Easy to see
world by ship

UNNING AWAY to sea

used to be simple.

My Uncle James did just

that, leaving his Glasgow
home at age 16 ani signing on fora
freighter bound (ir America.

By DAS 1D WISHAKT
Cort. .cting Weiter

The bumpy North American
crossing plus the U-boats put him
off the whoie business. so he sim-
ply got off in New York and join-
ed the U.S. Army

Getting around today is much
more complicated what with visas,
work permits and unions; but it
has never been easier to see the
world by ship.

There are vessels cacering to
every taste, going down to
Australia and up the Amazon. All
it takes is buckets of cash.

For that reason the sensible
cruiser’s first port of call is an ex-
perienced travel agent. These pro-
fessionals know the ships, the
itineraries, and what discounts are
available.

On a Mexico cruise 2 few years
ago, | met people who were paying
$1,800, $1,200 and $800, all for
the same vacation.

One thing to be aware of is that
all cruises, whether it’s a British
boat with an halian crew sailing
around South America, are priced
in U.S. dollars.

But even before you talk price
you should be sure yo have the
right itinerary. Don’t ke tempted
by a good deal on a slow boat to
China if you really want something
more lively, like a trip through the
Panama Canal.

Travellers in love wiin the sea
and ships will prefer an ocean
crossing to a Caribbean cruise,
where it’s all stop, go and shopp-
ing.

If you like to eat take a barge
cruise in France; if you want to
dance, step out with the big band
on the Rotterdam — and if you
want to party, sign on with Car-
nival.

The fun ships of Carnival have
earned their name with activities
such as lip sync, beer guzzling and
hairy chest contests. On the other
hand you won't find any singles
aboard the luxury Cunard Sea
Goddess or Seabourn ships.

Princess Cruises and Holland
America feature Las Vegas-style
shows, large casinos and discos.
They deliver a high standard of
service and food, although meals
are served at two sittings.

Cabins vary tremendously. Rule
number one is to go with a friend,
otherwise you will pay a substan-
tial single supplement or have to
share with a stranger.

Secondly, expensive cabins are
often located on upper decks
where you are more liable to feel
the effects of the heavy seas. Old
seadogs know that the best cabins
are halfway down and midship.

One thing to watch is the in-
clusive air fare, which may seem
like a bargain until you find that to
get from Vancouver to the Orient
you have to go through Los
Angeles (which recently added nine
hours to my total travelling time).

Another is the passenger com-
ment form, which you will be ask-

ALL ABOARD B38

A SPECIAL CRUISING SUPPLEMENT OF THE NORTH SHORE NEWS

ed to complete in great detail.
What began as an honest attemp:
to evaluate the performance of a
ship’s crew and staff has become a
farce, with waiters on some ships
telling passengers they will lose
their jobs if they don't get top rat-
ings in the comment forms.

And then there’s the Vancouver
doctor doing a stint at sea who was
called into the captain's office to
be told that the ship's hospital had
got a high mark in the passenger
comment form.

But the captain,
obsessed with what

apparently
his overall

scorecard would look like back at
head office, couldn't resist adding
that the laundry had received a
higher score.

“That's fine,’ said the doctor,
“in future [ll send the patients to
the laundry.”

Princess ships
got start here

RINCESS CRUISES, said
the announcement, is 25
years old in 1990, Not such
a long time in the shipping
industry, you might think.

But this is the age, literally, of

modern cruising and Princess
Cruises started right here a quarter
of a century ago with the Princess
Patricia.

She was a humble, 6,000-ton
ferry, but the idea of meandering

into little Mexican ports was right,
and the name carried on to the
Island Princess, her sistership the
Pacific Princess and the popular
Little Sun Princess.

Then came the Love Boat era
starring the Island and Pacific
Princesses, which did more than
anything to fuel the cruise ship
boom.

Along the way London-based
P&O took over the company and
commissioned new ships, such as
the sleek Royal Princess, and
restored the wonderful old Sea
Princess, last of the Clyde-built
liners.

In 1988 Sittnar Cruises was
bought to bring the fleet to cight
vessels, including the new 63,000-
ton Star Princess, and this summer
the 70,000-ton Crown Princess
enters service, to be followed in

two new Italian-built ships will
each carry 1,590 passengers.

This year the line will carry
350,000 passengers, with six of the
fleet on the summer Alaska run.
Quite a success story, you might
say.

But the sea-going traditions of
™~ P&O go back a Iong way, to 1792
and a little house in the Orkneys,
where a Scot named Arthur
Anderson was born. He joined the
Royal Navy as a midshipman at
the age of 16 and then became a
clerk with a shipbroker in London.

The young company prospered
because it backed the right horses
in civil wars in Portugal and Spain,
aid in 1837 the partners, including
Anderson, got a mail contract
worth the then gigantic sum of
29,000 pounds a year.

The Peninsular Steam Naviga-
tion Company, as it was later call-
ed, took mail to Egypt, and when
the government wanted a service to
india, P&O established an
overland route with another vessel
waiting at Suez to complete the
journey to India.

The age of cruising began in
1844 when P&O advertised its ser-
vice from England io Malta, sug-
gesting a tour of the near East and
a return by way of Alexandria, and
the company gave English novelist
Thackeray a free passage to pro-
mote it.

Ships went on to Malaya, China
and Australia, braving clashes with
pirates and typhoons. Heat was
often stifling, and it was the prac-
tice of old hands to book cooler
cabins on the port side of the ship
on the passage to India, and the
starboard side of the ship on the
trip home.

Tickets were stamped POSH,
meaning Port Out, Starboard
Home, giving a new word to the
language.

Shipwrecks were a common
hazard. This letter from a Mrs.
Dulcimer to a friend, written in
1863, survives: “If you are ever
shipwrecked, my dearest Laura, do
contrive to get the catastrophe
conducted by the Peninsular and
Oriental! Company. I believe other
companies drown you sometimes
and drowning is a very prosaic ar-
rangement fit only for seafaring
people and second class passen-
gers. I have just been shipwrecked
under the auspices of P&O and |
assure you that it is the pleasantest
thing imaginable. It has its little
hardships, to be sure, but so has a
picnic, and the wreck was one of
the most agreeable picnics you can
imagine.”’

Anderson never lived to see the
opening of the Suez Canal in 1869,
and the success of it forced the
company to reorganize. It had the
right man at the helm in Thomas
Sutherland, who organized the
takeover of British India Steam
Navigation and the Blue Anchor
Line.

The wars brought heavy losses,
including the armed merchant
cruiser Rawalpindi, which has her
place in history after losing a
gallant fight with the German bat-
tlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gnei-
seanau in 1940,

What liners did survive the U-
boats almost all perished because
of long-range jets over the Atlan-
tic, but the stream of ships to the
breakers’ yards was arrested by the
revival of the cruising industry.

That was about 25 years ago.
Princess Patricia had her moment.

= 1991 by the Regal Princess. The

ete