Following the Trend
The combined devastating impacts of the 1966 Seamen's strike and the pace of development in making air travel much quicker and safer meant that by now Cunard were having to follow trends with Caronia, rather than setting them. Despite her major refit of 1965, Caronia was now beginning to show her age.
Brighter modern ships were being built or converted for the cruising market. Caronia's 1965 refit had been mostly cosmetic, with little done to renovate her boiler room, so her running costs would also start to escalate, with her reliability also compromised.
Ashore, there were many planned changes afoot, the greatest of these being the relocation of Cunard's head offices from Liverpool to New York. The falling (almost failing) North Atlantic shipping trade would mean many cost-cutting exercises being introduced.
Several were clearly decided upon by people with little experience of the day-to-day running of a cruise ship. Mostly they were quite niggling inconveniences that did little to save money, although they may have made their account books look a little less fearful.
For the first time in Caronia's career, passengers were offered the opportunity to embark at Fort Lauderdale for her Great World Cruise, rather than the hitherto exclusive embarkation at New York. Fares for this departure were also adjusted in a bid to attract more passengers from the Southern States of the USA.
Whether this was successful is not known, because this would be the only time that it happened with Caronia. Although there were already plans for 1968, the 1967 Great World Cruise with only around 470 passengers aboard would turn out to be her last.
