17 January 2013

Staterooms in Traveller

  • A repost from my (5-year old and short lived) Traveller blog revising the canon travel classes (low, middle, high) and replacing by a (slightly) more developed system. Upgraded with pictures of real world equivalent to each stateroom.
  • First Class gets you 8 dTon of living space (about 4 of those are your actual stateroom, the rest being used for lounge, gangways...) This is a luxurious way of traveling, with matching service, used by noble, managers and wealthy people, roughly comparable to real world airplanes First Class.
A Deluxe Balcony Stateroom on board RMS Queen Mary 2: 4 dTon.
But then again, the balcony might not be such a great idea in space...
  • Business Class gets you 4 dTon of living space (2dTon the actual stateroom). It's the equivalent of a OTU stateroom and the way most people travel (e.g. businessmen, public servants and military people on a mission, tourists). It's roughly equivalent to real world airplanes Economy Class.
An interior stateroom on board cruise ship MV Allure of the Seas: 2,25 dTon
  • Economy Class gets you 2 dTon of living space (1dTon the actual stateroom). It gets really cramped and service is minimal (think disposable sheets and towels, reheated food and paying drinks). This class (used by students, families on paid holidays and other people with just enough money to avoid cold sleep) is the equivalent of real world low cost carriers.
A Deluxe Sleeping Compartment on board a DB City Night Line train: 0,9 dTon
  • Note that all staterooms can be shared (effectively reducing the per person price by half) either with someone you know and travel with or with another random passenger (not all lines allow for the later). Some lines charge let's say 10% extra for this (the extra service and consumables required by that second person), other go the other way around and grant a 10% reduction for single occupancy.
  • Better staterooms are sometimes offered. This is usually only seen on large liners proposing a couple of prestigious suites in addition to their First Class staterooms. The exact size and configuration (and price) of those suites vary a lot from line to line (even a given ship can have several suites of various size and prices). One thing common to most  of those suits is a private lounge (although the guests of a suite usually retain access to the First Class lounge should they enjoy a bit of social interaction). 
The living room of the Grand Duplex on board QM2
  • Unlike in the OTU, staterooms are build for a certain class and cannot be upgraded by providing better food and bigger smiles...  Upgrading (or downgrading) a stateroom is possible but require removing (adding) bulkhead and refurnishing the newly made space. Most small starships only have one type of stateroom, lacking the space needed to provide the different level of service matching each class. Larger starships generally have either both First and Business or Economy only, and only a few line have experimented with three classes ships, with very moderate success. 
  • Actual class designation vary a great deal between lines: Standard, Basic, Essential, Ivory, Silver, Gold, Noble, Premium, Elite, Prestige, Imperial are some of the designations encountered. Note that a single designation can be used for different class depending on the line: a given line could provide Business and First under the names Silver and Gold while an other provide exactly the same service under the names Gold and Platinum. To add to the confusion, low cost lines providing Economy only often give them impressing designation trying to avoid a low comfort reputation.
Picture of the above train sleeper compartment: very nice indeed for
a train night, but think about spending one week in jump in there...
  • In the same logic, cold sleep passages are often given idyllic names (e.g. Dream Class),  trying to make the prospect of being shipped in a freezer a bit less gritty...

2 comments:

  1. the balcony might look out down onto an internal patio.
    A bit of a safety liability, but, hey, YOLO, isn't it?

    ReplyDelete
  2. ALL TRAVELLERS SWINGING ON THE GRAND LOBBY CHANDELIER WILL BE PROSECUTED!

    ReplyDelete