Cue Celine Dion: Underwater Tourists Head for Titanic
Emory Kristof/National Geographic CreativeThe telemotor — used to steer Titanic’s enormous rudder — is all that remains of the wheelhouse.
Before it disappears again — and this time, for good — nine tourists will visit the RMS Titanic for the price of a first-class ticket on the 1912 voyage of the famously “unsinkable” ship.
Blue Marble Private, the London-based travel company offering the May 2018 expedition, says the $105,129 price tag is the same — adjusted for inflation — as what passengers paid to be on the ocean liner’s one and only trip from Southampton, England, to New York more than a century ago ($4,350).
Although it’s arguably the most famous sinking in history (thanks, Jack and Rose), the Titanic has been largely inaccessible to tourists. This could be one of the last chances to see it, as a 2016 study concluded decomposing bacteria could eat away the ship completely in the next 15 to 20 years.
“Fewer than 200 people have ever visited the wreck,” Stockton Rush, CEO of OceanGate Expeditions, which made a custom submarine for the voyage, told Forbes. “This is an incredible opportunity to explore one of the most rarely seen and revered landmarks on the planet.”
So, what’s included in that $105K ticket? First, passengers —called “mission specialists” — will fly to a yacht above the wreck (off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada), which will be the base of operations for the eight-day expedition. On the yacht, they’ll learn the sonar and underwater navigation equipment needed to assist the expedition team in locating the ship’s boilers, propellers or other landmarks. Then they’ll survey the remains of the Titanic itself, dropping more than two miles into the Atlantic Ocean in the OceanGate sub and enjoying the chance to see bioluminescent sea life on the 90-minute descent.
Blue Marble Private has plans for a second expedition in the summer of 2019.
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