Aquitania Down the Years

AQUITANIA ‘DOWN THE YEARS’

Aquitania’s long life ensured that she had to adapt to keep up with the times. When she returned to service in 1920, after the war, Cunard took the opportunity to improve her accommodation to ensure her popularity; after immigration declined in the early 1920s, the focus switched to attracting passengers to the new ‘tourist third cabin’ accommodation provided in the second half of the decade. Several new public rooms for these passengers were provided in the 1929 refit. In the early 1930s, second class and tourist third cabin gave way to tourist class – a single designation – and then in 1936 the North Atlantic Conference renamed first class as ‘cabin class’ onboard Aquitania, as she recovered from the depression and Queen Mary arrived on the scene. These changing circumstances explain many alterations that were made over the years.

The purpose of this short article is to take a brief glance at several changes in the second and first class areas, by comparing them as they were in 1914 to their appearance in 1938, which was the final complete year before Aquitania was withdrawn from the express service to serve in the war. It is not intended to provide an exhaustive analysis of every change, in each passenger class, made during every single refit, as it is beyond the article’s scope to do so. An even more extensive use of images would render the download times intolerable – even for those with a fast internet connection.

Hopefully, the images presented here will be worth the wait.


SECOND AND ‘TOURIST’ CLASS

Twenty-four years later, a central area of the original dining saloon had been converted into a cinema and theatre, and was labelled a ‘theatre and concert hall’ in this deckplan. This alteration had been made during Aquitania’s 1932-33 refit. Another change was the removal of the original second class gymnasium, and the addition of a new winter garden for tourist third class passengers (added during the 1929 refit). Following the abolition of second class, which was renamed tourist, the winter garden was available for all tourist class passengers. (Author’s Collection.)
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FIRST AND ‘CABIN’ CLASS

compare the layout of the Reynolds Suite, forward on the port side, as it was in 1914 and then 1938. The eagle eye can spot many alterations. (Author's collection.)
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