Queen of the West, American Cruise Line

[PennyAgain]

Here is our review of Queen of the West which is operated and owned by American Cruise Lines. Information on this river boat is hard to come by. Before booking I did a lot of searching and came up with very little.

 

http://www.cruisecritic.com/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=102298

 

We are very experiences travelers and cruises having traveled on all sorts of boats and ships from absolutely small to get mega cruise ships. I feel we know how things work or should work.

[PennyAgain]

http://www.cruisecritic.com/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=102842

 

This person has no history posts on Cruise Critic and raves about the boat, service and food etc.

 

We about laughed over the comments about the spacious bathrooms and bedrooms.

 

 

Believe it or not.

[crusinbanjo]

very funny & good catch!

[Talisker92]

We did it a couple of years ago. The cabins were small, and the food was terrible. The scenery was fantastic!! The funniest thing that happened was when I went into the linen closet across from our cabin to get some towels, there sitting on the floor was our cabin steward with a girl on his lap. Having savoire faire, I said hello, got the towels and left LOL

Columbia River Cruise July 2008.pdf

[PennyAgain]

We did it a couple of years ago. The cabins were small, and the food was terrible. The scenery was fantastic!! The funniest thing that happened was when I went into the linen closet across from our cabin to get some towels, there sitting on the floor was our cabin steward with a girl on his lap. Having savoire faire, I said hello, got the towels and left LOL

 

The American Cruise Lines photo that the company provided to famous online travel guides is of a suite but doesn't say so!.

 

The food on our trip got up to OK a couple times but hot food was never served hot.

 

Thanks for your links. It is good to see your fine photos.

 

Our trip was very expensive and not a good value for money. I also didn't expect fantastic food but it certainly could have been a lot better and served hotter when that was appropriate.

[jsb9701]

We enjoyed two cruises with American Cruise Lines several years ago. Both were in the Northeast: Maine Coast and Harbors and New England Islands. Both were excellent with very good food. Our Maine cruise was a “lobster fest” and we could, and I did, have lobster prepared various ways at every meal. Wonderful. The New England Islands cruise was enhanced by a special guest lecturer who told us all about the islands, fisheries and local idiosyncrasies. The young crew was quite enthusiastic and charming. At that time all liquor was available all the time at no cost. Cocktail hour with your choice of drinks and wine and liqueurs and hors d’oeuvres was fun. Birthday and anniversaries were celebrated with special desserts and champagne. The cruisers were very well traveled and interesting. We had time to walk around in the various ports and enjoy their special charm. Our tiny balcony was nice.

I believe the quality of the on-board staff; cruise director, chef, captain and crew is the difference between the ACL cruises and very likely other cruises. We may have been very lucky. We were on the American Star for one cruise and probably the same for the other.

Jean

[PennyAgain]

Jean, although several of the professional reviews on Queen of the West state that no alcohol is SOLD on board, it was possible to request a drink during non-cocktail hour times. We didn't do that.

 

Yes, the new built boats of ACL are said to be very nice, with over 200 square ft rooms, larger bathrooms and more food choices in the dining room (as per their WEB site), we were not aware until we were on Queen of the West that it is different.

 

Frankly, looking back on our time of making the decision to purchase this cruise, we believed ACL's WEB site and ACL's sales people on the telephone.

 

We are an active couple used to keeping very busy. We booked a trip that seems to relate better to older seniors and folks who have been retired for a good while.

 

Our mistake.

 

That's why I'm posting in this thread and why I wrote a review of our experiences on Cruise Critic. Due to the lack of reviews and a scacity of general information about Queen of the West, we made some assumptions and spent an awful lot of money for this trip.

 

The Queen of the West is what she is and suits many people.