Back before there were cruise ships to luxuriate on while crossing the Atlantic, there were Ocean Liners. Like we saw in “The Titanic” or “The Poseidon Adventure.” Primitive compared to the wedding cake cities that tour the globe nowadays offering Broadway musicals and topical lectures, but still impressive if you think of the parties that must have taken place, the amount of alcohol consumed, and the rigorous effort at reinforcing class distinction.
Such an Ocean Liner was the SS Rotterdam that we visited today. The weather was cold and windy with periodic squalls, so roaming the corridors of an immense vessel built to withstand stormy waters seemed promising.
Making its maiden voyage from Rotterdam to New York in 1959, it was the fifth and last in a line of upscale passenger ocean liners that go back to 1872. We had an entertaining guide who took us through a promenade on the upper decks where a late-fifties Danish modern style prevailed.
There was the smoking lounge with wonderful couches that flipped from inside conversation to outward view.
There was the ballroom with dance floor and curved staircase that the captain, choosing the right moment, could ascend.
There was a theater with nightclub seating below and stadium seating above. I imagined Sinatra down on the stage smoking and cadging drinks as he crooned.
There was a smaller, flashier bar and more intimate dance space.
Private stairways and elevators were sectioned off to allow the wealthiest opportunities to avoid commoners and pursue morally suspect pleasures.
It was a floating Upstairs Downstairs world with the upstairs designed for Hollywood romance. I half expected to open the wrong door and run into Noel Coward.
Instead we made it to the bridge where the captain earned his stripes. To initiate a turn, the time it took, the calculations required, was impressive.
Inside the room where the charts were laid out it beneath a sextant it was explained that the US Navy, to avoid their computers being hacked, still, with the help of radar, rely on some of the retro skills.
