American Harmony

American Harmony is the second of American Cruise Lines’ modern riverboats, a clean-lined vessel rather than a paddlewheel replica, delivered by Chesapeake Shipbuilding in Salisbury, Maryland in July 2019. She carries 190 guests, which is roughly five percent of what an Anthem of the Seas carries, and that number governs everything about the experience.

What a small US-flagged riverboat gets you

She docks downtown. The class carries a retractable bow gangway, which lets her land on a levee, a riverbank or a town quay without any port infrastructure at all, so you step off into the town rather than into a terminal three miles out.

There are no interior staterooms. All ninety-nine cabins have a private balcony, which is why the interior-fare column is empty for this line throughout our search results. That is a fact about the fleet, not missing data. At the top of the ship the Owner’s Suites run to 645 square feet with a wraparound balcony and glass on two sides.

Solo travelers are not penalized. She carries dedicated single staterooms, sold without the single supplement that makes ocean cruising expensive for one.

The crew is American, as the law requires of any vessel carrying passengers between US ports, and a featured shore excursion in every town is included.

Where she actually sails

The Pacific Northwest, not the Mississippi, and out of one homeport: every voyage she makes begins at Portland, Oregon.

The backbone is the eight-night Columbia and Snake Rivers cruise, Portland upstream to Clarkston, Washington, and it is the great majority of her season. She calls at Astoria near the river mouth, Kalama, The Dalles, Richland, Pendleton and Lewiston, and finishes at Clarkston at the foot of Hells Canyon. It is the Lewis and Clark route run backwards, out through the Columbia River Gorge and up into the dry wheat country of eastern Washington, and it is worth knowing that the ship spends much of it locking through dams rather than running open water.

The landscape does the work on that run, and it changes more than a river cruise usually manages. Astoria at the start is rainforest and fog and a bar-pilot town at the river mouth; The Dalles is where the trees stop and the basalt starts; Richland is irrigated desert; and by Clarkston and Lewiston you are in dry canyon country at the head of navigation, a couple of hundred miles inland with Hells Canyon opening above you. The Gorge itself is the set piece, and it is better from the Sky Lounge than from the highway on either bank.

She does have somewhere else to go, which is the thing worth knowing before you assume one river is all she offers. A fortnight-long National Parks and Legendary Rivers itinerary starts the same way and then leaves the boat behind: the Gorge and the Snake by ship, then overland by coach to Glacier National Park, Yellowstone and Grand Teton, finishing at Jackson, Wyoming. It is a land-and-cruise package rather than a cruise, the days ashore outnumber the days afloat by the end, and the price and length reflect that. There is also a short Columbia River Gorge loop out of Portland and back, under a week, calling at Hood River, the sampler version for people who cannot give up nine days.

Her season is the river’s season. She works from spring through to the start of November and lays up for the winter, so if you are shopping in January you are shopping for next year.

Life aboard

Deliberately unhurried. The centerpiece is a glass-enclosed atrium that runs the height of the ship under a domed skylight; around it are five bars and lounges, including a Sky Lounge on top and the Back Porch Café aft. Dining is one open-seating room with regional menus, and the evening is a lecture or a local musician. There is no casino, no waterslide and no second seating.

Who she suits

Travelers who want the Northwest at close range (the Gorge, the Lewis and Clark story, the fruit and wine country either side of the river) with an average passenger age well north of an ocean ship’s and a pace to match. Mobility is easy: no tenders, short gangways, and an elevator to every deck.

Not the ship for families, for anyone wanting a choice of restaurants, or for a traveler who needs something to do after nine in the evening. And if you have already done the Columbia, be honest about what her alternatives are: the short Gorge loop is the same water in less time, and the National Parks itinerary solves the problem by getting off the boat. There is no second river here.