Riverboats resume scheduled stops

Business Today

The Cape Girardeau Convention and Visitors Bureau recently received news from the Delta Queen Steamboat Co. and the River Explorer hotel barge.

Terri Clark-Bauer, director of the CVB, reports that more steamboat and river barge dockings are scheduled this year for Cape Girardeau than ever before.

Delta Queen Steamboat Co. and its parent entity, American Classic Voyages Co., are currently in the process of reorganizing from bankruptcy and will continue to operate the Delta Queen and Mississippi Queen paddlewheelers on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, including eight stops at Cape Girardeau -- four each by the two boats.

The River Explorer, a 730-foot-long hotel barge headquartered in New Orleans, will make 13 stops, and three of those will be overnight visits.

The dockings are important to Cape Girardeau, Clark-Bauer said. Riverboats usually bring as many as 3,500 to 4,000 visitors to Cape Girardeau each year, a big boost to the historic downtown area, she said.