Heres a travel tidbit you may have missed:

Small ship voyages now account for 80 percent of Grand Circle Travel's business, surpassing the motorcoach as the most popular way to tour Europe - and some other continents, according to the largest marketer of international vacations for Americans over age 50.

Grand Circle Travel lists seven river cruises among its "top 10" vacations last year, with "The Great Rivers of Europe," a 16-day trip along the Rhine, Main and Danube, topping the popularity poll.

Boston-based Grand Circle built its first river ship nine years ago and today has 50 ships plying European and other waterways. Six more 50-passenger ships are due this year.

Now, another American company would like to duplicate Grand Circle Travels riverboat popularity in this country.

Beginning last year, Newport Beach, Calif.-based Ambassadors International Inc., initiated a series of moves that has created a new company with six U.S.-flagged cruise ships that will ply coastal and inland waterways in this country, including the Mississippi, Ohio, Tennessee, Cumberland and Arkansas rivers in the Midwest; the Columbia, Snake and Willamette rivers in the Northwest, and the Inside Passage in Alaska.

The new company is called Majestic America Line and it was formed by combining American West Steamboat Company and Delta Queen Steamboat Company.

Ambassadors purchased Delta Queen Steamboat Co. in April but it wasnt until late last year that it was decided to combine the companies and began operating them under the Majestic America Line brand.

In March, Majestic America is debuting the worlds largest and "most elegant" river cruise ship, the American Queen. With accommodations for 436 passengers, the American Queen will be the flagship vessel of Majestic America Line and sail between New Orleans and Memphis, St. Louis and Minneapolis, and on the Ohio River to Cincinnati and Pittsburgh.

For those interested in the old Mississippi riverboats, the Delta Queen and the Mississippi Queen, they too will be sailing this spring.

According to one travel writer, senior vacationers like the multi-day European cruises because they dont have to unpack and repack for the length of the voyage; harbors are close to the heart of many cities - sometimes they are the heart of a city, and since the ships sail at night they drop off passengers at a different harbor each morning.

If health is a concern, as it tends to be for seniors, there is an advantage to a river cruise because passengers are never far from shore. In a medical emergency, a passenger can easily be moved to a port with modern hospital facilities.

Even more advantageous is a cruise on American waterways. Medicare doesn't cover emergencies in foreign ports and European medical evacuation costs can be astronomical.

Based in Seattle, Majestic America Line operates as a division of Ambassadors Cruise Group, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Ambassadors International.

For information, go to www.majesticamericaline.com, or call (800) 434-1232.