Riverboats

Could this be a paddlewheel renaissance? Maybe, but not in that creaky, 19th century way. Some new Victorian-style riverboats plying the Mississippi and other U.S. rivers this year will come tricked out with large balconies, Wi-Fi in every stateroom and satellite TVs. American Cruise Lines said Tuesday it plans to build a new paddlewheel ship to add to its U.S. river fleet. The news comes as the finishing touches are being put on the Connecticut-based company's brand-new Queen of the Mississippi, which is set to make its inaugural cruise from New Orleans on the Mississippi River in August.

Question: My husband had a stroke two years ago. He can walk short distances and maneuver some stairs, but we always take a wheelchair. I have just retired and would love to do some traveling, and a riverboat cruise in Europe is at the top of my bucket list. Are there trips that could accommodate this situation? Would shore excursions be a problem, or are we restricted to drive-bys? Charlotte Lechlak Encino Answer: River cruising is the hot ticket in 2013, especially if Europe is your destination.

With calliopes playing and paddle-wheels churning, three richly appointed riverboats on Monday brought legal gambling back to the Mississippi River for the first time this century. The boats, evoking the largely fictitious glamour of pre-Civil War river cruising, offer games of chance including craps, blackjack, roulette and slot machines.

Could this be a paddlewheel renaissance? Maybe, but not in that creaky, 19th century way. Some new Victorian-style riverboats plying the Mississippi and other U.S. rivers this year will come tricked out with large balconies, Wi-Fi in every stateroom and satellite TVs. American Cruise Lines said Tuesday it plans to build a new paddlewheel ship to add to its U.S. river fleet. The news comes as the finishing touches are being put on the Connecticut-based company's brand-new Queen of the Mississippi, which is set to make its inaugural cruise from New Orleans on the Mississippi River in August.

Louisiana's Legislature voted to allow gambling casinos on paddle-wheel riverboats on the Mississippi and 10 other rivers and lakes in the state. Also approved was legalized gambling on video poker machines to be regulated by a state computer. The bills go to Gov. Buddy Roemer, who has said he will probably approve riverboat gambling, but hadn't decided on the video poker. Voters earlier approved a lottery to start this fall.

Players International, a Calabasas company that offers discounts at casinos in Las Vegas and Atlantic City, is rolling the dice on what it hopes will be a profitable new venture: riverboat gambling. Hungry for revenues, many Midwestern states have taken steps to legalize riverboat gambling. Three gambling ships have begun operating in Iowa.

As a tourist in Washington, D.C., you can do a lot of walking. I repeat, a lot of walking and on pavement. Then couple that with some of Washington's famous heat and humidity. It's mostly a sweaty haze of a memory at this point, but I seem to recall both my sons -- ages 10 and 7 -- asking to be carried (who says kids don't have a sense of humor?) after a day of walking around the museums on the Mall. Meanwhile, even my hike-happy wife looked longingly at air-conditioned taxi cabs as they whizzed by, but maybe that's because she was giving me a piggyback ride.

Players International, a Calabasas company that offers discounts at casinos in Las Vegas and Atlantic City, is rolling the dice on what it hopes will be a profitable new venture: riverboat gambling. Many Midwestern states hungry for revenue have taken steps to legalize riverboat gambling. Three gambling ships have begun operating in Iowa.

Pity the Reuben E. Lee. The boat was intended as an ingenue: comely for its intended two-decade lifespan, relegated to the dumpster once it creaked and groaned with age. That hasn't eased the ache of Southern Californians who had long mooned over Newport Beach's kitschy smokestack riverboat, which cheated its certain annihilation for 20 extra years. Last week, workers began to dismantle its beige veneer -- the Reuben E. Lee had run out of tricks.

Indiana to Launch 11 Casino Boats: State authorities said they will award licenses soon for the riverboats to ply waters from Lake Michigan to the Ohio River, making it the sixth state to allow floating games of chance. The state's Supreme Court cleared the way this week by ruling against a legal challenge to last year's vote in which riverboat gambling was approved by residents of two Indiana cities and five counties.

A Russian riverboat was overloaded and in need of repairs when it sank in the Volga River with 208 people on board, officials said Monday as the toll rose to 58 confirmed dead. The riverboat Bulgaria, which sank Sunday about two miles from shore, was not licensed to carry passengers, had not undergone major repairs in 30 years and was operating without its left engine, said Marina Gridneva, a spokeswoman for the Russian prosecutor general's office. Volga region transport prosecutor Sergei Belov said fuel for the left engine had been pumped to the boat's right side, which resulted in the boat listing 4 degrees.

More than 100 people were missing and feared dead after the sudden sinking of a passenger cruiser on the Volga River on Sunday afternoon, Russian officials said. The 56-year-old double-deck pleasure cruiser Bulgaria was carrying 188 people — 142 passengers and 46 crew — when it went under about two miles from the shore of the Volga, in central Russia near the regional capital of Kazan, about 450 miles east of Moscow. Two bodies were quickly recovered, officials said, and about 80 passengers had been rescued, 13 of whom were rushed to hospitals, said Irina Andrianova, Russian Emergency Situations Ministry spokeswoman, in televised remarks.

American Cruise Lines, which specializes in river trips on small ships, has renovated its Queen of the West riverboat and returned it to service, sailing on the Columbia and Snake rivers from Portland , Ore. The 230-foot-long, 120-passenger boat was built in 1995, removed from service late last year and resumed sailing on May 14. It’s doing seven-night itineraries between Portland and Clarkston, Wash., through at least Nov. 19.  Most...

As a tourist in Washington, D.C., you can do a lot of walking. I repeat, a lot of walking and on pavement. Then couple that with some of Washington's famous heat and humidity. It's mostly a sweaty haze of a memory at this point, but I seem to recall both my sons -- ages 10 and 7 -- asking to be carried (who says kids don't have a sense of humor?) after a day of walking around the museums on the Mall. Meanwhile, even my hike-happy wife looked longingly at air-conditioned taxi cabs as they whizzed by, but maybe that's because she was giving me a piggyback ride.

Owners of the historic Delta Queen, the country's best-known paddle-wheeler, say they may be forced to pull the boat out of regular overnight service on the Mississippi River unless Congress extends its exemption from safety laws. Opponents say the 1926 steamboat, with a steel hull and wooden superstructure, is a fire hazard. The waiver exempts the Delta Queen from a federal law that requires fire-retardant materials on vessels carrying 50 or more passengers on overnight trips.

Pity the Reuben E. Lee. The boat was intended as an ingenue: comely for its intended two-decade lifespan, relegated to the dumpster once it creaked and groaned with age. That hasn't eased the ache of Southern Californians who had long mooned over Newport Beach's kitschy smokestack riverboat, which cheated its certain annihilation for 20 extra years. Last week, workers began to dismantle its beige veneer -- the Reuben E. Lee had run out of tricks.

The blast of a whistle and an off-tune calliope mingle with the rat-tat-tat-tat of slot-machine coins shooting into jackpot trays as a bygone Mississippi pastime comes back to life. "They're just having a ball over there on the dice tables," Ruby Frank, a gray-haired woman from Muscatine, Iowa, exclaims above the din in the cramped casino of the Diamond Lady, a newly launched stern-wheeler. "Somebody's really hot!"

On the south bank of the Missouri River in Kansas City, Mo., the Flamingo Casino--a $110-million riverboat gambling hall--was expected to have opened by Labor Day weekend to throngs of gamblers eager to try their luck at the floating version of Las Vegas. But the glittering Flamingo Casino and its 800 workers have remained idled for weeks after running aground on a local controversy that has proved an embarrassing and costly episode for its owner: Beverly Hills-based Hilton Hotels Corp.

I am standing in this old penny of a town, on the edge of the Mississippi River, fishing the same stretch of riverbank Mark Twain fished as a boy. Twain grew up two blocks from here. He fished, he swam, he worshiped these alluvial waters. In the late 1800s, he turned around and made it all ridiculously famous. What was his gift? Twain "cheered and comforted a tired world," according to the monument at his birthplace in nearby Florida, Mo.

I am responding to Arthur Frommer's comments in "Taking It Easy on the Sleepy Mississippi" [On a Budget, Jan. 2]: I am a young 36, and I happily signed up with my mom, a young sixtysomething, for an art cruise on the American Queen. It was more fun than my in-laws' cruise to Mexico on a giant cruise ship. I didn't see anyone elderly on my cruise. Many were my age or younger. So much for Frommer's myth that riverboats are the geriatric cruise of the 21st century. It depends on your crowd.