$470 for five days. You can’t beat that price.
UNCLEAR ON THE CONCEPT
By Chuck Shepherd
Chuck Shepherd’s News of the Weird
November 11, 2011
The North Koreans called it a "cruise ship" and tried to establish a business model to attract wealthy tourists from China, but to the New York Times reporter on board in September, the 40-year-old boat was more like a "tramp steamer" on which "vacationers" paid the equivalent of $470 to "enjoy" five days and nights at sea. More than 200 people boarded the "dim" and "musty" vessel, "sometimes eight to a room with floor mattresses" and iffy bathrooms.
The onboard "entertainment" consisted not of shuffleboard but of "decks of cards" and karaoke. Dinner "resembled a mess hall at an American Army base," but with leftovers thrown overboard (even though some of it was blown back on deck). The trip was capped, wrote the Times, by the boat's crashing into the pier as it docked, knocking a corner of the structure "into a pile of rubble." [New York Times, 9-13-2011]
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