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Intercontinental ship travel has not entirely died out. Well, for pure transportation it largely has, but for tourism or entertainment you can frequently find i
by jcrites 9y ago
Intercontinental ship travel has not entirely died out. Well, for pure transportation it largely has, but for tourism or entertainment you can frequently find intercontinental legs on cruise ship voyages. These are not routinely offered and usually occur when the ship itself needs to sail between continents.
Because these voyages have multiple consecutive days at sea with no land activities, they are usually considered less desirable than cruises that dock every day in port. As much as there is to do (relatively) on big ships, most passengers get bored. Those of us who enjoy solace and contemplation can enjoy the time however.
On modern cruise ships, all of these journeys are fast and uneventful, what with weather radar and forecast, fast travel speeds, and stabilizers that nearly eliminate rolling motion in calm waters. Plus satellite Internet and often cellular phone connections. So they rarely ever have the drama that we imagine from a century ago.
- ghaff 9y agoCunard's Queen Mary 2 still does regularly scheduled transatlantic ocean liner runs between NYC and Southampton for part of the year (in addition to cruises). I don't know of any other ocean liners that routinely do this sort of thing. I've thought of giving it a try at some point but the dates have never lined up for a London trip.
- reaperducer 9y ago> These are not routinely offered and usually occur when the ship itself needs to sail between continents. I actually looked into this a few weeks ago, and it turns out there are HUNDREDS of trans-Atlantic and trans-Pacific sailings each year. Most of the major cruise lines offer them. I was surprised.
- ghaff 9y agoThough most of the transatlantic crossings are cruises with multiple stops. e.g. Norwegian Cruise Lines goes from Florida to France by way of the Azores. AFAIK (although I'm by no means an expert), the Queen Mary 2 is the only ship that's specifically an ocean liner. The various cruise lines also apparently reposition boats between seasons though and there are non-stop crossings to accommodate that need.
- cr0sh 9y agoYou can also book rooms on some container ships (yes, container ship cruises are a thing!). The downsides of such a cruise are readily apparent: Lack of amenities during the cruise, few to no people to talk to/with (unless you know the common language of the crew - which could be almost anything - but even then, they have work to do!), etc. You are also limited on where you can travel from and to, and of course when you arrive at your destination, you probably have to get creative to gain transport from there to wherever. There's also the fact that you won't usually have a set and known time for when to board the ship for leaving (it might be in port and scheduled to leave at a certain time, but might be held up for one reason or another outside of the port, or delayed leaving for some reason or another), or when it will arrive at its destination (like any ship, I suppose - but container ships are working vessels, and they may be held out of port for certain admin purposes, or some other law-related reason, or they may have to dock elsewhere for repairs - or who knows what else). That all said, from what I have investigated, if you want a little (or a potentially a lot) of adventure, and don't mind the whole uncertainness of the experience, container ship cruising can be a very inexpensive (compared to a regular cruise ship). I don't think it compares to flying (but I never delved that deep into the pricing), but it certainly could be worth it from an "about my vacation" story perspective.
- Aeolun 9y agoThe last time I had a look at this the cost was $130 per day. This seemed a tad on the expensive side for a trip that could take a few weeks.