The American Song, a new river cruise ship, will debut on the Mississippi River this fall before relocating to the Columbia River early next year.

A new cruise ship is coming to the Columbia River in March.

American Cruise Lines will debut the American Song, a modernized version of the company’s inland paddle wheelers, in October on the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Memphis. The ship will run along the Mississippi through New Year’s Day before heading to the West Coast.

Cruises on the Columbia start in March.

The five-deck American Song accommodates 190 passengers. A retractable, rotating gangway comes out of the ship’s bow. Instead of paddles, the ship is powered by twin rotating thrusters.

Alexa Paolella, a spokeswoman for American Cruise Lines, said the older paddle wheelers — the American Pride and Queen of the West — will continue operating on the Columbia and Snake rivers, along with the American Song. The cruise line mostly runs one-week trips between Astoria and Lewiston, Idaho, with a focus on the history of explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. The Columbia is also home to the paddle wheeler American Empress from the American Queen Steamboat Co.

“The Mississippi is hugely historic, but the Columbia and Snake (market) is growing,” Paolella said.

The company will also add a ship in Puget Sound, bringing its West Coast fleet to five. The ships will include the classic paddle wheelers, the new river cruise ships and small coastal cruise ships.

Astoria has been a growing destination for cruise ships, both on the Columbia and with larger cruise lines transitioning ships to and from summer Alaska cruises.

Bruce Conner, cruise ship marketer for the Port of Astoria, said there are 43,000 passengers expected this year on the large, oceangoing ships, up from 38,000 last year. Those figures do not include American Cruise Lines, which Paolella said keeps its passenger count below 200 per ship.