Customer Reviews

Delta Queen, The: Last of the Paddlewheel Palaces

5 star:		(0)
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2 star:		(1)
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Having gone on a Delta Queen cruise last fall, I thought this book would be a great gift for one of the elderly travelers who was a part of this group. The book was a disappointment.

The first 46 pages of the book are a history of steamboating, full of pictures of other boats, but not the Delta Queen. If you like steamboat photos in general, these pages will interest you. There's pictures of building vessels, wrecks, fires, and so forth. I'm not a riverboat expert, but I suspect most have been printed elsewhere. Many are apparently from glass plate negatives and the photos look washed out.

Page 47 starts a four page history of the DQ, ending about 1970. Of the pictures that follow, only 27 show the DQ or some part of her. Most of the photos are distant exterior shots. Interior pictures are sorely lacking. There's one small photo of the Forward Lounge and another of the Orleans dining room, but neither are labeled as such. Three unlabeled engine room photos are included, but one has a blurry background and two only show gauges; none show the powerplant. The best interior photo is the one of the grand stairway on the back cover, that you can see above. The same section features photos of unnamed people dancing or entertaining (17 of them).

There's a nine page recounting of a 1972 jazz cruise which is somewhat interesting. It provides a general review of the onboard experience, but could have been so much better. For example, the writer mentions meeting Betty Blakely, who was the driving force behind saving the DQ many years ago, but provide no recounting of anything discussed. However, in fairness, many of the memories covered in the recollection, such as of dining and cruising on the river, can be the words of today's travelers.

If you are looking for photos of Delta Queen details or of it's elegant interior (rich in wood and well worth seeing), you will be disappointed. You would be better off to search a photosharing website like Flickr, where the photos are numerous and of better quality.

As for the DQ history, I'd suggest reading the long out of print "Saga of the Delta Queen" by Frederick Way. It's often available from Amazon resellers or that other online auction site. While it only goes up to about 1950, it has detail of the DQ's journey from California through the Panama Canal to New Orleans and Pittsburgh. It has more DQ photos, one of which was used in this book. Most of the photos are of the wartime paint scheme, which is the era the "Saga of the Delta Queen" primarily covered.

Overall, "Last of the Paddlewheel Palaces" is billed as a photo-essay, but lacks any depth about the Delta Queen. I would not recommend it for anyone trying to research the history of the vessel. But it does give a weak glimpse into the history of steamboats and of the cruise experience. So that's why it received a weak two star rating.