Cruise Ships 101

Only a few more days until the embarkation of our (this is the collective ‘our’, as all of you will be aboard, at least in spirit) 51-day South American Voyage. Many of you were on the World Cruise with us and this one looks just as exciting, albeit a tad shorter that that 111-day world-circling behemoth.

            But…… there are quite a few new readers that are relatively new to this Travel Blog (forty-seven to be exact) who have joined us since that time. This means that we all get to endure another lesson in cruise ships, their history, and relative sizes, and other mundane facts that probably only I find exciting. But, my fingers need to keep sharpening their typing skills, so on with the stories of the Cruising Ships of Yesteryear!

            Let’s go back to Freshman year in high school and that favorite class of everyone’s…… World History! It all started way back in 1357 BC and the Phoenicians.  Once upon a time there were two brothers, Belshazzar and Ahiram, and they operated a shipping company, B&A Trading. They had a nice, flourishing maritime trade going between the ports of Tyre and Byblos. A few years later, Belshazzar married Anath. Along with getting a new wife, Belshazzar also got a new Mother-in-Law, Melita. Melita sat at the dinner table week after week and listened to the exciting stories of coasts far away and decided that she wanted to see all of this for herself. She pestered Belshazzar until he finally gave in (much to the dismay of his brother, and to the delight of his wife) and let Melita tag along for a voyage. Phoenician ships resembled the Viking Longships that we all know. Belshazzar was tempted to put his MIL down with the rowers, sail handlers, and cargo but he did not want to get his crew upset. Nor could he stash her in the bow (where he was tempted to put her) because she would get drenched in heavy seas. So, Belshazzar kept her in the stern along with his brother Ahiram (Arrrg!), but he hastily built a small enclosure for her with a view to the outside. This was the first OceanView Stateroom (balconies came much, much later!).

            And the rest we say, “is History.”

            Fast-forward two thousand years or so and we find early explorers leaving the safety of the coastlines and trying out a new-fangled device called a compass. Couple that with the art of celestial navigation and we now find our “old salts” plying the oceans all around the world.

            The Melita’s of the time were ecstatic!

            Mankind has moved cargo by sea for a long, long, time and with it, the occasional “Melita,” a passenger that’s tagging along to see the sights. It took another few hundred years for everyone to realize that one could have a ship just for that purpose, no transportation, just for fun…. just for a “Cruise.” And that’s where we are today.

                        The End.

                        Well…not really, that was the Beginning,

The beginning of the purpose-built “Cruise Ship” era.

            So, “Cruising” would not enter the mainstream until the1950’s. Up until then, most ships were used for transportation. Ships like the Britannic, Lusitania, Queen Mary, or Andrea Doria were not traveled on for “fun,” although due to their exemplary service in the Upper Classes, it was “fun” to travel on them.  During the winter, some Liners were pulled from their regular routes in the Atlantic and would serve temporary duty as a cruise ship with exotic Ports. All of this worked well because intercontinental air traffic would not become really available until the late ‘50s with the debut of the Boeing 707 in 1958. That is when the travel trend started to shift from sea to air. The last regularly scheduled trans-Atlantic crossing was sometime in the early 1960’s, hence the selling of the RMS Queen Mary to the City of Long Beach in 1966.

                        The Age of the Ocean Liner was dead, but the Rise of the Cruise Ship was starting to blossom.

                        A lot of you folks are baby Boomers, like me. Remember the ads from Life Magazine, Look, National Geographic, Readers Digest, and I could go on and on…. these ads extolled the virtues of “Cruising” for fun. Lots of palm trees, beaches, umbrella drinks…. these images were strewn about the pages with reckless abandon until our parents couldn’t take it anymore and booked a Cruise.

That was a really big deal!

Cruising was still in its infancy using converted older ships re-purposed for weekly itineraries in romantic climes. But new Cruise Lines such as Royal Caribbean, Princess, Celebrity, Carnival, and Norwegian were all born in the years between 1966 and 1971 and unknowingly waited for their guardian angel.

The angel arrived in September of 1976.

That was when ABC Network debuted a new TV series…. The Love Boat.

This TV show singlehandedly turned the Cruise Industry on it’s ear and it hasn’t looked back…..

……ever!

The Cruise Lines multiplied, and the ships began growing almost exponentially to the point where anyone can afford to go on vacation on a Cruise Ship!

The original Love Boat, the Pacific Princess, was a real cruise ship plying the waters from Los Angeles down to the Mexican Riviera, which included Puerto Vallarta, Acapulco , and Mazatlán. This is where we can really visualize the genesis of the evolution of cruise ships because the Pacific Princess even in 1976 represented the norm for these ships at her time.

The Pacific Princess was 545’ long and a registered Gross Tonnage of a little over 20,000 tons. Cruise ships are sized by Gross Register Tons which is a measurement of volume not cargo These were the days when Captain Stubing, Julie, the Doctor, Gopher, and Issac the Bartender could really know everyone on board (and seemingly run the ship all by themselves!) because there were only a little over 600 passengers on board. My first cruise was in 1984 (?) on the Volendam of the Holland America Lines, New York to Bermuda.

She was small enough to pull into the harbor at St. Georges and into Hamilton. I remember seeing some of the “newer” and “larger” ships there that needed to anchor offshore because they were too large for the existing docks at the time. The Volendam came in at about 750’ long, 23,000 GRT and could berth 739 passengers. We loved the fact that we could dock right at the local docks and not need to “tender” in from an anchored ship! Besides, the newer, larger ships resembled floating barges with a hotel plopped onto them.

            Ok, by now I’ve probably lost half of you due to too many specifications, i.e. length, tonnage, etc. so we will jump to the present day and see where all this was going. As you may imagine, things did not get smaller, in fact, that exponential size increase is still evolving with some genuinely massive ships still being built.

            For illustrative purposes we’ll look at the RMS Queen Mary 2. I sailed on her in 2007 when she was just three years old. At that time she was the largest cruise ship and the only Ocean Liner (more on that maybe later) in the world at 151,000 GRT. And she is a pretty ship, one that harkens back to the days of sleek liners.

            Nowadays, she is just average in size. On this upcoming voyage we will be on the Majestic Princess, which comes in at around the same size, at 145,000 GRT. The Majestic Princess is just one of this size ship that Princess operates in the Royal Class of seven different ships. The Princess Cruise Line has sixteen different ships in their fleet.

            Now let’s jump Cruise Lines and visit the really big ones…. Royal Caribbean holds the top spots on this list. MSC, and P&O have some scattered down in eighth to tenth place, but Royal Caribbean with its “…….. of the Seas” branded ships is by far the largest fleet of sizable ships. So, lets just concentrate there and head right to the top of the list where we see the Icon of the Seas. Now, don’t abandon me just yet as I need to put some numbers to her for illustrative purposes….. the Icon of the Seas comes in at a whopping 249,000 GRT and almost 1200’ long. She will hold 5610 passengers and an additional 2350 crew members!

There are twenty decks and numerous amenities strategically placed thereon. Water slides, mini golf, go-kart tracks, swinging chair rides, and the list goes on from there to the point where you think that you are sailing on a theme park that is put to sea. In fact, that is exactly what is going on. The days of Cruising, just for cruising’s sake, dressing for dinner, and the like are a thing of the Past. There are still some smaller ships that cater to the passengers that are not interested in a carnival-like atmosphere, but the numbers speak for themselves. Royal Caribbean would not spend upwards of $2,000,000,000 (Billion!) dollars (per ship!) if the consumer public did not want to use it.

                        I’m assuming that most of you have been on a cruise. Most people enjoy themselves immensely and most cruise lines do a good job at what they do best…. taking on passengers, treating them nicely, and bringing them back home again about a week later.  My only comments here could be taken as advice, but I don’t like that word, I prefer suggestions….

                        If you have never cruised before and can find your way to NYC, take a seven-day cruise to Bermuda. It is the perfect cruise for first-timers, a day and a half on the water, several days on a top-notch island, and then a day or so back to NYC.

                        If you are a fan of cruising and do not want that GIANT ship, carnival-like atmosphere, then Princess or Holland America may be for you. If you’ve got kids (know that all ships have kids/teenagers programs) maybe these larger, fun-filled, jam-packed with activities would be something to consider (because we all know that an unhappy kid can take down a whole vacation with just one pouty face!) Norwegian Cruise Line is a good compromise in this department and Carnival is pretty much what it sounds like, it has a reputation of a “Party” boat, with all of the good that signifies. No one allows really rude or rambunctious behavior on their ships, its just not good business, nor is it safe.

So now you know that you will be on just a “regular” sized ship (Ho-Hum) for this voyage, nothing noteworthy except that you will be aboard! Speaking of weight and Gross Registered Tons, please note that our goal for this cruise is to maintain our GOB weight (Getting On Board). We will be very happy if we do not add to that number, like we did on the World Cruise where we gained an average of four (4) pounds!

Yes, Paula gained zero and I gained eight (8)!