What Will Be Different About America Test Kitchen Sailings?

American Queen Voyages’ Regina Charoneau at her home in Natchez (Photo: Gwen Pratesi)

While AQV does have other culinary and cocktail cruises and special sailings hosted by Charboneau throughout the year, known as Regina & Friends, future sailings with ATK will include guest appearances and cooking demonstrations by the television show’s personalities and hosts.

“We want to be a tool and resource for AQV and bring a culinary spotlight to the line,” Lancaster told me. “I’d love to work with Regina even more and do videos for AQV. We talked about this. Maybe create videos where we share great little places to go for great food off the ship, like tamales, and bring more regional food on board.” She adds, “I’d also like to do more hands-on workshops with fundamentals, like teaching people how to chop. It’s fun to meet the people who watch the show.”

“I’m so excited to work with Regina. She’s a great host and I’m glad we could work together on the recipes, like our one collaboration – the longest stew ever made and what Regina is known for.” Lancaster is referring to one of the new ATK dishes featured on the ships, Beef Burgundy Pot Pie with a Bacon-Thyme Biscuit Crust.

If you’re a culinary enthusiast or food and beverage geek (I’m guilty on all counts) and want to sail in North America, with a focus on the U.S. rivers and regional cuisine, then this cruise is for you.

You’ll find plenty of ATK groupies on board, many since the inception of Cook’s Illustrated.. You might also see spryer guests, such as the young couple who were on their honeymoon.

This voyage was clearly a test run as the first one in the branding partnership. While Charboneau hosted several culinary events and demos, Lancaster’s late arrival on board was a disappointment to some guests who expected a full week of ATK culinary demonstrations and events. Extremely low water levels on the Mississippi River also put a damper on the week since the boat could not stop in Vicksburg, which was the highlight of the trip for some guests. We also had to disembark two hours south of Memphis as the final destination and take a bus since the boat could not dock in Memphis.

While this voyage had a few hiccups with the scheduling for Lancaster and the change in the itinerary, look for much more to come. Charboneau and Lancaster have a great personal friendship and professional partnership and their energy together was fun to watch on stage – and over cocktails and dinner – and they both have big plans for next year, including bringing more ATK personalities on the ships. You can also expect to see more cooking sessions, mixology demonstrations (the sample of Charboneau’s version of a Sazarac and bourbon milk punch were very tasty), other special events, and lots of laughs.

There are at least two ATK cruises in the planning stages for next year, although the rivers and ships have not yet been decided but look for the voyages and details soon.

Lancaster added, “The partnership is a natural match with AQV and Cook’s Country, especially with the many holiday themed recipes. What I like is that it’s very hyper-American. We forget about the regionality within the U.S., especially around the rivers. If Julia comes with me on an Alaska cruise,” Lancaster says of her longtime friend and co-host, Julia Collin Davison, “our cooking demos will be so different than what we did on this voyage.”

Charboneau explained, “We’re learning as we go. Next year we’ll bring Bridget on for a full sailing when she’s not filming and has a break in her schedule. If we’re going to do a culinary cruise, then we’re going to do a culinary cruise.” She added, “We’re expanding next year and will bring more ATK personalities on board. There are many big fans of the show, as we saw with the sweepstakes.” AQV partnered with ATK before the cruise to give away the nine-day sailing on board American Queen, promoting the new collaboration – and the winners were on the sailing.