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A Mississippi steamboat cruise through Louisiana and Mississippi brings families together in long forgotten ways.

The Delta Queen Steamboat Company hit a home run with families when it instituted Riverbonding Cruises aboard the paddlewheelers American Queen and Mississippi Queen in 2004. During the summer, Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, these boats have at least one youth counselor on board and offer a number of kids-only as well as family-together activities.

I sailed on a four-night Riverbonding cruise aboard the American Queen out of New Orleans with my mother Gertrude, 11-year-old daughter Alex and niece Justine. Even though both young girls are very “plugged in” at home, they thoroughly enjoyed the slower steamboatin’ pace coupled with the fun, varied and wholesome family activities aboard ship. So did we.

In the past, DQSC’s traditional paddlewheelers were geared towards retirees. However, with Bruce Nierenberg – family cruising pioneer and founder of the now-defunct, kid-friendly Big Red Boat cruise line – at the helm, the company is succeeding in broadening its clientele to also include children, parents and grandparents. On our cruise in August, 2004, out of 436 passengers, there were approximately 30 children on board. There were also a few groups and many seniors, as all ages and even guests with mobility issues can be accommodated with the ship’s on-board elevator.

Riverbonding’s Junior Steamboaters

If you’ve cruised on big ships, don’t expect a similar day-long youth program where you can drop your kids off and pick them up only at meal times. Riverbonding’s kids-only activities are scattered throughout the day and evening and range from making rings out of dollar bills to a pajama party. The youth counselors will accept children from age 3-13 to participate in the kids’ activities, but I think those 5-years-old and over do best. Since there are only one or two youth counselors on board, they often have to group little kids with pre-teens, which may be tough for a preschooler in particular.

What Alex and Justine seemed to enjoy most were the activities required to earn their Cub Pilot’s Certificate and captain’s hat. To do so, kids had to attend five activities:  an engine room tour with the youth counselors, knot-tying class, pilothouse tour, Basic Navigational Know-How and a Riverlorian lecture.

The Riverlorian, or ship’s historian, imparts interesting “lore” about the river, its inhabitants and the ports of call. Most of her talks were given during the buffet breakfasts or luncheons, which facilitated attendance by many.  I thought the girls would find these talks either above their heads or boring. On the contrary, they listened, learned, and generally did not want to leave the talks until they were completely over. On our later excursion to Baton Rouge’s state capitol grounds, I was impressed with what they remembered from the Riverlorian’s talks.