posted 09-02-2004 06:35 AM               

In New Orleans, two four-course dinners (we chose www.broussards.com and www.dickiebrennanssteakhouse.com) as well as admission to two of New Orleans’ many attractions were included in the vacation package, along with three nights at the comfortable and convenient Courtyard by Marriott hotel that provided complementary cooked-to-order breakfasts each morning and a swimming pool that we and our three children enjoyed. The good times rolled!

After we checked out of the hotel on Monday morning, air conditioned motorcoaches brought about 150 of us to Stennis, where we saw the Apollo 4 Command Module, a linear aerospike engine, some of Fred Haise’s spacesuits, numerous other engines in a rocket garden and the huge rocket engine test stands. In the StenniSphere auditorium, we were welcomed to Mississippi by Admiral Donaldson, the Stennis Director, who also introduced Scott Carpenter, Gorden Cooper and Al Worden. We then had a buffet lunch surrounded by StenniSphere’s displays and artifacts. We never would have seen those sights if www.ssc.nasa.gov was not part of this tour.

The bus then brought us back to New Orleans and dropped us off at the Delta Queen Steamship Company’s wharf, where we boarded the world’s largest paddlewheel steamboat, The American Queen. During the show on the first evening, we were again introduced to and welcomed by Astronauts Carpenter, Cooper and Worden. Astronaut Wally Schirra joined the cruise on the morning of the third day.

During each of the three full days of the cruise, as we steamed/paddled up and then down the Mississippi, each of the four astronauts gave a presentation from the stage of the vessel’s Grand Saloon showcase and answered numerous questions from the four hundred passengers on board. Their remarks were personal and humorous and their answers were spontaneous yet thoughtful. After the Q&A, the astronaut signed his most recent book and posed for pictures.

Comedian Bill Dana was also onboard. He performed during the second night, initially in his Astronaut Jose Jiminez character using Al Worden as his straight man. He had the house roaring with laughter while he performed both his vintage and his more recent material.

Opportunities presented themselves for passengers to have spontaneous chats or “photo ops” with the four astronauts and the comedian, their spouses and the two representatives from the ASF during shore excursions and in the public areas of the vessel. It was a relaxed and unique setting.

Our travel agent, from www.phyllisdale.com, arranged for our seventeenth wedding anniversary to be commemorated during dinner on the second day, and after the waitstaff sang to our table, Gordon Cooper came over, congratulated us and thanked us for supporting the ASF.

On the American Queen, the five-course dinners and other meals were excellent and the entertainment was fun! We met many space enthusiasts from across the U.S., Canada and Europe. There were families with children, couples and single travelers on board, spanning every age group. The passengers also included many steamboatin’ enthusiasts for whom the presence of the astronauts was an added bonus.

I was told that the ASF benefited from the cruise as a portion of the fare from each cabin was donated to support their mission. Delta Queen Steamboat Co. benefited from the presence of many vacationers who (like us) were steamboatin’ for the first time and were drawn to this cruise because the astronauts were going to be on board.

For our family of five, the seven night “adventure week” was an expensive vacation, but worth it! We were thrilled that the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation and the Delta Queen Steamboat Company collaborated to create this opportunity.

We discovered the excitement, the tastes and the sounds of New Orleans, we witnessed the natural beauty of the Mississippi River from a paddle-wheel steamboat, we met and learned from four of America’s space pioneers, we were entertained by many talented performers and one funny comedian, we made new friends and we supported the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation.

posted 09-02-2004 02:58 PM               

Cheers!

posted 09-12-2004 08:54 PM               

The Astronaut Cruise onboard the American Queen was a fantastic event! As I described above, it was a “trip of a lifetime” for our family. And it really seemed that the astronauts and their spouses had a great time onboard.

To all,

I skimmed through the dozens of postings regarding the Labor Day Weekend Astronaut Autograph Show in Burbank. What a different experience (in terms of pace, events, participants and attendees) the UACC Sims/Hankow Autograph Show must have been from the Delta Queen Steamship Company/Astronaut Scholarship Foundation “Astronauts on the Mississippi” Cruise.

Enthusiasts were fortunate to have had a choice between these two unique late summer vacation opportunities that benefited the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation, in addition to having had an opportunity to attend the “Space Walk of Fame” show in Titusville earlier this year, the Kansas Cosmosphere gathering and numerous events commemorating Apollo 11’s thirty-fifth anniversary from coast-to-coast.