As I have mentioned previously, the addition of the second Empress of Britain to Canadian Pacific’s ocean liner fleet in 1931 was a momentous enough occasion that I am using that year to divide the 1920s from the 1930s. The Chung collection has no West Indies cruise memorabilia for 1932, but it does have items from 1933 through 1939. Today’s post will present some booklets and brochures while menus will be covered tomorrow.
Click image to view and download a 3.2-MB PDF of this brochure from the Chung collection.
This 1933 brochure seems to be the only item in the Chung collection from the West Indies cruises that year. Two 28-day cruises were offered on the Duchess of Bedford from New York, one leaving January 7 and one leaving February 8. The minimum fare was $280, or $10 per day. Ten dollars is about $230 today, or a total of $6,500.
Unlike the first-class empresses, the duchesses were cabin-class ships, meaning the accommodations were second-class and below. The most expensive rooms were not much more expensive than the least expensive. The ship had just 15 rooms with private baths, and they went for $500 per person. There were also a few $400/person rooms, but most were in the range of $280 to $395.
The brochure also advertises a 14-day cruise aboard the Empress of Australia, which had 44 rooms with baths. The fares for a room without a bath ranged between $155 and $265, while the fares for a room with a bath ranged from $270 to $420.
Click image to view and download a 3.5-MB PDF of this brochure from the Chung collection.
When the Empress of Britain not doing very well during its first two December-through-April world cruises, Canadian Pacific decided to better utilize its flagship by postponing the world cruise until January and running the Britain on a West Indies cruise over Christmas and New Years. The cruise departed New York on December 23 and returned on January 3. Christmas was spent on board ship and New Year’s Eve was in Nassau. Fares ranged from $172.50 to $380, or about $4,000 to $8,500 in today’s money.
Click image to view and download a 3.1-MB PDF of this brochure from the Chung collection.
Canadian Pacific still used the Duchess of Bedford to make two 28-day West Indies cruises, one leaving January 20 and the other February 21. Fares for most of the rooms were dropped by $10.
Click image to view and download a 5.8-MB PDF of this brochure from the Chung collection.
New York was not the only launch-point for West Indies cruises. Above is a brochure for a cruise that left Southampton on January 25, 1935, aboard the Duchess of Richmond, a sister to the Bedford. At 48 days, this cruise was necessarily longer than the New York cruises. Fares ranged from 90 to 240 guineas. Since one 1935 guinea is worth almost $150 today, that’s about $13,500 to $35,000 in today’s money.
Click image to view and download a 3.3-MB PDF of this brochure from the Chung collection.
Skip to 1937 and this brochure describes four March and April cruises aboard the Empress of Australia that were 8 to 12 days long. Fares ranged from $90 to $310 per person for the 8-day cruise and from $143 to $615 for the 12-day cruise.
Click image to view and download a 46.4-MB PDF of this photo book from the Chung collection.
Although the Chung collection doesn’t have any advertisements for it, the Duchess of Atholl provided cabin-class cruises to the West Indies in 1937. This book of 100 photos and postcards memorialized the trip for one of the passengers.
Click image to view and download a 28.4-MB PDF of this booklet from the Chung collection.
Later in the same year, passengers could take the Empress of Britain on a Christmas-New Year’s cruise leaving New York City on Christmas Eve and returning January 6. Christmas, New Year’s Eve, and New Year’s would all be spent on board ship, which sounds pretty awful to me. One highlight was that the ship went to Cristobal, Panama, where (for an extra $13.50 per person, about $280 today) passengers could take a train paralleling the Panama Canal to Balboa on the Pacific Ocean, where they would have lunch and a tour by motor car before returning by train.
Click image to view and download a 6.2-MB PDF of this brochure from the Chung collection.
For 1938-1939, Canadian Pacific split the Christmas-New Year’s cruise into two cruises. A Christmas cruise left New York on December 22, spent Christmas Eve and Christmas in Bermuda, and returned to New York on December 27. A New Year’s cruise left New York on December 28, spent New Year’s Eve in Havana and January 3-4 in Nassau, then returned to New York on January 6.