ARCADIA

Would like confirmation of when I arrived in Australia.

I was on one of the final cruises of the Arcadia. As we approached Sydney Harbour on the final night of our voyage we encountered an extreme storm. I was 15 years old. I woke up in the wee hours. I remembered my legs appearing to lift above my head. My mother told me to go back to sleep which I amazingly did. Our cabin was on a deck. When we woke up the next morning there were burst pipes and towels sopping up a lot of water, strewn all the way along a decks corridors. I remember windows in the dining room had been broken. The dining room was on a top floor above our cabin. That morning the ship limped into Sydney Harbour. I believe she was not fit to embark on her next cruise and was scrapped in Taiwan soon after.

My Aussie grandmother made 3 sea voyages to my family when we were living in Spain in the 1960s. On the first, when my grandfather was still alive, they travelled , I believe, on the Orontes via the Indian Ocean and Suez Canal. A couple of years later she returned, this time on the Oriana via the Panama Canal. My mother met her in Lisbon. The last time in 1967 I recall that she sailed via South Africa, over to Rio and then back to Lisbon. I recently came across a letter my mother wrote to her with an address that included: S.S. Arcadia, P.O. Lines, Casablanca, Morocco. It appears the letter never reached my grandmother and was returned to our address in Spain. On the internet I have found information that flying had cut into the demand for travel by ship, so at some point the Arcadia began to do a mix of cruises and passenger voyages. I am writing up some family history and anecdotes for my late brother’s grandchildren and would be interested in finding out more about this voyage/cruise. It’s not essential for what I am working on, but it has gotten me very curious about my grandmother’s voyage. Thanks.

March 1972 left San Francisco for Sydney on SS Arcadia, 21 days travel time. Passage assistance for parents to immigrate to Australia.