Round the world cruises weren’t the only cruises offered by Canadian Pacific. Trans-Atlantic ocean liner traffic greatly declined in winter, so CP used its ships on cruises to the West Indies (more frequently called the Caribbean today), the Mediterranean, and Africa/South America. The West Indies cruises were the shortest and least expensive of all CP’s offerings.
Click image to view and download a 15.2-MB PDF of this booklet from the University of British Columbia Chung collection.
The first West Indies cruises took place in 1923, a year before the first world cruise. They left New York City on January 20 and February 20, lasted about 27 days, visiting the Bahamas, Cuba, Martinique, Panama, Puerto Rico, Trinidad, and Venezuela. The cruise was aboard the original (1905) Empress of Britain and fares started at $250 — about $4,500 today — and could go as high as $1,250 per person.
Click image to view and download a 20.1-MB PDF of this booklet from the University of British Columbia Chung collection.
In 1924, the Empress of Britain added Curacao and Columbia to its itinerary. This cover illustration was painted by James C. McKell (1884-1956). Born in Iowa, McKell lived his adult life in Philadelphia where he covers for the Saturday Evening Post and other magazines and posters for Canadian Pacific and the Bermuda Steamship line.
Click image to view and download a 16.4-MB PDF of this booklet from the University of British Columbia Chung collection.
The Chung collection doesn’t have any ads for the 1925 West Indies cruise, but the 1926 cruise was taken aboard the Montroyal. That wasn’t really a change because Montroyal was the new name of the Empress of Britain.
Click image to view and download a 27.0-MB PDF of this booklet from the University of British Columbia Chung collection.
The 1928 booklet daring advertises “the lure of the Spanish Main” rather than the West Indies. But it is still the Montroyal visiting the same ports with a choice of cruises, one beginning January 26 and the other February 29.
Click image to view and download a 9.3-MB PDF of this booklet from the University of British Columbia Chung collection.
For 1930, the new (launched 1928) Duchess of Bedford replaced the aging Empress of Britain. The Duchess was probably used in 1929 as well, but the Chung collection hasn’t posted a 1929 booklet for that cruise. The above booklet isn’t an advertisement either; instead it is the passenger list from the cruise that began on February 11.
Click image to view and download a 16.4-MB PDF of this booklet from the University of British Columbia Chung collection.
This advertising booklet for the 1931 West Indies cruise used the same cover painting as the previous one. The painting wraps around to the back and on the back it is signed “F. DeMuth,” meaning Flora Nash DeMuth. This painting would be used on passenger lists for West Indies tours for several more years.
Click image to view and download a 31.2-MB PDF of this booklet from the University of British Columbia Chung collection.
In addition to using the Duchess of Bedford for West Indies tours from New York, in 1931 Canadian Pacific offered a 45-day West Indies tour from Liverpool aboard the Duchess of Richmond. I don’t know if CP had Liverpool-West Indies cruises before 1931, but I doubt it had them after that due to the Depression. I suspect that planning for the Liverpool cruise began before the Depression and by 1931 it may have been too late to cancel it.
The colorful cover of this booklet is signed Bethell Jones, which probably refers to an English artist named May Smith (1904-2002), who married writer Maurice Bethell Jones in 1929. Like Flora DeMuth, Jones also illustrated many children’s books.