Dude their round trip British Airways price was almost six grand$. ...? I can round trip for NY to London for under a thousand pounds if I'm not drunk when I buy tickets. I did some research based on 2014~ numbers. As far as I could tell it costs about 2000 pounds for a two-person berth on some such or such patio level thing, but traveling by yourself on the boat is super expensive (or the same price just not divided by 2, or whatever). I dunno, this article confused the hell out of me because I tries to lump the two together or something, plus I've had a couple beers. So maybe ignore me.
But isn't the blogger advocating a return to steerage? Of a sort. I mean, I'd do it if I had the free time. If the only market is poor college students then maybe business model = fire, but some poor college students would be very happy until the subsidies ran out.
Yeah! I definitely have always thought that would be a great thing but did not know it existed until I saw the link below. Probably too late for me to embark on a 40-day sea voyage, but I still sent the link to a lot of people I know who could.
You just made me want to take a boat next time I cross the pond. It sounds tremendous.
Okay, I'm calling bullshit on this entire article. And if you think that people will spend three days in the same accommodations that they currently spend six hours you're high. F'n Amtrak is hella more luxe than the average airline, and that's before you get into the sleeper cabins. Their prices are also stupid. I've actually looked into shipping motorcycles from London to New York. This is a 400-500lb inert hunk of metal, sitting in an unconditioned crate for a week, and it's about $1500. Take it down to a single raw TEU and you're talking $1300 and nearly ten days. Ferries in WA state are heavily subsidized and it still costs a surprising amount to ride walk-on for a five mile trip. The Victoria Clipper, a purpose-built passenger hydrofoil, costs over $100 to cover 73 miles in 3 hours. Extrapolate that out to the NY to London run and you're at 5 grand... and about 12 hours slower than the SS United States. If it was actually cheaper to get across the ocean by boat, people would cross the ocean by boat still. Aircraft end up a lot more efficient than boats for the simple reason that air is easier to get through... but lose a lot of the fuel cost because you can't keep 'em in the air slower than 200 mph. Fun fact: The Hindenberg was the equivalent of $7500 for three days' travel from Hamburg to New Jersey.If we would stuff people in the Queen Mary 2 like we fold passengers in airplane seats, the ship could transport more than 500,000 people.
All that plus the fact that if 8,000 people are flying from NY to London on a given day, it's because 8,000 want to fly from NY to London on a given day. If I have a meeting on Tuesday, then that's when I want to get there. If, all of a sudden, capacity is 30,000 passengers, then presumably, there would only be one boat every 3-4 days, and then I'm spending 3 or 4 extra nights in London, because I have to, not because I want to, and if you've even been to London, you can guess what that will set you back (or there's a whole lot of empty space on every boat, and either way I'm paying boku bucks for the difference). In The Man in the High Castle, PKD envisions a world in which the Germans have invented international travel on rockets, so a journey from Europe to the USA takes like 30 minutes or whatever. That would be a hell of a world, although I can't imagine most people (myself included) being able to stomach a ride on an ICBM.
Great book. But did y'all read this shit actually? Article was talking about fitting 30k not 500k which is totally reasonable. [edit oh oops that's @kb. I dunno if their prices are stupid] I wonder about the demand for flying, we'd need some numbers on what percentage of people who fly from NY to Heathrow every day are businesspeople etc who don't have any leeway on their schedules. Probably most -- but those people are almost all flying on the company credit card. Which makes the demand curve more complicated. Don't think you can assume this, or you could ceteris paribus but the price is gonna drop a lot too.If, all of a sudden, capacity is 30,000 passengers, then presumably, there would only be one boat every 3-4 days
Talk about burning your money.Fun fact: The Hindenberg was the equivalent of $7500 for three days' travel from Hamburg to New Jersey.
I absolutely hate all the pre-flying stuff, from driving to the airport to the boarding, I am in agony. I like the idea of traveling by passenger ship, but I don't live near the ocean, so, I'd need a jet to get to the ship, most likely. I think airlines could make a slaughtering there. Of course, I also get sea sick, so, they won't get much of my money either way.
And it is currently not permitted to travel between Hawaii and the U. S. mainland via passenger vessel. Some ancient shipping regulation. Briefly looked into a one-way cruiseship passage. I would have to first travel to either Vancouver or Ensenada in order to embark/debark. Would certainly welcome an alternative to air travel.
Oh man I have always wanted to do that! You can also get really good deals on cruises if you only go one way. Filling the cabins up at the last minute. And then you camp out whereever until you can get another one-way to your next destination. There is some e-commuter that has a blog about doing that all the time but I can't find it at the moment. On the other hand, a girl from my home town went on a three-masted tall ship adventure like that and got swept overboard. Oops.
Here's a better link. I looked into this pretty heavily for research; I'd do it if I weren't married with a kid.