BB Riverboats has operated continuous passenger service on the Ohio River since 1979, making it the longest-running sternwheeler fleet between Pittsburgh and Louisville. The company's two vessels — the Belle of Cincinnati and the River Queen — are modern steel-hulled paddlewheelers built in the tradition of 19th-century packet boats, each accommodating up to 800 passengers across three decks. Both ships feature working steam calliopes, a rarity among active riverboats in the United States, and their red paddlewheels turn at a deliberate twelve revolutions per minute, propelling the boats at a steady six knots upstream and nine downstream. The lunch cruises depart from the Newport levee at noon most days, tracing a twelve-mile loop that passes beneath five bridges and along the Cincinnati waterfront. Passengers board from Riverboat Row, a concrete pier built in 1996 to replace the original wooden landing used by ferries in the early 20th century. The route follows the same channel that carried flatboats loaded with Kentucky tobacco and Ohio grain to New Orleans in the 1830s, though modern navigation lights and a dredged depth of nine feet have replaced the sandbars and snags that once made the passage treacherous. The buffet is served on the second deck, where panoramic windows frame the skyline of Cincinnati's central business district — the Carew Tower, Great American Tower, and the zinc-clad spire of the John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge, completed in 1866 as a prototype for his later Brooklyn Bridge. Live musicians perform throughout the meal, typically a rotating cast of pianists, guitarists, and Dixieland combos who work the regional festival circuit. The calliope is sounded twice per cruise: once during boarding and once as the boat swings back toward Newport, its steam-powered whistles audible for nearly a mile. Ohio River sightseeing cruises have been a fixture of Cincinnati tourism since the steamboat era, but the modern lunch format — with climate-controlled dining rooms and a fixed two-hour schedule — dates to the 1980s, when BB Riverboats standardized its operations for group bookings and convention traffic. The company runs over three hundred cruises annually, including themed departures for holidays, murder mysteries, and seasonal foliage tours in October.