CRUISING THE PAST Travel and Social History

Cruise History – The Old Fall River Line – Everyone from presidents to swindlers sailed the Sound on “Mammoth Palace Steamers” in the heyday of the side-wheelers and night boats. The Fall River Line was a combination steamboat and railroad connection between New York City and Boston that operated between ... Read More »

Cruising the Past: Newsreel footage of Holland-America Line’s TSS Rotterdam 1915 (seen above) and SS Nieuw Amsterdam 1938. These are great scenes of Holland-America Liner’s TSS ROTTERDAM and the SS NIEUW AMSTERDAM The ROTTERDAM IV – 1908 – 1940.  –  Built by Harland and Wolff, Belfast, the ROTTERDAM IV featured ... Read More »

Cruise History: Passenger lists were the Bibles for shipboard travel. Here is an excellent article from Cruise Travel Magazine by ship-expert Theodore W. Scull that discusses the subject in depth. Cunard Line Passenger List Monaco’s Prince Rainier and his princess, the former Hollywood star Grace Kelly, would be found on ... Read More »

Why has the RMS Empress of Ireland tragedy been forgotten? The sinking of the RMS Empress Of Ireland hit Canada hard and was the worst maritime disaster in Canadian history. Occurring just two years after the RMS Titanic disaster, and a year before the loss of the RMS Lusitania, it ... Read More »

The Delta Line  was cruising to South America from New Orleans in the 1950s. The steamship company introduced three revolutionary passenger-cargo ships to its South American services in the post-war years of the 1940s. In keeping with the trade name of the company, “Delta Line”, the three vessels were given ... Read More »

May 2016 Cruise To Cuba and Review of Carnival Cruise Line’s new 704-passenger Adonia Some history…  Before the 1959 Cuban revolution, cruise ships regularly traveled from the U.S. to Cuba, with elegant Caribbean excursions departing from New York and $42 overnight weekend jaunts leaving twice a week from Miami, said ... Read More »

There are three Atlantic crossings in the 1936 excellent film Dodsworth directed by William Wyler and starring Walter Huston & Ruth Chatterton. They were seen on board the RMS Queen Mary, the RMS RMS Aquitania, and the SS Rex. The film demonstrates how liners were used like today’s Jets to ... Read More »

Saturday, May 7th marks the 101st anniversary of the sinking of the R.M.S. Lusitania, the Liverpool-built passenger ship whose destruction sparked the United States’ decision to enter World War I in 1917. “Enlist” (mother and child drowning), by Fred Spear, June 1915. WWI recruitment poster published by the Boston Committee ... Read More »

AMERICAN BANNER LINES – From a failed pioneering tourist liner to a celebrated university at sea. July 1958 – First Class Trans-Atlantic Crossing $312.  Tourist Class $214.  Seven days at sea, eight nights, transportation and all meals. $40 a day first class and $25 a day tourist class. Times have ... Read More »