This would be the last world cruise taken by the Empress of Australia. Canadian Pacific’s magnificent new Empress of Britain had been launched in June, 1930, and would make its maiden voyage from Southhampton to Quebec just a few weeks after this world cruise ended. That ship would be used for all future Canadian Pacific world cruises.
Click image to view and download a 63.5-MB PDF of this booklet from the University of British Columbia Chung collection.
Canadian Pacific advertised this cruise in North America with this booklet with an elaborate cover painting by Albert Cloutier. Inside, black-and-white photos are supplemented by 15 pencil or charcoal drawings signed “AC.” I wonder how he drew those pictures, as I haven’t found his name on any previous passenger lists. Perhaps he used photos from previous trips.
Click image to view and download a 70.0-MB PDF of this booklet from the University of British Columbia Chung collection.
For the British version of the booklet, which described a trip starting and ending in Southhampton instead of New York, CP used a different cover with unsigned artwork. According to this, fares for this longer, 163-day trip started at £448, or one pound more than in 1928-29. The previous booklet noted that fares for the 137-day trip started at $2,000.
Click image to view and download a 11.0-MB PDF of this brochure from the University of British Columbia Chung collection.
More information about fares is contained in this brochure. Fares quoted for individual rooms were mostly about 2 to 3 percent greater than for the 1927-28 cruise, which is fair as the 137-day cruise was 3 percent more days than the 133-day 1927-28 cruise. However, the fare for the only two rooms on the promenade deck — probably the most desirable location on the ship — went up almost 10 percent, from $6,500 to $7,100. The fare for the three-room suites — the most expensive rooms on the ship — went up less than 1 percent, from $12,500 to $12,600, probably because CP had a hard time selling such expensive rooms.
Although the cover art on this brochure isn’t signed, there are two signed paintings inside: one of the Empress of Australia resplendent in white and one of a Chinese junk. Both are signed Fred J. Hoertz (1888-1978), a popular marine and aircraft artist who was born in Brooklyn and studied at several art schools in New York. Among other things, he had painted almost every ocean liner that ever entered New York Harbor.
Click image to view and download a 10.4-MB PDF of this booklet from the University of British Columbia Chung collection.
This passenger list with a nicely embossed cover indicates that the 1930-31 cruise included 368 passengers, including seven servants and one infant. Advertising for previous cruises indicated that “no children under five years of age will be accepted,” but the rule was relaxed for this cruise.
The list simply says, “Mrs. Joseph Aratingi and infant”; no other Aratingis are listed. According to one web site, Wilbert Joseph Aratingi was born in New York on September 8, 1930. His father, Joseph, resided in Paris. His mother, Jeanette née Salhani, was born in Cairo, Egypt. She was 24 at the time, 10 years younger than her husband.
Aratingi is an uncommon name in North America; the 2010 census found no one of that name in the United States. If this is the same family, it is hard to imagine why Jeanette decided to take a world cruise with a three-month old and without her husband. Sadly, she passed away in 1939 when she was just 33.
Of the seven servants, two were brought by one couple, Mr. & Mrs. John C. Goold, who brought both a valet and a ladies maid. I’ve found several John C. Goolds on line who were alive at that time, but none of them appear to have been wealthy enough to go on this cruise.