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Hanjin Madrid: Seattle, WA (Day 1), Portland, OR (3); Vancouver, BC (6), KwangYang, Korea (17); Hong Kong (20) and Yantian, China (21); Yokohama, Japan (25), Prince Rupert (34) and Vancouver, 2nd call, BC (36) and Seattle (38) ... alternating with the following voyage: Seattle (Day 1); Yokohama (11); Shanghai (13); Pusan (15); Seattle (25). Hanjin Baltiomore, Boston, Dallas, Miami and Yantian - every week: Los Angeles, Long Beach terminal, (Day 1) and San Francisco, Oakland terminal, CA (4), Seattle, WA (6), Pusan, Korea (16), Yantian (20); Kaohsiung, Taiwan (21), Shanghai, China (22) Kwangyang, Korea (24) and Pusan, 2nd call (25), Los Angeles (35). CMA CGM Hugo, CMA CGM Vivaldi, MSC Texas and Pacific Link - every week or two:, 101,662 DWT containerships carrying 3-8 passengers each, offer the following itinerary: Los Angeles, Long Beach terminal, (Day 1); San Francisco, Oakland terminal (2); Xiamen (18), Chiwan (19), Hong Kong (20) and Yantian (21), all in China; Los Angeles (35). |
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Passengers: 4-5 Deadweight: 58/69,000 tons Containers: 4,300-5,600 Length: 278/280 m Speed: 24/27 knots Built: 1999/2003 Owners: German Laeisz & NSB Charterers: Korean Officers & Crew: German & Int’l |
Two 30 sq. m. double bed suites (bed size 2.05 x 1.80 m), located on the 7th deck, front facing. - €90 per person double, €105 per day single occupancy. One 18 sq. m. single cabin (bed size 2.05 x 1.25), located on the 6th deck, fron facing. - €85 per day. |
   
Double bed suites |
Singapore |
Passenger cabins and shared facilities, such as the dining room, lounges, exercise room and swimming pool are located on various decks. Passengers must be fully mobile and able to negotiate the stairs. Front views may be obstructed by the containers stowed on deck. |
| Self service laundry facilities are available. The electrical current is 220/50 AC. A two-prong round adapter and converter are needed for North American appliances. A steward will clean the cabin once a week, or more often if necessary. A small onboard shop provides a limited selection of beverages, cigarettes and toiletries at duty free prices. Onboard expenses may be paid for with cash in €/US$. Tipping is at the passenger’s discretion; $/€ 3-5 per person per day is recommended. Telephone, fax and email connections are available through the Captain’s office. The average port time is one day. |
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Reservations can be made by completing a Registration Form and providing a 25% deposit. The balance of the fare, plus an additional €265 for port and vessel fees, is payable 65 days before departure. The fare may be paid for by check or wire (by exception only, credit cards may be accepted) in either the basic tariff currency, as quoted by the steamship line, or $US at the prevailing exchange rate, subject to a final adjustment at the time the ticket is issued, a few weeks before departure. Passports must be valid for at least 6 months beyond the anticipated return date, and a visa for China must be obtained. A Medical Statement of Good Health and International Health and Accident Insurance are required as is a proof of vaccination (or exemption) against yellow fever (and cholera for voyages through the Panama and Suez Canals). The age limit is 79. Cancellation fees are as follows: over 60 days, loss of deposit; 30-59 days, 50% of the fare. No refund will be made within 30 days of departure. To protect your investment, Cancellation and Interruption Insurance is highly recommended. Travelex Insurance packages, covering you from the moment you buy the policy - at no additional cost, are available to all our customers, worldwide, on our website page "Before You Sail". |
The Story of Freighter Travel |
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The Author of Vagabond Voyaging |
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“You drop anchor near the pilot cutter in the broad entrance to the Yangtze river. The pilot comes over the side and you wait for the morning tide. You've heard of pirates in these waters and unless you're unlucky enough to have the tide flowing so that you go right in, the pilot has a chance to spin a few yarns. Golden-haired women and fat Chinese Mandarin-type pirates are featured in his tales. Pitched battles between lone foreigners with many guns and scores of badly armed pirates with a cheap pistol to every third man; battles between pirates and native craft; robberies of silver shipments; tales of lighthouses overcome and lights doused so that brave ships come to grief on stormy shores. You're ready for the mystery of the Orient when at last the anchor is lifted and you get under way, churning up the mud of the river, the muddy sea that spreads as far as the eye can reach. Your ship creeps alongside the dock, a line is tossed ashore and the engines stop. You are barely moored before a work crew comes aboard, coolies ready to labor for ten or eleven cents a day, prepared to paint fore and aft, clean the tanks and do all the other dirty work that has been saved for the arrival at a port of cheap labor. Longshoremen bosses in whites, all spick-and-span, come to announce the readiness of men to unload cargo. The deck officer mounts to his bridge position overseeing all - and the ship's shore work commences. You make your plans in advance for shore visits in Shanghai - the greatest seaport in all of China. Shanghai is the town to buy new tropical clothes. The tailors come aboard ship, but you have to give them an old suit as they haven't any tape measures. Don't pay too much attention to the old story of the tailor who got an order for a dozen suits 'just like this one' and brought them all back with neat patches in the seat - but, it's a good bit of local color, true or not. They'll deliver suits in a few hours, just as tailors do in Kingston, Jamaica. Armed with a supply of Shanghai money and educated a bit abouth the variety of coins and their values, you come upon the Bund from the launch landing. |
Shanghai's Bund waterfront |
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The Bund at Shanghai! It's merely another street, a rather wide street, built down on the water, facing the river; a street of imposing office fronts. There are traffic lights; it's as American as Broadway and still as Oriental as you've dreamed it would be.
Returning to your ship in any foreign port is always an adventure. Harbors are sometimes dark, dull places. Labor is cheap, great flaring lights shine and loading or unloading goes on through the night, with gangs of laborers replacing one another at frequent intervals while straw bosses act the role of Mississippi River mates with clubs and profanity urging the lagging workers to greater effort. But whether you return to a deserted ship, or to one feverish with activity, there's always the same feeling. You are going home. There's much to tell those who were unable to go ashore, much to ask those who are wiser in the ways of this strange land. There are things to talk about, things to remember, and, perhaps, things you prefer to forget. The noise and bustle of each stop is distinctive. The smells of the Far East differ, yet all ports are alike in the petty annoyances of shore-going, the harassment of strange customs and the depressing feeling caused by some peculiar sights. Returning to ship you are always cheered as you near your sea home. The smells may follow you aboard and the noises may filter into your cabin, but once there, in the lounge rimmed with familiar faces, you realize that sight-seeing, adventuring and wandering are better when shared with those who are close to you. And you are close to these men with whom you journey. You have braved the winter blasts of the North American coast; you've enjoyed the play of the dolphins in the summer sea off Lower California; you've stood against the fury of a tropical storm and now you stand against alien sounds and alien sights. The thrills that come from shore-going will be amplified when they're shared with your 'family' at home, aboard ship. Homecoming's always grand - it's grandest in a foreign port, returning to your freighter - the great boat that, for you, is a private yacht. Shanghai is either a port you love to leave - or one you hate to leave behind. Be that as it may, unless a stopover has been arranged, the cargo is loaded out and in and you're off to Hong-Kong, down the Whangpoo River, out the yellow muddy Yangtze, and off to the broad China Sea. |
Shanghai's shopping street |
You discover you have not been the only souvenir buyer in Shanghai. One passenger has a thousand copper coins - 'they're cheaper than poker chips,' he explains. What fun it will be to introduce these as markers at the Saturday night stud sessions in South Orange, NJ. How many times will the game be delayed while some incident of the trip is told? |
| The lady who shipped at Los Angeles has three bird cages. 'Singing birds,' she explains. Shanghai is the center of the bird market of the Far East. Bird societies and clubs draw members from the poorest to the most wealthy. Her birds won't sing; perhaps she bought them at the wrong store, perhaps they cannot understand her language. The Second Engineer is helpful. He brings a shy brown chap from below decks - one of the engine crew who once was a bird man. He frowns and points and jabbers. The straw boss who also accompanies the officer interprets in what passes for English, barely understandable to you. 'The birds are afraid' the officer retranslates. 'This one is molting.' He points to the middle cage. 'There's a lot to the care of these birds', he confides to the passengers who have gathered in the shade of the bridge. Much conversation results in the covers being put on the cages. |
Hong Kong's Victoria Harbour |
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The birds go below with the brown chap. The passenger will take them ashore in Hong Kong and you'll never learn if they sing. The night before Hong Kong is reached - the second day from Shanghai - a 'farewell dinner' is given. The lady with the birds nears the end of her journey. She is the first of the company to depart. You feel a sadness as you sit down to eat. You haven't paid much attention to the lady - she's kept more or less to herself on ship. You hardly remember her name - and now she is being torn from your midst. The lady and her birds - how you will miss the birds, those dear little things that sing so bravely! Well they haven't sung yet, but they would.
The champagne flows freely. The Captain beams at his flock from the armchair at the head of the table. The Chief Officer goes on deck for his watch, but somehow the dinner isn't over. The steward brings more dishes, and fresh glasses. Ice cream for dessert; ice cream and hot ginger bread cake, with chocolate sauce to pour over it all. Ginger cake because that is her favorite dessert, ice cream for the climate. The coffee cups are set, the butler pours liquors, this is a dinner! The Skipper starts a speech. The Second Officer whispers in your ear; ‘The old man loves to talk on his feet.' 'Hands across the sea ... and friends must part ... our fairest flowers in oriental bowers ...' You blink your eyes to catch what the speaker is driving at. Serious concentration and you're able to get the drift. Heavens! She's on her way to be married, going out to China to marry an officer in the English Navy! There's the explanation of why she wouldn't look at the stars the first day out of San Pedro; why she sat mooning, alone so much. Poor girl, you feel for her. A nice little American stenographer or bookkeeper from Des Moines - off to marry some swashbuckling English lieutenant. But she seems happy; she's a little embarrassed by the Captain's flowery language, yet she eats it up. Every word will be a memory for her. Years from now she'll tell her guests at tea, ‘The Captain gave me a dinner.' Her grandchildren will hear: 'All the passengers were so nice, they gave me presents when I left the boat.’ Now you understand the Why of the gifts for the departing guest. You're attending a shower for a bride! She's standing up to reply. Poor girl, she is embarrassed, but happy ... ‘And you must all come and visit us in our new little home on May Road, The Peak.' You fumble for a pencil to write the number down. You may never come to Hong Kong again, but then who can tell? Once a traveler, always a traveler. At least you can send her postal cards, and perhaps she'll answer. 'My friend, Mrs. Blank, in China' you'll casually say at home one day. |
Modern containership, one of the largest on the water today, the CMA CGM Hugo entering the San Francisco Bay |
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Freighters, by their very limitations, serve to protect the carefree adventurer from most of the pests of ocean travel. Your fellows are people of leisure; men and women who are able to take the time for a long trip. Starting with the full knowledge that days will pass in lazy sequence means that high-pressure hustlers and super nervous people are left behind. Newlyweds with more time than money get the best break from freighter voyages. Two weeks at a resort hotel cost as much as two months of this kind of cruising to the Windward and Leeward Islands. Honeymooners are good company because they're so much interested in each other that they rarely get underfoot, yet when you need someone for bridge or an extra pair for a moonlight dance on deck, as ‘old married folk’ they think they must be ready to join the party on request. Not all your fellow passengers will be loving couples, naturally, but you'll find a larger percentage of them on freighters than on other ships. People who expect, to spend a lot of time on a sea trip are rarely nervous, seldom ill, and not often barflies. Officials always announce that because of the small number carried, they reserve the right to discharge those who are objectionable. The occasional nuisance who braves the possibility of a trip of three months or so may suddenly find himself ashore waiting for another ship, a wiser man and likely to be good company the next time. |
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You'll find authors and writers, artists and college professors. You may not meet Noel Coward on a world cruise writing ‘Design for Living.’ He's already done that; but others just as famous are proudly proclaimed by the shipping lines as among their patrons. Claudette Colbert, if the agents are to be believed, would rather vacation on a freighter than any other way, and practically every travel agent in Southern California can tell of some cargo boat cruise on which they have booked a major picture star or executive. |
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Folks back for a second or third trip will often be found on freighters. You may not run into the chap who has made eighteen transatlantic crossings with the same Captain out of Philadelphia, but you're practically certain to meet at least one ‘second tripper’ if you meet more than a dozen freighter passengers in your travels. Painters and photographers, printers and princes, retired business people, school teachers and scholars, almost always adults, and as far as can be checked, always interesting people - these make up the passenger lists of the freighter ships of today. From every walk of life come the vacationers, all ready for variegated excursions ashore and restful days aboard ship to lull them into the easygoing life that is part of the charm of freighter travel. It's getting to be quite the thing, with ‘society people’ more and more taking up the freighter as the smart way to travel. ‘Interesting little ships digging their way into interesting little harbors,’ is the way one socialite expressed her opinion to a gossip-writer recently. The people aboard a freighter you get to know best are the officers who operate the ship. You'll find up to eight of them, the Captain and three Mates, as well as the Chief Engineer and his three assistants. Two or more are always off duty, so there's someone around nearly all the time to make a fourth at bridge, or to challenge you to a chess match. Some ships have young cadets, boys just out of school or college, who are studying to be officers in the Merchant Marine. |
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Once in a great while there will be a purser, or some chap accompanying a special shipment of merchandise, perhaps one of Frank Buck's men with a flock of animals. In a blue moon you'll book with a Captain who has his wife aboard for a cruise, listing her as stewardess in the crew roster. But stewardess and supercargoes are the exception rather than the rule. On a deluxe cruise you’ll have twenty officers and two hundred to a thousand passengers, or ten passengers to one officer at best. On a freighter there are never more than twice as many passengers and usually the official family outnumbers the paying guests.
Anyone with the money to buy a ticket may sit next to you at dinner on a cruise, but when you go to meals on certain freighters, you'll be next to or opposite one of the officers. You know he'll be an interesting chap. The braid on his coat means he has worked hard to get where he is - no handsome cruise director, expert at inventing games, but a real he-man. Officers on freighters spend years climbing to their positions; the weaklings, the dullards and the inefficient are lost on the way up. You never need be afraid to introduce the officers to your acquaintances. The Captains may not be sprightly young blades, and occasionally the Chief Engineer will have a burr in his speech, but they're real men, men who have climbed to the top through their own efforts, men who face difficulties and conquer them, men who know themselves as well as they know the people of the world. On one boat in three you'll meet a yarn-spinner, a salty old seagoing chap of the fiction type. But these fellows are rapidly fading out of the picture. The average ship Captain today is first a businessman, second a sailor. To call them ‘diamonds in the rough’ is unfair. Some of the most polished diplomats in the world sail the seven seas on freighters. They aren't all salty, and they aren't all bowing and scraping polite young naval reserve officers. You can't classify the commanders you meet on boats, any more than you classify the men you meet at the heads of other business enterprises. That's one of the interesting things about freighter traveling. Each set of officers is as different as the line for whom they work, each ship is as different as the men who operate her. There are still a lot of old-fashioned 'characters' among the seafaring men of the maritime nations, but more and more a new race is coming to the fore. Once practically every ship had a buckaroo Mate and a tale-spinning Captain: today you will have to travel on two or three freighters before you find one of the old-fashioned characters out of Dana's ‘Two Years Before the Mast.’ You may see much, or little, of your ship's ruler. Your voyage may be aboard a vessel where the Captain stays very much to himself retiring because of lack of your language or for other reasons; or he may be a talkative old gent ready to escort you on a tour of the ship, or drive you to your cabin to escape his stories of the proper ways to raise sweet corn. Your officers may be rough and ready chaps, or polished reserved officers scraping and bowing at every opportunity, constantly the souls of politeness, speaking a dozen languages and entertaining in them all. You may find one kind or another, but no matter. Of one thing you can be sure, you’ll like them. And they'll like you, unless you go out of your way to be objectionable.” |
| We are most grateful for the support, including comments such as the following, which we have been receiving from our valued customers and club members as well as from the steamship lines and media over the years: |
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Freighter Travel Club Int'l (Since 1958)
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