South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)

Quintessen­tial experience on Ol’ Mississipp­i

3rd riverboat will serve New Orleans

- By Stacey Plaisance

NEW ORLEANS — Few experience­s capture old New Orleans and the Mississipp­i River quite like a paddlewhee­l riverboat coming round the muddy bend with its tooting whistle horn, towering smokestack­s and water-churning propeller.

In January, the first new riverboat in more than a decade launches in this Louisiana port city. A plunge in tourism after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 forced the New Orleans Steamboat Co. to sell off one of its two boats, but the arrival of the City of New Orleans is a sign of the steadily rising tide of tourists each year to this Southern city of Mardi Gras fame.

“People come from all over the world. It is astonishin­g. They really want to see the river,” said Adrienne Thomas, marketing director for the company, which also owns another riverboat, the Natchez.

A century ago, countless paddlewhee­l riverboats plied the Mississipp­i and its tributarie­s. Today, New Orleans has two: the Natchez and the Creole Queen, which is operated by New Orleans Paddlewhee­ls.

Now the City of New Orleans is coming full circle, back to the state where it was built in 1991. For years it operated as a casino boat in Rock Island, Ill., until the mid-1990s. The then-named Casino Rock Island sat unused for years until it was purchased by the New Orleans Steamboat Co. in 2016.

“We instantly fell in love with the boat,” said Matthew Dow, project manager heading the vessel’s renovation. “We saw the potential in her and knew that we could do her justice and bring her back not only to her former glory but well beyond that.”

Dow said the vessel already looked the part of a New Orleans riverboat, with its curved decks, plentiful windows, decorative fleurs de lis and giant paddlewhee­l.

Initially it was brought to a dry dock for hull repairs, then towed to New Orleans for a makeover.

“We had to rip all of the walls out, all the ceilings, a lot of the insulation,” Dow said. “Basically, we had to strip this boat down to the superstruc­ture, to bare bones, and everything had to go back new.”

There were additions, too. A dumbwaiter was added to connect the galley to all three decks for food transport, along with passenger elevators and handicappe­d-accessible restrooms.

The company was aiming to have the boat ready for tours by late January, when the Natchez goes into its annual service and maintenanc­e layup. After that, both boats will operate simultaneo­usly.

The two riverboats look similar, both painted red and white with giant red paddlewhee­ls and exterior deck space for close-up views by passengers of the giant propeller. But the new boat has more indoor space.

The Natchez was built in the 1970s for sightseein­g with a lot of open deck space, and its main deck is occupied mostly by the boat’s vintage 1925 steam engines, an attraction for The City of New Orleans riverboat will be the third paddlewhee­ler to call this Southern city of Mardi Gras fame its home. Restoratio­n project manager Matthew Dow plays the calliope on the renovated vessel.

passengers. The Natchez is one of only six commercial­ly operated steamboats left in the U.S.

The new boat is run with a modern diesel-electric system. It takes up less room, allowing for more indoor space for dinner seating, jazz brunches and special events.

“Even though we don’t have the steam engines, we do have the working paddlewhee­l, and we want to show that off,” Dow said.

As with the Natchez, cruises on the City of New Orleans will include narration about the city and shoreline sights such as the port, historic Jackson

Square, the Chalmette Battlefiel­d, which marks the Battle of New Orleans in the War of 1812, and the Chalmette National Cemetery. And there will be plenty of live band music as the boat plies the Mississipp­i.

Cyndi Gruenberg of Houston rode the Natchez

with her husband and two daughters recently and said they learned much about the city.

“It was a great trip, a little bit of history along the river and just a fun ride,” Gruenberg said. “It’s pretty cool. It brings nostalgia back.”

Tourism officials say they don’t expect a shortage of passengers, as the number of visitors to New Orleans has surpassed pre-Katrina levels in recent years.

Stephen Perry, head of New Orleans & Co., which promotes tourism, says the city is “back in every way” with increased hotel and restaurant bookings. Riding a paddlewhee­l is part of the New Orleans experience, he noted.

“This is one of the most eclectic, authentic places left in America,” Perry said. “People don’t come here only for food and music. What they like is other experience­s.

“A paddlewhee­ler is just one of the great added attraction­s of imagining yourself in a time gone by.”

 ?? GERALD HERBERT/AP PHOTOS 2018 ??
GERALD HERBERT/AP PHOTOS 2018
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