 7.05am for access next day! Dinner often took 1 hour 30 minutes to 1 hour 45 mins each night to ge5t main course. The Hotel Director confessed that they were very short of staff, they were poorly trained and often didn't return after their compulsory on shore leave despite being paid American wages. The worst case of attitude I experienced was when an African American nurse (member of staff) came into the guest laundry which consisted of two washing machines and two dryers and started verbally abusing two elderly guests one of whom was disabled because they had taken her washing out of the two machines. They had removed it because the machines had been stopped for some time and wanted to do their washing. They had placed it in the two dryers in readiness for being dried. She stated she had OCD and found it very disrespectful that they had touched her washing. I told her it was a guest laundry and with 400 passengers and 2 machines guests were waiting all the time for them to become free. She was totally unrepentant. I reported this incident to the Hotel Director who was appalled! He stated staff had been told not to use guest laundry. On the top deck the majority of chairs were broken and unusable with pieces of metal hanging off. Also, soot from the two chimneys left chairs and sun longer covered with an oily residue which got all over our clothes. Staff never wiped down chairs or warned us. The final blow to our holiday was the cancellation of the last two stops at Natchez and Nottaway, (St Louis) was cancelled a few days before we sailed. The two ports were cancelled due to barges breaking free the night before which meant a 10 hour delay in our sailing. Therefore, we missed the antebellum mansions which was one of the chief reasons for our trip!! No compensation has been offered for inclusive trips that didn't take place because of this cancellation despite staff telling guests compensation would be offered!!! As experienced river cruisers I can honestly say that this is the worst experience we have ever had.

Embarkation

Ship experiences

Food and Dining

Onboard Activities

Entertainment

Service and Staff

Ship Quality

Cabin / Stateroom

Ports of call

MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA

Red Wing, Minnesota

Winona, Minnesota

La Crosse, Wisconsin

Dubuque, Iowa

Burlington, Iowa

Hannibal, Missouri

St. Louis, Missouri Did not visit port

RIVER CRUISING

Memphis, Tennessee

Cruise Mississippi River

Vicksburg, Mississippi

Natchez, Mississippi Did not visit port

NOTTOWAY, LOUISIANA Did not visit port

New Orleans, Louisiana

Disembarkation