Growth of Cruising

Outpaced by jet aircraft, passenger liners seemed destined for the scrapyard. Then they began transforming themselves into floating resorts

In 1835, a curious advertisement appeared in the first issue of the Shetland Journal. Headed “To Tourists,” it proposed an imaginary cruise from Stromness in Scotland, round Iceland and the Faroe Islands, and hinted at the pleasures of cruising under the Spanish sun in winter. Thus, it is said, the journal’s founder, Arthur Anderson, invented the concept of cruising. Just two years later, Anderson, along with his partner Brodie Wilcox, founded the great Peninsular Steam Navigation Company (later to become P&O).

Soon after, Samuel Cunard started his transatlantic sailings, from Liverpool to Halifax, across the most dangerous ocean in the world, the North Atlantic, with a steam-powered sailing vessel, Britannia, on July 4, 1840. Every year since then, except for the winter of 1970–1, a Cunard Line ship has operated scheduled transatlantic liner service between the old and new worlds.

Sailing for leisure soon caught on. Even writers such as William Makepeace Thackeray and Charles Dickens boarded ships for the excitement of the voyage, not just to reach a destination. The Victorians, having discovered tourism, promoted the idea widely. Indeed, Thackeray’s account of his legendary voyage in 1844, from Cornhill to Grand Cairo by means of the P&O ships of the day, makes fascinating reading, as does the account by Dickens of his transatlantic crossing aboard a Cunard ship in 1842. The subject of Mark Twain’s The Innocents Abroad, published in 1869, was Vanderbilt’s Quaker City, which journeyed from New York to the Holy Land in 1867.

In the 1920s, cruising became the thing to do for the world’s well-to-do. Being pampered in such grand style was fashionable – and is still the underlying concept of cruising. The ship took you and your belongings anywhere, and fed you, accommodated you, relaxed you, and entertained you. At the same time, it even catered for your servants – who, of course, accompanied you.

 

The First Booze Cruises
Cruising for Americans was helped greatly by Prohibition in the 1930s. After all, just a few miles out at sea, you were free to consume as much liquor as you wished. And cheap three- and four-day weekend “booze cruises” out of New York were preferable to “bathtub gin.” Then came short “getaway” cruises, with destinations as well as alcohol. In time, the short cruise was to become one of the principal sources of profit for the steamship companies of the day.

In the 1930s a battle raged between the giant cruising companies of the world, as Britain, France, Germany, and the United States built liners of unprecedented luxury, elegance, glamour, and comfort. Each country was competing to produce the biggest and best afloat. For a time, quality was somehow related to smokestacks: the more a ship had the better. Although speed had always been a factor, particularly on the transatlantic run, it now became a matter of national pride and ambition.

The first ship designed specifically for cruising from the US after World War II was Ocean Monarch (Furness Withy & Company Ltd), which was awarded a gold medal by the US Academy of Designing for “outstanding beauty and unusual design features of a cruise ship.” Its maiden voyage was from New York to Bermuda in 1951. I worked aboard the ship for a short time.


The Birth Of Modern Cruising
In June 1958, the first commercial jet aircraft flew across the Atlantic and altered the economics of transatlantic travel forever. It was the last year in which more passengers crossed the North Atlantic by sea than by air.

In the early 1960s, passenger-shipping directories listed over 100 passenger lines. Until the mid-1960s, it was cheaper to cross the Atlantic by ship than by plane, but the appearance of the jet aircraft changed that rapidly, particularly with the introduction of the Boeing 747 in the early 1970s. In 1962, more than 1 million people crossed the North Atlantic by ship; in 1970, that number was down to 250,000.

The success of the jumbo jets created a fleet of unprofitable and out-of-work passenger liners that appeared doomed for the scrap heap. Even the famous big “Queens,” noted for their regular weekly transatlantic service, were at risk. Cunard White Star Line’s Queen Mary (80,774 tons) was withdrawn in September 1967.

Cunard Line’s sister ship Queen Elizabeth, at 83,673 tons the largest-ever passenger liner (until 1996), made its final crossing in November 1968.

Ships were sold for a fraction of their value. Many lines went out of business and ships were scrapped. Those that survived attempted to mix transatlantic crossings with voyages south to the sun. The Caribbean (including the Bahamas) became appealing, cruising became an alternative, and an entire new industry was born, with new lines being formed exclusively for cruising.

Then smaller, more specialized ships arrived, capable of getting into the tiny ports of developing Caribbean islands; there were no commercial airlines taking vacationers to the Caribbean then, and few hotels. Instead of cruising long distances south from more northerly ports such as New York, companies established their headquarters in Florida. This avoided the cold weather, choppy seas, and expense of the northern ports and saved fuel costs with shorter runs to the Caribbean.

Cruising was reborn. California be­came the base for cruises to the Mexican Riviera, and Vancouver on Canada’s west coast became the focus for summer cruises to Alaska.

Flying passengers to embarkation ports was the next logical step, and soon a working relationship emerged between the cruise lines and the airlines. Air/sea and “sail and stay” packages thrived – joint cruise and hotel vacations with inclusive pricing. Some of the old liners came out of mothballs, purchased by emerging cruise lines and refurbished for warm-weather cruising operations, often with their interiors redesigned and refitted. During the late 1970s, the modern cruise industry grew at a rapid rate.


Cruising Today
Today’s cruise concept hasn’t changed much from that of earlier days, although it has been improved, refined, expanded, and packaged for ease of consumption. No longer the domain of affluent, retired people, cruising today is vibrant and alive with passengers of every age and socio-economic background. It’s no longer the shipping business, but the hospitality industry (although it has to be said that some cruise ship personnel appear to be in the hostility industry).

New ships are generally larger than their predecessors, yet cabin size is “standardized” to provide more space for entertainment and other public facilities. Today’s ships boast air conditioning to keep out heat and humidity; stabilizers to keep the ship on an even keel; a high level of maintenance, safety, and hygiene; and more emphasis on health and fitness facilities.

Cruise ship design has moved from the traditional, classic, rounded profiles of the past (example: Queen Elizabeth 2) to boxy shapes with squared-off sterns and towering superstructures today (examples: Celebrity Constellation, Celebrity Infinity, Celebrity Millennium, Celebrity Summit).

While ship lovers lament these design changes, they have resulted from the need to squeeze as much as possible in the space provided (you can squeeze more in a square box than you can in a round one, though it may be less aesthetically appealing). But form followed function as ships changed from ocean transportation to floating vacation resorts.

Although ships have long been devoted to eating and relaxation in comfort, ships today offer more activities, and more learning and life-enriching experiences than before. And there are many more places you can visit on a cruise: from Antarctica to Acapulco, Bermuda to Bergen, Dakar to Dominica, Shanghai to St. Thomas, or if you prefer, perhaps nowhere at all.

The cruise industry is a $60 billion business worldwide and still growing. It employs a growing number, both directly (there are over 100,000 shipboard officers, staff and crew, as well as about 20,000 employees in cruise company offices), and indirectly (suppliers of foodstuffs and mechanical and electrical parts, port agents, transport companies, destinations, airlines, railways, hotels, car rental companies). In 2006, more than 16 million people worldwide took a cruise, packaged and sold by cruise lines through tour operators and travel agents, or by direct bookings.


Cruising Tomorrow
Current thinking in ship design follows two quite distinct paths: large resort ships or smaller ships.

Large “resort” ships, where “economy of scale” helps the operator to keep the cost per passengers down. Six companies (Carnival Cruise Lines, Celebrity Cruises, Costa Cruises, Cunard Line, MSC Cruises, Princess Cruises, and Royal Caribbean International) have ships measuring over 100,000 tons, accommodating more than 5,000 passengers, with the “bigger is ­better” principle being pursued for all it’s worth. Many of these ships are, however, too wide to transit the Panama Canal and so are designated non-Panamax.

Small ships, where the “small is beautiful” concept has taken hold, particularly in the exclusive and luxury categories. Cruise lines offer high-quality ships of low capacity, which can provide a highly personalized range of quality services. This means better trained, more experienced staff (and more of them to serve fewer passengers), higher-quality food and more meals cooked to order. Small ships can also visit the less overcrowded ports.


Chop And Stretch
Other cruise lines have expanded by “stretching” their ships. This is accomplished literally by cutting a ship in half, and inserting a newly constructed midsection, thus instantly adding more accommodation and public rooms, while maintaining the same draft.

Whatever direction the design of cruise vessels takes in the future, ships are becoming increasingly environmentally friendly. With growing concern, particularly in eco-sensitive areas such as Alaska and the South Pacific, better safeguards against environmental pollution and damage are being built into the vessels. The cruise industry is fast approaching “zero discharge,” which means that nothing is discharged into the world’s oceans at any time.

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		Berlitz 2010 Complete Guide to Cruising & Cruise Ships

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Berlitz Ocean Cruising & Cruise Ships 2009 by Douglas Ward © Apa Publications 2008-2009 www.berlitzpublishing.com

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