Atlantic Crossing from Europe to U.S.
 

Hi.
We are considering taking a ship home to the States after living in Italy for several years. Our belongings will be shipped separately, but we do have two cats we'd like to keep with us.
We are flexible on where we get on/off. The only ship we know of that makes such a trip is the Queen Mary but we don't necessarily want to have to dress up to eat.
Are there other options? Any thoughts/experiences? Many thanks!

Forget about your cats on the Queen Mary.

You may try a cargo ship cruise. Here is a link to a German company which offers a Italy-North America trip at 2475 Euros p.p.

http://www.frachtschiff-reisen.net/

All the major cruise lines reposition several of their ships from European ports to US destinations, usually in the fall:

http://tinyurl.com/3a4uxx

I don't believe any of the "regular" cruise lines allow pets. Only eye-seeing dogs are allowed.

That said, if you decide to take the repositioning cruise, there are many to chose from. Not sure, but there may be couple from cruises available from Italy, or at the very least, you'll be able to join a repositioning cruise as many of them leave from Barcelona and make stops in Italy before heading out to the big pond on the way to Florida. The repositioning cruises happen in the fall, SEP, OCT, NOV.

I got this off the amazing
http://www.seat61.com which is an amazing web site and the guy has only just stopped running this as a hobby and made it his full time job.

For general info on long-distance passenger travel by cargo ship, visit www.geocities.com/freighterman.geo and www.freightertrips.com

US agencies booking passenger travel on cargo ships: www.freightercruises.com & www.freighterworld.com.

UK agencies booking passenger travel on cargo ships: www.strandtravel.co.uk, CruiseAZ , www.cruisepeople.co.uk.

In case you think this is traveling on the cheap we took one from Gdansk to Tilbury (the UK) and ate like pigs, watched world wide TV and slept in luxury.

Thanks, bilboburglar, for posting these web sites.

THANKS to all so far for all the useful ideas and websites. I appreciate you sharing your knowledge!