Hubby and I long to go back to Europe, but I have a terrible fear of flying. The other day, I started wondering if you can still take a ship to Europe as in the golden days of the Queen Mary before air travel pretty much killed it off.
A perusal of the travel sites didn’t mention anything like it. Are there still any ships which regularly make the crossing?
Cunard’s Queen Elizabeth 2 still makes transatlantic voyages.
A google of “transatlantic cruise” brings up loads of travel agency sites. Give it a go.
Well, I wasn’t wanting a cruise, per se. Basically, just a boat which goes from the US to, say, England-- a relatively quick transport, not a leisure trip.
I looked into this a little a couple of years back…we thought our infant son had a medical condition which made flying unwise (turns out he doesn’t have it) and we were considering going to England to visit family.
From what I was able to gather and remember, the QEII is pretty much the only ship that makes regular transatlantic crossings. Why? Air is quicker, and most people who simply want to cross the ocean prefer to travel by air. People that enjoy cruises as such usually want to stop every day or two to see some nice island. There are no stops on the transatlantic run, you are just out in the ocean for days and days. It is a trip that seemed to have a certain attraction to it though. Damn expensive, too, but you have to remember it includes your accomodations for several days.
I think some cruise lines occaisionally bring their ships across the ocean, but this is usually only once or twice a year.
Take a look (warning - sound):
I doubt you’ll be interested, but you can travel on cargo ships. Some will take passengers. It’s certainly not as pleasant as the transatlantic ships were, but you can go from many places to many other places this way (though I understand that unfortunately, even this way of travelling became quite costly since more and more people were interested).
(By the way, I’m surprised to learn that the Cunard still make transatlantic trips…I believed that there wasn’t anymore such scheduled crossings, because they couldn’t find enough customers to make some money this way…cruises are usually just…well…cruises…You stay most of the time on the ship, you visit various places on your way, and then you come back to your starting point. They don’t propose “one-way tickets”, and aren’t going directly from one point to another as quickly as possible)
Oooh, yes. I remember looking into this option as well. Definitely fell under the heading of “something I want to try someday when I get the time and money”. Not only are more people interested in doing it though, but I seem to remember reading that it was mostly older cargo ships that had room for passengers, and that newer ones generally didn’t. So this option is disappearing too.
Re: Cunard still doing transatlantic crossings: Yes, like I said I think they are the last ones with a regular schedule. I am sort of surprised they do find enough customers to keep it going, even at the prices they charge.
I think the site Demo linked to is a list of the cruise lines that move their ships across the ocean once or twice a year. Not a regular service, more “we have to move the ship across the ocean so we may as well have paying passengers on board” kind of deal.