|
 ingle-ship
cruise is defined as a pleasure cruise utilising only one vessel from
embarkation to completion. Thus the Amazon elevated RMSP to the
cruising style still in force as the world enters the 21st century.
The Amazon then made several Norway cruises in one block in 1909,
but after that the favoured ship was the Avon. It was decided
that the Avon would
operate New York - West Indies cruises from January to April 1910. Three
were scheduled, two at 31 days each and one of 18 days, visiting Bermuda,
Puerto Rico, Jamaica, the Panama isthmus, Venezuela, Trinidad, Barbados,
Martinique, Cuba and Nassau.
|
|
|
|
She
then had only time afterwards to make one South America voyage before
taking a block of four Norway cruises with Grimsby as the terminal port.
From that
point on, many ships periodically made cruises; no year then passed
without holiday voyages of this kind, with the exception of wartime
and its aftermath. The Company soon opted to employ a cruise liner full-time,
the Ortona. She was only about 8,000 tons, but after extensive
alterations her tonnage increased to about 9,000; she emerged also with
a new name - Arcadian - and departed for her first cruise from
Southampton in January 1912.
|
|
| |
It
would take her to the Caribbean and New York, but unfortunately included
an unscheduled call on a coral reef near Cartagena. She was hauled off
unharmed and thereafter stuck more strictly to her official itineraries.
Hers was nevertheless a fairly brief cruising career, for she was taken
up for war service and was torpedoed in 1917.
The Arcadian's
cruising life may have lasted little more than two years, but it was
a crucial crossroads for the Company. Her later namesake, then the Atlantis,
the second Asturias and Alcantara and, finally, the Andes,
all took their conceptual lineage from the first Arcadian.
|
|
|
|
All of that
is borne out in the promotional literature, which possesses the themes
and rhetoric which would be repeated year in and year out until 1971.
The 1914 schedule, for instance, emphasised how particular destinations
were selected at the ideal time of year - June to August in Norwegian
fjords and Arctic waters; September in the Mediterranean and October
to the Atlantic islands.
Scandinavian
cruises took on passengers at Grimsby and Leith, an arrangement apparently
designed to minimise the time spent crossing the potentially rough North
Sea. The last two cruises of the season used Southampton as the terminal
port. Cruise six visited Spain, Morocco, Algeria, Venice, the Dalmatian
coast and Sicily. The final offering was 22 days to Villagarcia, Tangier,
Gibraltar, Las Palmas, Teneriffe, the Azores and Lisbon.
An unusual
feature was the extent to which the ship's launches were used. At practically
every port of call there were options for "Shore Excursions"
and "Launch Excursions". Their value was probably greatest
in Norway, whose steep terrain limited road access. Launches were used
for trips through islets, to the Seven Sisters Waterfall, a whaling
village at North Cape and so on; an extension of the cruising concept,
going where the big ship couldn't.
|
|
