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If you want to get from point A to point B (ASAP) without any amenities and a certain regimen, like eating at certain hours, and no fun excursions etal then a cargo ship may be your answer, but as others are saying 24 hour buffet, casino, shows, shore excursions etc etc as on a cruise ship then that's the way to go.
35 days of doing nothing is not zen. It's doing nothing. I can do that at home - for free.. and already do
It's just ridiculously expensive for what it is. Maybe if it was $500, I would consider it. But it's still 35 days walking back and fourth on a boat looking at water.
My wife and I took a freighter from Auckland to San Francisco (supposed to have been LA but the company made the ship change course in mid-Pacific) around 15 years ago. We stopped for three days (was supposed to be 24 h) in Fiji. We were the only passengers on a 40K DWT self-loading container ship (i.e. on-board crane to lift the boxes.)
21 days overall, including 16 between Fiji and California, during which we saw precisely ONE other vessel - miles away. Flying fish, unimaginable stars at night... it gave a real sense of the immensity of our watery world. We learned a lot about the maritime cargo industry; my wife got to drive for a while but they took back the wheel when she had us pointing toward Mexico instead of California. Sneaky.
We had unlimited access to the bridge, the engine room, all the decks. We took meals with the officers (other crew were all Pacific Islanders, mostly from Kiribati, and there were some pretty big language barriers, but we weren't segregated and got to know a few of them pretty well.)
Our cabin was enormous by most standards - separate bedroom, roomy head, desk, sofas, fridge... The ship had big lounge with a supply of videos, games, a shortwave, books. When we crossed the equator (also the international date line - same afternoon) the crew put on a giant barbecue and wanted to dunk us in the plunge pool but we convinced them not to.
We started in summer, ended sailing under the Golden Gate bridge at last light on Christmas Eve.
It was a totally.fabulous.experience. Would do it again in a heartbeat. $90 per person per day, inclusive. Prices now for comparable cruises are closer to $125, but still a screaming deal IMO.
No midnight buffets or dancing babes with feathers; definitely not your typical cruise.
Cost per day is low but you spend more days. No amenities. In many cases destination change. Horrible if you have other obligations, great if you have nothing better to do.
If I were to travel by ship I would consider it, but I prefer travelling by plane. It is faster, however it would be cool to travel down the Atlantic Coast from New York to Brazil and back or from some where on the east coast and through the Panama Canal like one that goes Philly to Charleston to Columbia and then to New Zealand and Australia.
I've thought about doing this from time-to-time in order to see some relatives in Malaysia.
However, I also looked into the possibility of going on extended, unpaid leave with my trucking gig here in the states, and just taking a temp-gig on one of the freighters.
If that was even possible.
See some different places, and make some money while gaining some light mariner experience at the same time.
Pipe dreams I guess.
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