Delta Queen - Current Duty

Current Duty

The vessel was most recently operated by Majestic America Line. The vessels were purchased from the Delaware North Companies in April 2006. Besides Delta Queen, the company also owns the American Queen and Mississippi Queen, modern steamboats designed along Delta Queen's lines but carrying around 400 passengers. The company also owns riverboats that have seen service on the Columbia and Snake Rivers in Oregon and Washington, and the Alaska Inside Passage.

Delta Queen cruised the Mississippi River and its tributaries on a regular schedule, with cruises ranging from New Orleans to Memphis to St. Louis to St. Paul to Cincinnati to Pittsburgh, and many more. In some cruises, the vessel probed rivers such as the Arkansas, Red, Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway, Black Warrior, Mobile, and more.

Delta Queen recreated historic steamboat races each year during the Kentucky Derby Festival, when she raced with the Belle of Louisville on the Ohio at Louisville in the Great Steamboat Race. The winner of the annual race received a trophy of golden antlers, which was mounted on the pilot house until the next race. They also raced during the Tall Stacks festivals celebrating steamboats, held every three or four years in Cincinnati (Delta Queen's former home port).

On August 1, 2007, Majestic America Line announced that Delta Queen would cease operations permanently at the end of the 2008 season. The temporary exemption from SOLAS needed to keep Delta Queen running was being ended by Congress.

In response to this announcement, in September 2007 the MSP for Dumbarton, Jackie Baillie, backed by 15 other Members, submitted a motion to the Scottish Parliament calling for the preservation of the ship.

In the United States, devotees of the boat created a renewed "Save the Delta Queen" campaign similar to the one undertaken in the 1970s.

However, at the end of the 2008 season, Delta Queen ceased all service. On her official website, the Majestic America Line announced it is ending all operations, would not operate in 2009, and that its assets, including all its riverboats, are for sale.

On February 11, 2009, Delta Queen arrived in Chattanooga, Tennessee to become a floating boutique hotel, as it was feared the vessel could be vandalized if she remained in New Orleans. Under lease to Chattanooga businessman Harry Phillips, she's now docked at Coolidge Park Landing on Chattanooga's North Shore. The Delta Queen Hotel officially opened for overnight guests on June 5, 2009, offering dining, a lounge, live period music and theatrical performances.

The ship is currently owned by Ambassadors International, and is leased and operated by a company called All Aboard Travel, operating as Delta Queen LLC, which began leasing the vessel in August 2010. Ambassadors International listed the ship for sale beginning in late 2008 at a price of $4.75 million, and in November 2010 it was announced that a group called Save the Delta Queen 2010 was planning to place a bid to purchase the ship. If it succeeded, the group would place the ship into operation, carrying only 49 people in order to be exempt from federal fire safety regulations, which apply to ships carrying upwards of 50 people.

For a time, with the steamer American Queen turned over to MARAD and Mississippi Queen sold for scrap below New Orleans, Delta Queen was the only steamboat to have been owned by the Delta Queen Steamboat Company (formerly Greene Line Steamers) to remain in service, albeit without running trips. However, as of November 2011, the Great American Steamboat Company of Memphis, Tennessee was booking cruises on American Queen along the Upper and Lower Mississippi river.