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The Way We Once Traveled: Postmarks from the Middle of the Ocean

January 20, 2012 at 11:45 AM | by | Comment (1)

We'll fully admit that we save our ticket stubs even sometimes our bag tags. Of course travelers of decades ago were no different; in fact, they were worse. Sometimes we dig up vintage gems that deserve to be shared. All week, we'll look at a few lost pieces of ephemera that continue to inspire.

Check out that postmark on the above postcard from 1924. It seems that this little greeting, from folks sailing onboard the SS President Grant of Admiral Oriental Line between Seattle and "The Orient," made it all the way from somewhere off the coast of Japan to a teensy-weensy town in Northwest Ohio. Serious, Google Map Tontongany, Ohio and count how many roads it has on your hands. Then think about it back in the 1920s; it boggles the mind.

The point of all this is really to draw your attention to the words of the traveler who mailed this card, as their situation onboard says all you need to know about the pace of getting from Point A to Point B in the days before airplanes and taxis and turbojet ferries. Here ya go:

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Despite the Concordia Sinking, Cruising Keeps On Keeping On

January 19, 2012 at 9:39 AM | by | Comments (0)

We realize the world is a little hesitant about taking a cruise anytime soon, but if you trust Mickey Mouse to, then there's a new ship for you. The Disney Cruise Line is finishing up the final touches on its newest vessel—the Disney Fantasy—and after seeing some of the pictures, we’re kind of ready to strap on the mouse ears and head to the Caribbean.

The latest addition to the fleet isn’t quite ready for passengers and parties just yet, as things are still getting finalized over at the Meyer Werft shipyard in Germany. However, Disney is pretty proud of their latest piece of floating entertainment, so they’re showing off sneak peek photos following the ship’s float out.

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The Way We Once Traveled: 'Orchestral Selections' on the Queen Elizabeth

January 18, 2012 at 9:50 AM | by | Comments (0)

We'll fully admit that we save our ticket stubs even sometimes our bag tags. Of course travelers of decades ago were no different; in fact, they were worse. Sometimes we dig up vintage gems that deserve to be shared. All week, we'll look at a few lost pieces of ephemera that continue to inspire.

Water Aerobics. Mixology. A lecture on wildlife photography. Hairiest Chest Contest. These are just a few standard daily activities you'll likely find listed on the schedule of a modern cruise ship. However, it was back when passenger ships were called "liners" that schedules focused on the social, rather than the active and educational, advantages of the journey.

It's within this schedule for the old Cunard liner RMS Queen Elizabeth—her third day of a crossing from New York to Cherbourg/Southampton—that we see this for sure. Where iPad classes would be listed on a 2011 cruise shop activity list, the 1949 version favors watching horse racing or listening to the news broadcast.

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Trapped Onboard a Cruise Liner

Where: Italy
January 16, 2012 at 8:30 AM | by | Comments (0)

Late Friday night, The Costa Cruises ship Costa Concordia sailed from the Italian port of Civitavecchia near Rome, beginning what would be a nice Mediterrnean cruise. Shortly thereafter, it went off course and struck a reef, eventually listing and coming to rest off the island of Giglio.

The weekend brought new stories, new shocks and new questions of what exactly happened that night, and how it could even happen. Even the death tool is fluctuating. So until some concrete facts emerge, we're returning to a story we know to be the firsthand account from a friend who survived a cruise ship accident (though it didn't end up sinking).

Kathy, who was kind enough to share her story with us, was stuck onboard a crippled cruise ship for three days, albeit a couple decades ago.

Here's her story:

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Got $189 Million? Then You've Got 5,500 Artifacts from the Wreck of the 'Titanic'

January 5, 2012 at 4:33 PM | by | Comments (0)


A mug from third class on the Titanic

Anyone got $189 million just chilling in the bank? If your answer is yes, then you've probably also got enough extra space to house some 5,500 artifacts raised from the ocean floor wreck of the RMS Titanic, because all that is about to be auctioned off...in one fell swoop.

That's right; if you want to buy just one piece from the massive collection, you're going to have to buy all of it, since the auction comes complete with a 19-page document of what you can and cannot do with the items. It's mostly cannot do. So there'll be no drinking your morning coffee from a steerage class mug, nor will there be fogging up a porthole with your breath, only to write "J + L = <3" with your finger. You've got to treat these items with respect, just as the salvage company has attempted to do until now:

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The Setting for the Alvin and The Chipmunks 'Chipwrecked' Movie is a Real Ship

December 16, 2011 at 10:45 AM | by | Comments (0)

The latest Alvin and the Chipmunks movie, Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked!, opens today, and follows the characters we all got to know as kids as they embark on their first cruise vacation.

Most of the movie was filmed on the Carnival Dream cruise ship last January, on open decks and within the ship’s recreation areas.

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Blast from the Past: Real Photo Postcards

November 10, 2011 at 1:35 PM | by | Comments (0)

Walk through Times Square and at almost any of the cheapie souvenir shops in the area, you'll be able to score 10 postcards for $1. A steal for sure, but a closer look at the cards reveals that they're often outdated, faded or—worst of all—boring.

Travelers from the 1900s through the 1960s would have had a heart attack over this, since back then sending a postcard meant something. It was almost required of you to mail postcards from your destinations to your family, friends and neighbors, and the quality of the card was important.

Real Photo Postcards were popular for this reason. Printing on photo paper meant the picture would be solid, with no printing dots or gradients; it was as close to actually being there (except it was black & white). We were recently presented with this photo postcard from the heyday of the first Cunard liner Queen Elizabeth. At 724 feet long and 85,000 gross tons, she was the largest ship in the world and sailing on her meant you'd be sending a slew of photo postcards.

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Crystal Cruises is a Mac, Not a PC

October 26, 2011 at 11:10 AM | by | Comments (0)

It's not secret that cruise ships in these modern times are equipped with internet—even with WiFi in staterooms. What is a secret are the exorbitant rates you'll be paying to access it, as the network is satellite-based and designed to even reach you in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

We've touched on at-sea WiFi before, but things have changed in a year and a half since. Now the focus is not so much on the high rates as the unexpected high quality of the ship's tech setup and computer terminals. If you didn't bring your laptop or iPad to sea, chances are you'll be just as surrounded by comfort and luxury in the computer lounge as you'd be in your room.

We hopped onboard the Crystal Cruises ship Crystal Symphony for some snooping earlier this week while the ship was at dock in New York City, and were struck by the fact that this ship is not a PC; it's a Mac!

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This is What North Korea Calls a Cruise Ship

September 12, 2011 at 10:18 AM | by | Comment (1)

Bad news: it now sucks more than ever to live in North Korea. Why? Because the good ol' DPRK just launched their first cruise ship, the Mangyongbong (pictured above). About the only thing it has going for it is that it floats, plus okay also the fun-to-say name. Technically having the option of taking a cruise should mean life is tad bit better, right? Well, the ship is so sad that North Koreans are better off without it.

Want to "cruise" on the Mangyongbong? Be prepared to board from a dirt-covered dock from a town near the border with Russia, leave your cell phone behind, bed down on bare-bones mattresses in a communal space and soak up the sun from plastic lawn chairs that'll probably be blown overboard by the wind before you can get to them. What a cruise!

Luckily it's not a very long cruise; the ship only does a 1-night journey from North Korea to the the special tourist zone of Mount Kumgang on the South Korean border. It's a beautiful place, but it's also the focus of a constant ownership tug-of-war between North and South Korea, so what we're saying is this is a cruise where you should definitely opt for the extra travel insurance.

Check out more photos of the inaugural cruise here.

[Photo:AFP/Daily Mail]

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The Good, The Bad and The Ugly of First-Time Cruising

Where: Norway
August 12, 2011 at 4:21 PM | by | Comments (2)


And now a personal dispatch from uncharted waters...those of a virgin cruiser...

As I mentioned on Wednesday, my trip to Norway on Cunard was my first ever cruise. I was ignorant enough to think that a cruise was a good place to go to escape alcohol. What's more is that I was tagging along with a seasoned cruiser and there was obviously a lot I had yet to learn.

Here’s what stood out as the good, the bad and the ugly to a first-timer:

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How to Stay Sober on a Cruise: A Firsthand Lesson

Where: Norway
August 10, 2011 at 3:20 PM | by | Comments (0)

And now a first-person dispatch from a special Jaunted contributor (and first-time cruiser):

Not only was my Norwegian cruise last month the first cruise I’d ever been on, it was also the first trip I’d done since I stopped drinking a couple of months ago. Awesome, I thought as I stuffed my suitcase—a week cut off (literally) from the temptation of bars and clubs. This will be the perfect bridge between America, land of every-other-person-is-in-AA (where I’d traveled from), and England, land of if-you-don’t-get-hammered-on-a-Monday-night-you’ll-be-deported (where I was going to).

But the cruise wasn’t quite as expected, mainly because there was booze at every turn (duh). Thwarted! Luckily, I battled through and emerged from the Queen Victoria unscathed. Want to do the same? These are some ploys to staying sober that worked for me:

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Norwegian Postcards Show Off Scandinavia's Finest Ass-ets

Where: Norway
August 8, 2011 at 4:05 PM | by | Comments (0)


Norwegian postcards: a victory for sexual equality

Postcards: we may be too digitally-inclined and the postal services may be too expensive to mail them anymore, but we still buy them in droves. And while we loved the beautiful images of fjords and cutesy clapboard houses that we found during a Norwegian cruise on Cunard's Queen Victoria last month, the postcards that most captivated us displayed a very different type of Norwegian assets.

Yes, in Fjordcountry—Flåm and Geiranger, to be precise—along with the pretty landscape pictures were a shedload of pictures of naked men in picturesque places. Enjoying the view, showering under a gushing waterfall, strumming a guitar in a flower-filled meadow, skiing...all in various states of undress from shorts to full frontal nudity.

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