American Queen Voyages - New Albany

I have traveled with this line several times. Most recent cruise was 7/2022. The cruise overall was fine. Some of the cleanliness was lacking compared to a prior 12 month cruise. There were several issues with changes in the debarkation location. All of these companies cite covid employee shortages as their problem. My big issue is cancellation refund. I had prepaid for a cruise leaving 11/2022, but after the less than stellar trip in July, I decided to cancel the November trip. I canceled on 7/28/2022. They first told me 30 days for a refund. Then 45 days, then 60 days. Then 60 days only counting working days, not calendar days. There is no corporate number to call, you have to deal with booking agents working from their homes. I finally turned the dispute over to my credit card company. They have not been able to get the refund check sent to me. On 10/11/22 a representative of the cruise lines called to verify my home address of where to send the check. The person knew the exact amount, so it was not a scam call. AS OF 10/22/2022 I HAVE NOT RECEIVED MY REFUND CHECK FROM AMERICAN QUEEN VOYAGES. THEY ARE VERY UNRESPONSIVE TO EMAILS. THE BOOKING AGENTS TELL ME THEY HAVE TO COMMUNICATE WITH CORPORATE VIA EMAIL. ALL OF THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE. I will no longer be a customer of this cruise line. To add to this, their marketing department keeps sending me emails to book future cruises.

See my 1 September review, titles the cruise that wasn 't ; American Queen Voyages cancelled an Easter Seaboard cruise from Boston to Nassau, was to depart Boston 28 October. I paid, in total, the cruise fare in September 2021; I also paid for Air fare from and to. Cruise was cancelled via an email to out travel agent on 18 July. To date, 10 weeks later we have not received our cruise refund of approx $10K from this cruise line. Further our air fare refund was denied, because we have non-refundable air fare tickets. STAY FAR AWAY from this cruise line as they aren 't worth the effort.

Booked a cruise on American Duchess. Had to cancel and had travel insurance. Now over 90 days after cancelation, still no refund. Innumerable phone calls and no ability to get them to issue checks. Say it is 60 business days after cancellation. Today after 90 days they tell me authorized but still 2-3 weeks to write check Rebooked a second trip with credit and now this trip cancelled by them- America Duchess going out os service. Terrible customer service. Do not respond to emails and can not speak to supervisors Would love to spend my money and travel in America. Just not with American Queen Voyages.

I want to make everyone aware: All of you know my wife and I travel a lot and many of you reach out to us about your travel plans. I 'm now up to 105 countries and all 50 states. So, when something happens in the travel industry that is so egregious that it goes against all good and ethical business practices, it 's important I let my friends know (and my friends may want to cross post this to warn their friends). Let 's keep a couple of things in mind as you read this: when the trip reservations and payment were made the Mississippi River had normal flow and businesses have (or should have) insurance for natural disasters or at least anticipate losses that could occur in their chosen industry. This is a story about the American Queen Voyages, American Queen Steamboat Operating Company, LLC, Victory Operating Company, LLC, SEA Operating Company, LLC and Steamboat Society of America. Everyone has probably heard of taking a paddle wheeler down the mighty Mississippi River, right? Well, that was a bucket list item for us. But of course, the Mississippi River is now running dry which is beyond anyone 's control. American Queen Voyages has at the very last moment sent us a substitution for our trip that is in NO way acceptable. They want to send us from Louisville, KY to Clarksville, TN on the Ohio and smaller rivers. Not even close to what we signed up for. Some pertinent points are: 1. We didn 't purchase a trip to cruise a river but to cruise THE Mississippi River. I have covered every inch of the smaller replacement rivers my entire life, having grown up in Kentucky. I could be the tour guide for every one of their land excursions and drive the boat. 2. The substituted stops hold no significance for us, and are of no interest to us we were looking forward to civil war landmarks and immersion in the blues roots on the great Mississippi. 3. We don 't see any value that would justify spending $7300 per couple on a weeklong trip that could easily be covered by car in 2 days or less. We would have been happy to roll over the money and go on the Mississippi next year, but American Queen Voyages is refusing us that as an option. And canceling at this late date will cost all of us all our money, which was paid way in advance. Now after receiving no customer service, I began to search even more and found that recently America Queen Voyages has been receiving terrible ratings and reviews and has a VERY low F rating from the Better Business Bureau. I will now be required to file suit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana to get my money back. I don 't want this to happen to anyone else. I do hope our Georgia Attorney General, Chris Carr, can at least warn Georgians, and you can caution all your friends, how the American Queen Steamboat Operating Company, LLC and the Victory Operating Company, LLC who advertise and do business as AMERICAN QUEEN VOYAGES and its CEO, John Waggoner, refuse to take responsibility for a Steamboat/Paddle Wheeler company selling the Great Mississippi experience by substituting an inferior product. They should know instances such as this can occur and should prepare and insure for them instead of trying to pass their losses on to their customers. Follow for more info to come. @ACGKY1 @AQVoyages @CruiseAQSCUK #AmericanQueenVoyages #DiscoveryRunsDeep #AQVoyages @americanqueenvoyages @TravelPulse #Travvy Awards #AGENTatHOME Magazine @SteamshipHistoricalSociety @SSHSA @TourRadar @ChrisCarr_Ga @attorneygeneralchriscarr

My husband and I returned from a one-week cruise up the Columbia River on a paddle wheeler from American Queen Voyages. Before we left, my girlfriend Carol emailed: Why don 't we all go on a cruise together? I emailed back and sent her the link to this cruise: That would be great. Why don 't you check out this cruise that we have booked for October. They still have some rooms left. A few days later after checking it out, she emailed back: That cruise is just too expensive. We 'll keep looking and let you know. This cruise was the most expensive vacation my husband and I have ever taken, averaging about $1200 a day, including the five extra optional excursions. One of my cruise buddies, a woman from Texas told me: You get what you pay for. She then went on to a laundry list of complaints about a big cruise company that she had taken through the inside passage. I evaluate the cruise in terms of expectations compared to cost. If a vacation costs this much, the expectations are high. Most Americans ' expectations are high for food on a cruise. The food was very good. Were there a few glitches? Yes. But that is part of my expectation also. Mr. Baja, the dining room Maître d '/manager was genuinely warm, charismatic, and pleasant. He would be an asset to any hospitality setting. Our primary waiter, Jesse, was a consummate professional with a good sense of humor. The wait staff, room cleaning crew, the captain and lead ship mechanic far exceeded my expectations. The entertainment was OK, meeting my expectation. The cruise director should cut the political jokes, they 're not funny. The lounge performer, Ryan Guerra, played acoustic guitar, piano and violin; excellent. He far exceeded our expectations and by the way, has a bachelor 's degree in music from the University of Texas. Where the cruise failed to meet my expectations was with the shore excursion tour guides and the Riverlorian . Of the five tour guides we had, three met my expectations: the guide for Mount St Helens, Cody, the Mount Hood guide, and Chet, the Spokane guide. All had advanced degrees and copious notes from which they drew information, and all of them showed integrity toward the subject matter presented. The Riverlorian and the Astoria guide both relied on Stephen Ambrose for information. Ambrose has been severely discredited for plagiarism. (see the Wikipedia article on him and footnotes) My expectation is that employees of this company, or their contractors, would have advanced degrees in a field related to the area of expertise upon which they spoke, in other words an MA or MS or PhD in History, Anthropology, Natural History, or Geology, as it pertains to the Pacific northwest. My expectation is that for the amount of money we paid for this cruise we would hear presentations from qualified experts with an in-depth knowledge of the region who had attained advanced degrees in a related field. At a Lewis and Clark site the Riverlorian said that the Coyote was the bad guy to the native American mythmakers. The Coyote was not a bad guy , but a trickster who is a frequent character in Native American mythology for cultural groups who live where coyotes do. He serves many functions in the mythology, notably educating people in the proper behavioral expectations of that culture. I joked to the Riverlorian that he must have majored in music, not history, and he said he didn 't major in anything, leading me to surmise he holds no college degree. The Riverlorian added little to the discussion of Lewis and Clark and went into a tirade against newspapers that don 't print all of the news and then told us a story about a 20th century cult that had nothing to do with the Lewis and Clark expedition. He did not demonstrate the intellectual sophistication of a degreed specialist and relied on firing up the crowd with emotion rather than demonstrating an ability in critical analysis. Everyone who spoke on this cruise abo