The Regent Star got off the sandbar with the help of high tides, several tugboats and power from the ship's own engines.
"It's supposed to be over there, on the far side of the sandbar," said Billie Ann Owen, who came down to look at the river with her husband and 2-year-old son.
Sheriff's deputies said the group had been riding three-wheel all-terrain vehicles on the sandbar.
A small electrical fire in a switchboard apparently caused a power failure early Sunday morning and the ship drifted into the sandbar, said Petty Officer John Brazell.
Like other kids, he'll probably play and fish on the sandbar here _ that is, if the river doesn't swallow it.
The bodies of three children and an adult who drowned trying to save them were found a day after they were swept into the Mississippi River from a drought-weakened sandbar that apparently collapsed, authorities said.