Unofficial 22 Day Seamen's Strike
On Caronia's Southampton arrival this month, she faced delays to her next sailing, a positioning run to New York for the start of her 1955 North Cape Cruise. However, she was not delayed as the strike collapsed on the day after she sailed. On leaving Le Havre, she had 481 passengers on board, and arrived in New York on time on 29th June.
[Right:]
Extract from New York Times
for 22 June 1955
dated London 21 June
Despite this, it appears that she may not have been totally unaffected on this sailing, even though she carried a full crew complement. The clue to this can be found in the menus below. On transatlantic crossings the menus were usually marked FC and CC for 1st & Cabin class respectively.
It's possible that instead of both of Caronia's restaurants being in use at one time, there were two sittings in the Balmoral Restaurant, as neither of the menus to hand show these class markings. There is another possibility in that economies of scale forced the same menu to be used in both restaurants, as when cruising.
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