Echoes of yesteryear: fond remembrances of some forgotten element of cruising - Cruising's Classic Past

Cruise Travel, Jan-Feb, 2004 by Allan E. Jordan

Even the ports were more exotic. The ships were sailing to the mysterious Orient, the paradise of the South Pacific, and the "Cradle of Civilization" in the Mediterranean. Even the West Indies were "The Golden Islands of the West--crowded with their legends of treasure and glory." Modern-day passengers know St. Thomas as a duty-free destination, but in 1913 White Star Line said, "Charlotte Amalie, snugly set on the Island of St. Thomas, is encompassed about by green-robed hills 'from which drift down the most fragrant breezes in the world.' Groves of tall aloe trees, like a huge branching candelabra, stand out upon the cliffs ... an equally charming panorama of blue sea and the city's verdant gardens."

Service aboard the ships excelled with Cunard, for example, boasting that aboard the Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth there was nearly one waiter for each first-class dining-room table. And then there were the night stewards, usually an older steward who had spent his entire career with the ship line. Their job was to be there in case a passenger wanted something in the middle of the night. Often they did nothing more than unlock stateroom doors for passengers returning to their cabins at night, with the hope that the passengers would remember them the last night when gratuities were traditionally dispensed.

The vexing problem for the passenger that remains the same then and now is how much to tip. A 1909 newspaper article was entitled "Hard Times for Ocean Stewards--Generous Tips of Former Days Are But a Memory Now." The piece advised travelers that the minimum scale for a crossing was $2.50 each to the bedroom and saloon steward; $1 each to the band, bathroom, smoking room, and deck stewards; and 50 cents each to the elevator boys, librarian, baggage master, and the boots. Imagine today tipping the band or the librarian, and try finding an elevator operator.

In the 1950s another newspaper article advised that 15 percent of the one-way passage is a good yardstick to use in tipping the cabin and dining-room stewards collectively. Staff were also frustrated by the tipping systems; as early as 1914 the stewards of one line proposed eliminated tipping if the line would pay them two dollars for each first-class passenger onboard, one dollar for each second-class passenger, and 35 cents for each steerage passenger. The shipping line refused.

While many passengers treasure the historic elements of the past, clearly many things have changed for the better in the last hundred years. The traditional liners are fading quickly from the scene these days, and with them a way of life is fading away. In the past year alone the OceanBreeze (former Southern Cross, Calypso, and Azure Seas), Big Red Boat III (ex. Transvaal Castle, S.A. Vaal, Festivale, and Island Breeze), Costa Riviera (ex. Gugliemo Marconi), Apollon (ex. Empress of Canada and Mardi Gras), and even the Stella Solaris have all departed--or soon will depart--for the scrapyards of the Far East. Every year fewer and fewer of the classic ships dating to the 1960s or earlier continue to sail, and very soon none will be left in the North American market.