titanic tour company

Titanic tour company offered up-close experience for $250,000

Modern in-person tourism at the Titanic is still in its infancy. 

The submersible that disappeared Sunday near the Titanic wreckage was on only its third trip since the company OceanGate Expeditions began offering them in 2021. 

OceanGate had been promoting the third dive for months on its website and in Facebook posts, offering the chance to “follow in Jacques Cousteau’s footsteps and become an underwater explorer” — for the price of $250,000. 

“ Become one of the few to see the Titanic with your own eyes,” the tour company said on its website. The ticket comes with a title: “mission specialist.” 

Participants have included a chef, an actor, a videographer and someone who worked in banking, the company said on Facebook. 

One of the customers said on Instagram last year that it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience that lived up to her expectations. 

“My lifelong dream of seeing the Titanic has come true!” Chelsea Kellogg, a chef, wrote. “I am still trying to process the whole experience. I’m still crying. Still overwhelmed by all the emotions.” 

Kellogg, who did not respond to an interview request Monday, said she saw the ship’s bow, crow’s-nest and grand staircase. 

OceanGate seems to be the only company offering dive tours to the Titanic wreckage, underscoring the practical difficulty of reaching the site 12,500 feet down in the cold North Atlantic where the ship sank in 1912. About 1,500 people died. 

The resting place of the Titanic was unknown for decades, eluding several groups of researchers racing to find it, until a team led by the explorer Robert Ballard succeeded in 1985. Visits — some of them by artifact hunters — continued off and on for two decades.

Don Lynch, the Titanic Historical Society’s historian, said there was some tourism in the 1990s and early this century, when there were both artifacts to find and Russian-made submersibles capable of reaching the site’s depth. A Los Angeles artist went down in 2000 and produced watercolors from the experience .

Lynch, who went down in 2001, said that eventually, the visits trickled off as Russian-made submersibles were retired and fewer artifacts remained.

“There was a lot of salvage going on prior to that, and I think it reached the point where they weren’t bringing up anything that was increasing the museum visits,” he said. 

Until now, no submersible at the Titanic site had ever gone missing, he said.

Beginning in 2005, there was a 14-year dry spell with no human visits. Then, in 2019, another group visited the wreckage site and reported its rapid deterioration. The pace of visits has picked up since. 

RMS Titanic Inc., the company that owns the ship’s salvage rights, once tried to stop tourist visits, hoping to use pictures and tourism operations of its own to raise money for salvage operations, but in 1999 a federal appeals court ruled that tourists could visit , The Washington Post reported. 

Lynch said he thinks the site should have been treated as an archaeological site with careful documentation of all artifacts. He said he has no objection, though, to tourist visits, especially if they help to pay for research.

“Go down. Take a look. That’s great. It doesn’t damage the ship,” he said. 

Past participants praise the experience in a video OceanGate posted on YouTube in October. The video does not give their names. 

“This is a remarkable event in my life,” one person in the video says. 

“Not many people have done it, and that’s part of the appeal, too, right?” another says. 

Customers travel to the Titanic area from St. John’s, Newfoundland, aboard a ship — this year, the research vessel Polar Prince. 

On dive days, five people can fit into the submersible, named Titan, and the descent takes a couple of hours , OceanGate’s website says . 

“You may assist the pilot with coms and tracking, take notes for the science team about what you see outside of the viewport, watch a movie or eat lunch,” it says. 

There is a small toilet in Titan’s front dome, the website continues. It “doubles as the best seat in the house. When the toilet is in use, we install a privacy curtain between the dome and the main compartment and turn the music up loud.” 

OceanGate’s website promises “hours of exploring” before a two-hour ascent. 

There is required safety training for everyone on the research vessel, the website says. Beyond that, training depends on how much customers want to do, such as assisting with navigation. 

Stockton Rush, the founder of OceanGate, told the travel website Frommer’s in 2020 that about half of his customer pool were Titanic obsessives, while the other half were big-spending travelers also drawn to space tourism and other big-budget ideas. The original price back then was $125,000, or half this year’s price. 

“You couldn’t write a better story,” Rush told the website. “You have the rich and the poor. You have opulence. You have hubris. You have tragedy. You have death.”

The company initially planned to have six expeditions in 2021, Frommer’s reported, but it ended up running one that year and one last year. 

Before then, getting a close-up view of the Titanic’s wreckage meant visiting one of several museums where there are artifacts — including one at the Luxor hotel in Las Vegas — or perhaps visiting one of the replicas in Pigeon Forge , Tennessee, or Branson , Missouri. 

OceanGate’s website laid out various details of this year’s expedition, including a minimum age of 18. The price included training, gear and meals on the ship but not airfare, hotels before departure or insurance. 

Lynch, the historian, said the tours demonstrate the lasting curiosity about the Titanic.

“The movie really brought it to a younger audience and created a lot of new Titanic enthusiasts,” he said, referring to director James Cameron’s 1997 film. “Every couple decades, something happens that puts it back in the public eye.” 

David Ingram covers tech for NBC News.

Here’s How You Can Visit the Wreck of the Titanic—for $125,000

A series of expeditions will take tourists down to the ill-fated ship in 2021

Courtesy of NOAA/Institute for Exploration/University of Rhode Island (NOAA/IFE/URI)

You’re probably familiar with the RMS Titanic: in 1912, the world’s largest ocean liner of the day embarked on her maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York, during which she struck an iceberg, sank, and ultimately took more than 1,500 lives. The Titanic’s final resting place remained a mystery until 1985, when American marine geologist Robert Ballard and French oceanographer Jean-Louis Michel discovered the wreck in the crushing depths of the frigid North Atlantic, nearly 2.5 miles beneath the surface of the sea. 

Rather unsurprisingly, visiting the Titanic has become a bucket-list trip for maritime historians, oceanographers, and, well, anyone who has deep enough pockets to go. However, expeditions are rare: only one team has visited the site in-person in the last 15 years. But all that’s about to change.

OceanGate Expeditions , a company that provides well-heeled clients with once-in-a-lifetime underwater experiences, has announced a series of six trips to the Titanic via submersible in 2021. Each has space for nine paying tourists, whose $125,000 tickets will help offset the cost of the expeditions (and put a pretty penny in the pocket of OceanGate owner Stockton Rush).

OceanGate’s expeditions will each run for 10 days out of St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada. Nine tourists, who are actually dubbed “mission specialists” on this expedition, will join the expedition crew on each sailing, and they’ll be expected to participate in the research efforts—this isn’t just a sightseeing affair. OceanGate’s goal is to extensively document the Titanic wreck before it disintegrates entirely due to a deep-sea bacteria that eats iron, which researchers are concerned might happen within the next few decades. As this is a scientific project, mission specialists will have to meet certain physical criteria to ensure their compatibility with the expedition, not to mention training, which includes a test dive.

On each expedition, each mission specialist will be able to partake in a single six- to eight-hour dive to the Titanic via the private Titan submarine, which includes the 90-minute descent and 90-minute ascent. The sub seats five—a pilot, a scientist or researcher, and three mission specialists—and it does have a small, semi-private bathroom for emergencies, in case you were wondering.

Now, it should be known that this isn’t OceanGate’s first attempt to visit the iconic wreck: two previous expeditions had to be scrubbed. (In 2018, the sub was hit by lightning, and its electrical systems were fried, and in 2019, there were issues with sourcing a ship for the expedition.) But hey, perhaps the third time's the charm!

Several international treaties protect the Titanic—the wreck sits in international waters—but their primary goal is to prevent looters and illegal salvage operations from damaging and disrespecting the wreck. However, in terms of tourism, it’s actually perfectly legal to visit the wreck, so long as the expedition doesn’t intrude upon it (i.e., land on the deck or enter the hull.)

“A review of the International Agreement on Titanic, as well as the 2001 UNESCO Convention on Underwater Cultural Heritage, would reveal that non-intrusive visits do not even require a permit or authorization,” said Ole Varmer, a retired legal advisor to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), who was instrumental in negotiating the legal protection of the wreck. “The scope of the prohibition against commercial exploitation of underwater cultural heritage is to prevent unauthorized salvage and looting; it does not include non-intrusive visits regardless of whether they are for-profit or not.”

In terms of OceanGate Expeditions, the company is working with NOAA, the federal agency in charge of implementing the International Agreement on Titanic for U.S.-based Titanic activities, to ensure it follows all protocols set down by that agreement.

There are two major factors to consider regarding ethically visiting the Titanic. First, it’s a memorial site to the lives lost during the disaster, so the wreck should be treated with respect. But that, of course, is true of all memorial sites around the world.

“Speaking as one who visited Titanic’s wreck twice during RMS Titanic, Inc.'s 1993 and 1996 Research and Recovery expeditions, I see nothing unethical about visiting the wreck, nor about helping to defray the significant expense of bringing a visitor to the wreck,” explained Charles Haas, president of the Titanic International Society. “People around the world learn by seeing and visiting. They pay for access to museums, cathedrals, monuments, exhibitions, and, yes, final resting places.”

But second, it’s a fragile piece of cultural heritage. It should be protected—the expedition organizer must take appropriate steps to ensure that it won’t disturb the wreck.

“In the past, submersibles visiting the site by RMS Titanic, Inc. [the only company legally allowed to salvage the wreck], and others have rested on the deck of the hull portions,” says Varmer. “That practice has likely caused some harm and exacerbated the deterioration of the site.  Hopefully, that will no longer be practiced or permitted.”

Per OceanGate’s description of its expeditions, the company’s submersible won’t disturb the wreck, so if you have $125,000 lying around, fee; free to spring for the bucket-list trip of 2021!

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Titanic submarine tour company OceanGate Expeditions: What to know

Voyage is oceangate's fifth expedition to the wreck of the titanic this year.

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A search and rescue mission is underway for a submersible that was reported missing in the Atlantic Ocean while taking tourists to the submerged wreck of the Titanic on Monday.

The sub belongs to OceanGate Expeditions, a company that provides crewed submersible services for exploration, industry and research purposes. The U.S. Coast Guard is participating in the search and has reported that five people are aboard the vessel, including one crew member and four "mission specialists." An air search is underway and several ships are heading to the area to assist. 

OceanGate’s expeditions to the Titanic depart from St. John’s, Newfoundland, to the wreck of the Titanic about 370 miles away. The trips take eight days and each dive to the wreck and ascent to the surface reportedly takes roughly eight hours. Passengers pay about $250,000 to participate in the trip, and the latest expedition to the Titanic is reportedly OceanGate’s fifth of the year.

OceanGate, which was founded in 2009 by Stockton Rush, has several custom-built submersibles including Titan, which was designed to reach depths of 13,123 feet necessary to visit the wreck of the Titanic, which lies at a depth of about 12,500 feet. The Titan utilizes SpaceX's Starlink satellite communications system when at sea.

SUBMARINE USED FOR TOURIST VISITS TO TITANIC WRECKAGE GOES MISSING IN THE ATLANTIC

A search is underway for a submersible from OceanGate Expeditions on a tourist trip to the wreck of the Titanic was reported missing after it lost contact with the research vessel it was launched from. (Image: © NOAA/Institute for Exploration/University of Rhode Island / Fox News)

The submersible is designed to surface automatically if it encounters technical problems. A Coast Guard C-130 aircraft is searching for the sub on the surface, while a P-8 Poseidon has also been dispatched from Rescue Coordination Center Halifax. The Poseidon is an aircraft that specializes in maritime patrol operations and has underwater detection capabilities it can utilize by dropping sonobuoys in a search area.

OceanGate’s website says that the Titan has life support capabilities sufficient to sustain its five-person crew for 96 hours. According to the Coast Guard, the submersible departed the Canadian research vessel Polar Prince on Sunday morning for its trip to the Titanic, and the ship lost contact with the sub after about an hour and 45 minutes. That would leave rescuers with about 72 hours left to find the sub according to reports, unless it suffered a catastrophic failure and failed to surface.

"We are exploring and mobilizing all options to bring the crew back safely," OceanGate said in a statement. "Our entire focus is on the crewmembers in the submersible and their families. We are deeply thankful for the extensive assistance we have received from several government agencies and deep sea companies in our efforts to reestablish contact with the submersible. We are working toward the safe return of the crewmembers."

26-YEAR-OLD TITANIC MYSTERY FINALLY SOLVED BY DIVERS

Aside from its trips to the Titanic, OceanGate’s website lists several expeditions that its submersibles have conducted in recent years.

It lists expeditions in spring 2022 and fall 2023 for its "Four Subs Project" – a mission to document the wrecks of four historic submarines in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Rhode Island, including one German U-boat from World War II .

The Titanic sank after striking an iceberg in the Atlantic north of Newfoundland in April 1912. Between 1,491 and 1,513 persons died during the wreck. The wreck is lying 4000 meters.  (Getty Images / Getty Images)

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OceanGate also lists expeditions to Hudson Canyon off the coast of New York City that interested tourists may inquire about.

In years past, OceanGate expeditions have occurred in the Salish Sea near Friday Harbor, Washington; the wreck of the Andrea Doria near Nantucket, Massachusetts ; a wrecked steamboat in Lake Laberge in the Yukon Territory, Canada; a CIA diver lockout chamber off Catalina Island, California; and more.

FOX Business’ Anders Hagstrom contributed to this report.

Missing Titanic submersible live updates: Texts show OceanGate CEO dismissed concerns

Five people, including the company CEO, were aboard the sub when it imploded.

All passengers are believed to be lost after a desperate dayslong search for a submersible carrying five people that vanished while on a tour of the Titanic wreckage off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada.

The 21-foot deep-sea vessel, operated by OceanGate Expeditions , lost contact about an hour and 45 minutes after submerging on Sunday morning with a 96-hour oxygen supply. That amount of breathable air was forecast to run out on Thursday morning, according to the United States Coast Guard, which was coordinating the multinational search and rescue efforts.

Latest headlines:

Rcmp to investigate the deaths aboard titan sub, us taxpayer cost for search and rescue may be $1.5 million, expert says, oceangate ceo claimed sub was safer than scuba diving, texts show.

• OceanGate co-founder defends development of submersible
• Sub's carbon-fiber composite hull was the 'critical failure,' James Cameron says
• Probe seeks answers on why Titanic sub imploded
• Navy likely detected sound of the implosion on Sunday: Official
• All lives believed to be lost: OceanGate

Officials with Canada's Transportation Safety Board said at a press conference Saturday that they have begun speaking with people on board the Polar Prince, which launched the ill-fated Titan submersible.

The Polar Prince returned to its port, St. John's, Newfoundland, on Saturday morning.

"I would say that we've received full cooperation," TSB Director of Marine Investigations Clifford Harvey said. "It's been a really good interaction thus far and is really getting full cooperation with all the individuals involved."

In addition, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) said they are "examining the circumstances" of the deaths on board Titan, and will launch a full investigation if "the circumstances indicate criminal, federal or provincial laws may possibly have been broken."

-ABC News' Matt J. Foster

A defense budget expert estimates once the U.S. military participation concludes, the cost for the search and rescue mission of the five passengers on board the Titan submersible will cost the U.S. around $1.5 million.

Mark Cancian, a senior advisor with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, came up with the estimate based on aircraft sorties, cross referencing the U.S. Department of Defense cost numbers, Coast Guard Cutter costs and flying hour costs. He said some costs have already been set aside in various budgets, with resources simply diverted to the site.

He emphasized that these are strictly well-informed guesses.

A spokesperson for the Coast Guard's District 1 in Boston would not give an estimate of costs so far, saying, "We cannot attribute a monetary value to Search and Rescue cases, as the Coast Guard does not associate cost with saving a life."

-ABC News' Jaclyn C. Lee

US Coast Guard to lead sub investigation

The U.S. Coast Guard will be the organization leading the investigation into the OceanGate sub incident.

The NTSB announced the news on Friday via Twitter, noting it will "contribute to their efforts."

A Las Vegas father and son told ABC News OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush pressured them for months into taking two seats on the now failed mission to the Titanic, making bold claims about the vessel's safety.

Financier Jay Bloom shared text messages between himself and Rush where Rush dismissed concerns from Bloom and his son Sean about taking the trip on the Titan submersible.

"While there's obviously a risk it's way safer than flying in a helicopter or even scuba diving," Rush texted.

"He sort of had this predisposition that it was safe," Bloom told ABC News. "And anybody who disagreed with him, he felt it was just a differing opinion."

Bloom added that Rush flew out to Las Vegas in a homebuilt plane to convince him to attend the voyage aboard the submersible.

"He flew it all the way to Vegas. And I was like, 'This guy is definitely down to take risk,'" Bloom said.

-ABC News' Sam Sweeney

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What is submersible tourism? The Titanic expedition, explained.

How common are deep-sea expeditions like the titan’s where else do submersibles go.

Seeing the wreck of the Titanic firsthand is a journey.

One must board a submersible vessel about the size of a minivan built to withstand the pressure of descending nearly two and a half miles into the depths of the Atlantic Ocean . It takes about two hours to reach the sunken ship and another two to get back to the surface, plus time for exploration.

And even with a price tag of a quarter of a million dollars, there has been no shortage of people with interest for such an adventure. Philippe Brown, founder of the luxury travel company Brown and Hudso , said there’s a long wait list for the OceanGate Expeditions submersible experience at the center of the world’s attention. The vessel, called the Titan, vanished Sunday in the North Atlantic with five onboard , triggering a wide-reaching search mission that ended Thursday, when the Coast Guard said a remotely operated vehicle discovered debris from the vessel on the ocean floor. Pieces of the submersible indicated it had imploded in a “catastrophic event," Coast Guard officials said. A spokesperson for OceanGate said the pilot and passengers “have sadly been lost."

For the world’s richest and most intrepid travelers, a submersible trip is not so far-fetched, says Roman Chiporukha, co-founder of Roman & Erica, a travel company for ultrawealthy clients with annual membership dues starting at $100,000.

“These are the people who’ve scaled the seven peaks, they’ve crossed the Atlantic on their own boat,” Chiporukha said. The typical vacation of the ultrawealthy, like a beach getaway on the Italian Riviera or St. Barts, “really doesn’t do it for them,” he added.

That description fits tycoon Hamish Harding , who was among the five people on Titan. An avid adventurer who’s thoroughly explored the South Pole and the Mariana Trench, Harding was also on the fifth spaceflight of Blue Origin , the private space company founded by Jeff Bezos, who owns The Washington Post.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Capt. Hamish Harding (@actionaviationchairman)

Harding and the Titan journey represent the extreme end of the submersible tourism industry, which has been growing in popularity since the 1980s. Ofer Ketter , a longtime submersibles pilot and co-founder of SubMerge , a firm that provides consulting and operations of private submersibles, says such deep-sea journeys are rare in comparison to those in more tropical locations. For example, the luxury tour operator Kensington Tours offers a $700,000, 10-day yacht trip that includes a 600-plus-foot dive in a submersible in the Bahamas to explore the Exumas ocean floor.

Here’s what else to know about the industry.

Deep water, high pressure: Why the Titanic sub search is so complex

Missing Titanic submersible

The latest: After an extensive search, the Coast Guard found debris fields that have been indentified as the Titan submersible. OceanGate, the tour company, has said all 5 passengers are believed dead.

The Titan: The voyage to see the Titanic wreckage is eight days long, costs $250,000 and is open to passengers age 17 and older. The Titan is 22 feet long, weighs 23,000 pounds and “has about as much room as a minivan,” according to CBS correspondent David Pogue. Here’s what we know about the missing submersible .

The search: The daunting mission covers the ocean’s surface and the vast depths beneath. The search poses unique challenges that are further complicated by the depths involved. This map shows the scale of the search near the Titanic wreckage .

The passengers: Hamish Harding , an aviation businessman, aircraft pilot and seasoned adventurer, posted on Instagram that he was joining the expedition and said retired French navy commander Paul-Henri Nargeolet was also onboard. British Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his son, Suleman, 19, were also on the expedition, their family confirmed. The CEO of OceanGate , the submersible expedition company, was also on the vessel. Here’s what we know about the five missing passengers.

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Seattle founder of submersible company is among the 5 people missing

(Bloomberg) — Five people are on board a submersible vessel that has gone missing in the North Atlantic during an expedition to the Titanic shipwreck. 

The group includes Hamish Harding, founder of investment firm Action Group and an avid adventurer. The 58-year-old Briton holds three Guinness World Records, including the longest time spent traversing the deepest part of the ocean — the Mariana Trench — on a single dive, and the fastest navigation of Earth via the North and South Poles by plane. 

Others on the missing Titan vessel include Seattle resident Stockton Rush, founder of OceanGate Expeditions, the company that put on the trip to the Titanic. Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman, members of one of the most prominent business families in Pakistan, are also on board, their relatives confirmed in a statement. The pilot of the sub is Frenchman Paul Henry Nargeolet, according to reports. 

More about the submersible and its passengers

• More presumed human remains recovered from submersible, Coast Guard says (Oct. 10)
• A diver feared the Titan sub, but couldn’t resist the Titanic
• OceanGate suspends all operations after submersible implosion 
• Recovering the Titan 12,500 feet underwater was dangerous, emotional
• International group of agencies investigating Titan disaster
• OceanGate cofounder recalls origins, defends late CEO’s approach to safety
• WA researchers remember red flags and discoveries on OceanGate submersible
• Titanic sub disaster shines spotlight on ethics of adventure travel

Harding, whose birthday is this coming Saturday, wrote in a June 18 post on Instagram that this was likely to be the only manned mission to the Titanic in 2023 “due to the worst weather in Newfoundland in 40 years.”

“A weather window has just opened up and we are going to attempt a dive tomorrow,” he wrote. 

The U.S. Coast Guard said it received a call Sunday from the Titan’s command ship saying that contact had been lost. Planes have been dispatched as part of the search. According to OceanGate’s website, the Titan has a life-support system that can sustain a five-person crew for 96 hours. 

Here is some more information on the crew:

Hamish Harding

Harding is an accomplished businessman who founded UK- and Dubai-based private equity company Action Group in 2002. The business includes Action Aviation, which offers aircraft brokerage, management and financing services. 

His world record for longest time at the bottom of the ocean came in March 2021, when he spent 4 hours 15 minutes on the sea floor of Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench in a submergence vehicle. That’s a depth of 10,930 meters (35,850 feet). His fastest circumnavigation via both poles took 46 hours and 40 minutes and was done in July 2019. He was the pilot and mission director. 

Harding’s other Guinness World Record is for the longest distance traveled along the deepest part of the ocean — 4.634 kilometers (2.88 miles), which he did during the Mariana Trench dive in 2021. He also went to the edge of space last year with Blue Origin LLC, the American company founded by Amazon.com Inc.’s Jeff Bezos.

Harding graduated from the University of Cambridge with a degree in natural sciences and chemical engineering. He is married and has two children. 

Stockton Rush

Rush, president of OceanGate, hoped to make the Titanic more accessible with visits to the wreckage aboard his privately owned five-person sub. The initial goal was to take paying guests to the site on weekly visits from May to September, coupling the trips with research efforts that allow passengers to contribute as citizen scientists.  

Rush, who augmented inherited wealth via angel and venture investing, has a degree from Princeton University in aerospace engineering and an MBA from UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. Now in his early 60s, Rush became the youngest jet transport-rated pilot in the world when, at 19, he obtained his Captain’s rating at the United Airlines Jet Training Institute in 1981, according to his biography on the OceanGate website.

He worked with Boeing Co. on an early design of the Titan carbon-fiber sub and then with NASA.

He has experienced aborted trips to the Titanic wreckage site in the past — his sub was hit by lightning in 2018, destroying its electrical system and scuttling the mission. A second attempt ended unsuccessfully the next year because of issues with the “mother ship” used to transport the team and equipment.

While he initially targeted space, and modeled his efforts after Star Trek’s Captain Kirk, Rush said he realized that his desire to discover new life-forms and go where no man had gone before was more likely in the ocean.

Shahzada and Suleman Dawood

The Dawoods are members of one of Pakistan’s most prominent families, which released a statement Tuesday confirming they are on board the Titan. 

“Contact has been lost with their submersible craft and there is limited information available. A rescue effort that is being jointly led by multiple government agencies and deep-sea companies is underway to reestablish contact with the submersible and bring them back safely,” it said. 

“We are very grateful for the concern being shown by our colleagues and friends and would like to request everyone to pray for their safety while granting the family privacy at this time. The family is well looked after and are praying to Allah for the safe return of their family members.”

Shahzada Dawood is vice chairman of Engro Corp., which has businesses stretching from fertilizers to power generation. He graduated from the University of Buckingham with a law degree in 1998 and from Philadelphia University with a Master’s in textile marketing in 2000. 

Paul Henry Nargeolet

Nargeolet is a preeminent diver and considered to be the world’s leading expert on the Titanic wreckage and its debris field, which stretches 25 square nautical miles. He is director of underwater research for Experiential Media Group, or E/M Group, and RMS Titanic Inc., and has completed dozens of submersible dives to the crash site. 

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He was born in Chamonix, France, and lived with his family in Africa for 13 years, completed his studies in Paris and spent 22 years in the French Navy, rising to rank of commander, according to his biography on the E/M Group’s website. He led the first recovery expedition to the Titanic in 1987 after joining the French Institute for Research and Exploitation of Sea. 

Nargeolet spoke with the Titanic Channel about what would happen to someone stuck at the wreckage site, saying the cold would be one of the greatest dangers and pointing out that explorers are aware of the risks. 

This story includes information from Seattle Times reporter Paige Cornwell and assistance from Bloomberg’s Faseeh Mangi.

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com

©2023 Bloomberg L.P.

Tour Company Offers (Very Expensive) Dives to ‘Titanic’ Wreckage

For a mere $105,129 per person, thrill-seekers can explore the ruins of the ill-fated ship

Brigit Katz

Correspondent

On April 14th 1912, some two hours after its fateful collision with an iceberg, the RMS Titanic sank to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. It has remained at a depth of 13,000 feet ever since, romanticized by many ( ahem , James Cameron), but seen by very few. Now, John O'Ceallaigh reports for the Telegraph , a luxury travel company based in London is offering eight-day journeys to the site of the Titanic , which will culminate in deep-sea tours of the wreckage.

Blue Marble Private plans to launch its tours, open to just nine people at a time, in May of 2018. The trip will begin with a helicopter ride from St. John’s, a city on the island of Newfoundland, Canada, to a yacht stationed near the Titanic ’s resting place. Clients will spend the first half of the journey hearing from explorers, scientists and expedition crew so that they can learn about the workings of the ship. Those who are so inclined can participate in orientation sessions about deep sea diving, which will include instruction on operating sonars and using underwater navigation systems.

Days three to six of the trip are when clients will have the chance to travel to the depths of the ocean in a “specially designed titanium and carbon fibre submersible,” according to Blue Marble’s website . The equipment will let travellers, “glide over the ship’s deck and famous grand staircase capturing a view that very few have seen, or ever will.”

The expedition isn’t just for leisure: It’s part of a larger scientific expedition run by  OceanGate Expeditions  with a goal of creating the first 3D images of the Titanic in over a decade and documenting the current conditions of the ship. The tourists along for the ride will serve as “mission specialists” and the fees for travel will help fund the team’s scientific project.

The cost of this unique experience? A mere $105,129 per person. When you adjust for inflation, O'Ceallaigh points out the number is just about equal to the price of a first-class ticket for the Titanic ’s maiden voyage in 1912.

This isn’t the first time that tours of the ill-fated ship have been offered to those willing to pay the price. High-end travel service Bluefish also takes small groups to view the Titanic ’s wreckage. The company Deep Ocean Expeditions once chartered dives to the Titanic , but discontinued its program in 2012.

Though the purpose of the latest expedition is more science than leisure, past commercial trips to the Titanic have been the subject of controversy, Brian Handwerk reported for National Geographic   in 2012.  Some concerns center around questions of propriety. More than 1,500 people drowned when the Titanic went under, and some experts and advocates believe that luxury expeditions to the site are in bad taste.  Others worry that the wreckage is threatened by its increased accessibility.

"[W]e have smoking gun evidence of all kinds of damage,” Bob Ballard, a deep-sea explorer who discovered the Titanic ’s ruins in 1985, told Handwerk. “We have a photo mosaic of the ship before any submarines showed up, and [today] we can show you where they’ve landed on the ship. We can show you where they knocked the crow’s nest off."

But it seems likely that thrill seekers with deep pockets will continue to seek out opportunities to catch a glimpse of the supposedly “ unsinkable ” ship. For better or for worse, the Titanic remains a source of fascination some 105 years after it plunged to the bottom of the ocean.

Editor's Note , March 24, 2017: This story has been updated to include the role of Ocean Gate Expeditions.

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Brigit Katz | | READ MORE

Brigit Katz is a freelance writer based in Toronto. Her work has appeared in a number of publications, including NYmag.com, Flavorwire and Tina Brown Media's Women in the World.

Titanic Tours: What To Know About These Underwater Excursions

With today's advanced technology, it's easier than ever to discover new ways to explore shipwrecks, such as the Titanic, with tours like these.

It's safe to say that when an iceberg pierced the Titanic on its maiden voyage just over 100 years ago, no one was thinking about turning the shipwreck into a tourist attraction. But now, in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the sinking, some travel companies are offering tours of the site. Visitors can take an expensive excursion or they can simply look on Google, where the wreck is pictured in all its rustic, 3-D glory.

It's a surreal sight ― especially if you know that when the Titanic went down in 1912 it claimed more than 1,500 lives. But is visiting the ship such a good idea? Absolutely, yes!

Package Tours On Titanic Shipwreck Underwater Excursions

There are now two companies offering underwater tours of the Titanic's wreckage. Bluefish and OceanGate, which has its headquarters in Everett Washington, both offer dives to the site that cost roughly $60,000- $105,129 per person, not including airfare or lodging. But what do you get for this price? Here's what to know about the tours:

Now that the wreckage is covered with silt again and no longer clear enough for photographs, some pictures taken on previous dives have been reproduced on tours' brochures. Up-close views of Titanic's exterior can also be seen in the James Cameron documentary Titanic.

Bluefish's brochures claim that "the wreck is eminently photographable providing an opportunity for multiple dive photography." OceanGate's website notes that there are at least a dozen friezes from the ship above water. Both tour companies are adamant about protecting the site and the body of water around it, possibly due to the controversy that arose last year when one company was using a ship to drop tourists onto the wreckage.

A Bluefish video demonstrates what it's like inside the sub by dropping a GoPro camera into an empty one as well as dead still sharks. It also shows some footage of Titanic itself before it was covered up with silt and debris.

Tourists will use OceanGate's custom-built submersibles made out of titanium, not unlike those used for space missions like Apollo 13. The sub is big enough for three passengers and has a window, touchscreen monitors for navigation, a pressure gauge, and all the equipment that tourists will need to live.

Both companies will take precautions like deploying a safety diver. They also plan to check guests' lungs for signs of pneumonia before each dive to ensure that they are healthy enough.

The Titanic sank in 1912 and many people died, but the wreck was never declared a cemetery or war gravesite, so knocking on it is prohibited. Both companies also request that tourists don't take chunks of the ship as souvenirs, which has happened before with other famous wrecks like the Lusitania.

RELATED:   This Is What The Menu On The Titanic Would Have Looked Like, Compared To Cruise Menus Today

5 Things To Take Note About the Titanic Wreck Site

Once you’ve decided on which company to go through to visit this sunken piece of history, the basic accommodations are all set! While the entire site itself is a historical wonder, there are a few things to note. Below are different things to be aware of before you take a dive.

What To Bring With You When Visiting The Underwater Wreckage

According to Blue Marble Private, divers should bring nothing larger than a handbag with them on the excursion. Their kit will include a snorkel plus mask, computer, and regulator, wetsuit, and boots.

What To Expect When Diving At The Site Of The Titanic Wreck

Divers will be able to explore the three most important parts of the wreckage, including its bow section, stern and engine room. Each area has plenty of marine life, so you might feel as though you're swimming through a fishbowl.

RELATED:   What Really Happened To The Titanic's Captain, And Did He Survive Like Some People Claimed?

What To Know When Diving At The Site Of The Titanic Wreck

Dive trips are run with a maximum of 12 divers at one time, and the company cautions that diving can be strenuous if you're not fit or healthy enough for it. This is why they recommend medical checks before each excursion.

What Not To Do When Visiting The Underwater Wreckage Of The Titanic

You must report any sightings of the wreck to the government agencies responsible for its protection, i.e., the Maritime and Coast Guard Agency (MCA) in Belfast. You should also respect all regulations that surround this precious archeological site.

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What To Expect From The Marine Life At The Site Of The Titanic Wreck

Titanic wreck excursions are perfect for snorkelers and scuba divers alike , and visitors will be able to reap the benefits of both in one visit. There are plenty of fish to see if you're snorkeling, and you might even spot some whale sharks, too.

What To Know About The Safety Measures In Place For The Tour

According to the Titanic wreck tour operator's website, there are a number of safety measures in place to ensure that visitors have an enjoyable experience. These include two divers per dive, a support crew on the surface, and medical staff. Visitors should always bring a whistle with them, especially since it is an international sign of distress. A knife and glow stick will also be useful in an emergency.

Titanic wreck trips are a unique and exciting way to learn about the history of one of the most famous vessels to ever sail the seas, which is why they're so popular among Titanic enthusiasts as well as people who have never seen it before. They're also great for anyone who loves the water since it's a chance to explore something man-made while enjoying the natural beauty of an underwater ecosystem. The fact that you can set foot where no other human has for nearly 100 years only adds to the appeal, making this one of the most fascinating excursions you can take.

NEXT:   What The Titanic Looks Like Now Vs The Day It Sank

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Famous figures who had Titanic tickets but didn't make it on board

Posted: April 14, 2024 | Last updated: April 14, 2024

• As the Titanic was the height of luxury in 1912, some celebrities had tickets for its maiden voyage.
• But not all of them ended up boarding the ship.
• J. Pierpont Morgan and Milton Hershey were among those who missed the disaster.

The sinking of the Titanic in April 1912 still captivates us today, with numerous books, a multibillion-dollar movie , museums , and, controversially, expensive tours of the wreckage available.

Interest in the ship led to another maritime tragedy last year when an OceanGate submersible went missing on the way to the wreckage and was eventually confirmed to have imploded , killing all five people on board.

In the aftermath, stories emerged about people invited to participate in one of OceanGate's trips but decided against it — much like, more than 100 years ago, how people were fascinated with those who had almost been on the Titanic.

Here are seven notable figures, some of whom were among the richest people in the world, who were supposed to sail on the Titanic's maiden voyage but didn't — and four well-known people who were booked to go on a future journey with the ship.

Milton Hershey, the founder of Hershey's, sent the White Star Line a $300 check to reserve a spot on the Titanic, but he ended up sailing home on the SS Amerika instead.

As they aged, Hershey and his wife, Catherine, spent their winters on the French Riviera. In December 1911, the couple left for another extended European vacation. For their return journey, Hershey wrote a $300 check from the Hershey Trust Company to the White Star Line to reserve places on the maiden voyage of the company's brand-new ship, the Titanic.

According to Lancaster History , pressing business matters forced Hershey to cut his vacation short, and he left Europe just days before the Titanic would set sail, instead heading home on a German liner called the Amerika, which would later warn the Titanic about the dangerous amount of ice.

Hershey's canceled check is still in the possession of the Hershey Community Archives , and you can view it online.

J. Pierpont Morgan — yes, J. P. Morgan himself — had a personal suite on the Titanic and had attended its launch party in 1911. But he extended his French vacation and missed the sinking.

"I've never been able to find an authoritative 1912 source explaining the exact reason why J. P. Morgan canceled his passage on the Titanic," the Titanic expert George Behe told Reuters in 2021. Some speculated that the reasons were that he was in bad health or having issues with customs because of his art collection.

However, we know that Morgan, the cofounder of General Electric, International Harvester, and US Steel, was also the founder of the International Mercantile Marine, which in turn owned White Star Line. According to The Washington Post , he was even on hand to witness its 1911 launch.

"Monetary losses amount to nothing in life," Morgan told a New York Times reporter after the sinking. "It is the loss of life that counts. It is that frightful death."

Guglielmo Marconi, the Nobel Prize winner who invented the radio, opted to head to the US three days earlier on the Lusitania, forgoing a free ticket on the Titanic.

You might know that Marconi was considered a hero after the sinking of the Titanic because his invention, the wireless radio, helped ships in the surrounding area find where to look for the lifeboats.

But did you know he was almost on board the ship himself?

His daughter Degna wrote in her 1926 book, "My Father, Marconi," that he was offered a free ticket aboard the Titanic. But because his stenographer got seasick, Marconi opted to sail to the US on the Lusitania because he trusted that ship's stenographer more than Titanic's, Degna wrote.

Henry Clay Frick, the chairman of the Carnegie Steel Company, missed the sailing of the Titanic because his wife sprained her ankle in Italy and needed to be hospitalized.

Visitors to New York City might recognize Frick's name from the Frick Collection or the Henry Clay Frick House. He was an important industrialist and a patron of the arts — and he was close to sailing on the doomed voyage.

"The Fricks booked the suite first, and then Mrs. Frick sprained her ankle while they were in Europe buying art and touring and things; so, they stayed behind to get medical attention," the historian Melanie Linn Gutowski told CBS News Pittsburgh in 2012.

"The suite that they booked, that some historians think that they booked, was some kind of savior suite in a way," she continued. "Everybody who booked it managed to survive either by not being on the ship, or jumping into a lifeboat at the last minute."

Eventually, the tickets made their way to J. Bruce Ismay, the chairman and managing director of the White Star Line. Controversially, he was one of the few men who made their way onto a lifeboat and survived. He was criticized for this for the rest of his life.

Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt canceled his ticket on the Titanic at the last minute. He was on board the Lusitania when a German U-boat sank it in May 1915.

As a member of the prominent Vanderbilt family, Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt was a well-known member of New York society, so there was media coverage when it was revealed he'd narrowly escaped the Titanic.

Unfortunately, just a few years later, he was aboard the Lusitania , a British ocean liner that was sunk by German U-boats in 1915. He was one of the 1,200 passengers who did not survive the attack.

The American journalist Theodore Dreiser was persuaded by his publisher to take a cheaper ship home across the Atlantic.

Dreiser wrote about his brush with disaster in a chapter of his 1913 memoir, "A Traveler at Forty." Slate said the section about the Titanic, "The Voyage Home," was "one of the most gripping chapters in the memoir."

Dreiser wrote that he wanted to sail home with the rich and powerful people aboard the Titanic to get a peek at how the other half lived, but added that his publisher convinced him to sail home on the Kroonland, a cheaper ship, two days before Titanic sank.

"The terror of the sea had come swiftly and directly home to all," Dreiser wrote, according to Slate. "To think of a ship as immense as the Titanic, new and bright, sinking in endless fathoms of water. And the two thousand passengers routed like rats from their berths only to float helplessly in miles of water, praying and crying!"

John Mott, another Nobel Prize winner, was also offered a free ticket on the ship, but he chose a smaller ship, the Lapland, instead.

Mott, a Nobel Peace Prize winner who was the longtime leader of the YMCA, was another near-miss. Gorden R. Doss , a professor at Andrews University, said that Mott came close to death a few times.

First, he skipped the Titanic and opted for the Lapland. Three decades later, in 1943, he narrowly avoided a train crash.

Mott said, "The Good Lord must have more work for us to do" upon hearing about the sinking, according to Sotheby's .

There were other celebrities who had tickets to sail the Titanic in the future, had it not sank. J.C. Penney was set to sail on the ship's next trip from England to New York.

According to the Smithsonian Magazine , the founder of JCPenney was set to sail on the Titanic's second  voyage from England to the US.

Frank Seiberling, the cofounder of Goodyear Tires, was booked to return to Southampton on the Titanic's next voyage.

The Akron Beacon Journal reported that Seiberling, the cofounder of Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, and his wife frequently traveled to England and were huge admirers of English architecture. But one of their trips was postponed when their ship out of the States, the Titanic, sank.

So was John Alden Dix, the governor of New York.

Smithsonian Magazine also reported that Dix, the governor of New York from 1911 to 1913, was on the passenger list of the Titanic's return trip to England.

Henry Adams, a historian who was a descendant of President John Adams and President John Quincy Adams, was also booked on this trip.

"My ship, the Titanic, is on her way," Adams wrote in a letter on April 12, 1912, "and unless she drops me somewhere else, I should get to Cherbourg in a fortnight." As history tells, Adams was never able to board the ship and was forced to book passage elsewhere, The New Republic's Timothy Noah wrote.

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There are still secrets to be found on Titanic. These graphics explore them

It sank 112 years ago Monday, but our obsession with the RMS Titanic continues.

History's most famous ship slipped beneath the North Atlantic at 2:20 a.m. on April 15, 1912 , but we continue to explore its maiden voyage, iceberg, sinking and undersea decay through a seemingly endless stream of photographs, books , documentaries and movies , and museum exhibits.

Fascination has led to tragedy. A submersible carrying five passengers to view the Titanic imploded near the wreck , killing all aboard, in June 2023.

It also has brought technological advances. In May 2023, a new type of digital scanning, using multiple images, gave us a three-dimensional view of the ship as it would look if it were lifted out of the water .

Why are people drawn to Titanic?

"There isn’t a simple answer," says Karen Kamuda, president of the Titanic Historical Society , which operates the Titanic Museum in Indian Orchard, Massachusetts.

Those who join the society are of "all ages and occupations, and their interests are multivariable," Kamuda says. Aside from their fascination with Titanic and its passengers and crew, their curiosity might include the sister ships Olympic and Britannic, the White Star Line, artifacts, and TV and movies.

"James Cameron’s 1997 film, ' Titanic ,' opened up a brand-new interest," Kamuda says. "The internet has helped spread the story worldwide."

Here are a few things you may not know about Titanic:

Titanic traveled less than 3,000 miles

Titanic was built at the Harland & Wolff shipbuilding company in Belfast, Ireland. After outfitting and sea trials, the ship left port for her maiden voyage.

From Belfast to the fatal iceberg strike, Titanic traveled about 2,555 nautical miles, or 2,940 land miles:

April 2, 1912 | 8 p.m.: Titanic leaves Belfast, sails to Southhampton, England (577 nm).

April 10, 1912 | noon: Titanic leaves Southhampton, sails to Cherbourg, France (88 nm).

April 11, 1912 | 8:10 p.m.: Titanic leaves Cherbourg, sails to Queenstown ( now known as Cobh ), Ireland (341 nm).

April 11, 1912 | 1:30 p.m.: Titanic leaves Queenstown for New York.

April 14, 1912 | 11:40 p.m.: Titanic strikes iceberg 1,549 nm from Queenstown.

April 15, 1912 | 2:20 a.m.: Titanic sinks about 400 miles south of Newfoundland, Canada.

Titanic's lifeboats were not filled to capacity

15-ton piece of wreckage recovered.

The largest piece of wreckage recovered from Titanic, above, is a 15-ton section of the hull measuring 26 feet by 12 feet. It's on display at Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition at the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas

The hull section was part of the starboard side of the ship , between the third and fourth funnels. It was lifted to the surface in 1998.

Museums keep Titanic's memory alive

A  number of museums offer visitors a look at hundreds of objects recovered from the wreck site. Here are a few:

And if you can't get to a Titanic museum, a traveling exhibit, Titanic. The Exhibition , with 200 items, may be coming to you after it leaves New York.

Thousands of artifacts have been salvaged

Titanic was much smaller than today's cruise ships, want to learn more about titanic.

Historical associations are a good source of information.

• Titanic Historical Society:  https://titanichistoricalsociety.org/
• Titanic International Society:   https://titanicinternationalsociety.org/
• Belfast Titanic Society:   https://www.belfast-titanic.com/
• British Titanic Society:   https://www.britishtitanicsociety.com/

SOURCE USA TODAY Network reporting and research; Titanic Historical Society; titanicfacts.net; titanicuniverse.com; National Geographic; encyclopedia-titanica.org

Titanic Exibition

• Delovoy Tsentr • 2 min walk
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The wreckage of the Titanic was found nearly 39 years ago during a secret US Navy mission to recover nuclear submarines

The Titanic sank 112 years ago, in April 1912, but the wreckage was only found 39 years ago.

Robert Ballard and Jean-Louis Michel found the wreckage 73 years after the ship sank.

Decades later, Ballard revealed that the dive was actually a secret Cold War Navy mission.

Almost immediately after the Titanic sank on April 15, 1912 , there were attempts to recover the wreckage and the bodies of those who had gone down with the ship. However, the limited diving technology of the time prevented this from becoming a reality for more than seven decades.

On September 1, 1985 — almost 39 years ago — the wreckage was found during a joint exploration by an American oceanographer, Robert Ballard, who was also a Navy officer, and a French oceanographer, Jean-Louis Michel, as The New York Times reported at the time.

But the dive initially had nothing to do with the Titanic at all — it was a secret mission to find the wrecks of two nuclear submarines, the USS Scorpion and the USS Thresher.

However, this information was not made public until 2008, when Ballard revealed the true nature of the mission to National Geographic.

"The Navy is finally discussing it," Ballard told National Geographic in 2008.

Ballard originally met with the US Navy in 1982 to secure funding for a new type of submersible technology that would allow him to find the Titanic. The Navy agreed to fund the project, but only if it would be used to investigate the sunken submarines. The USS Thresher sank in April 1963, and the USS Scorpion followed five years later, in May 1968. They remain the only nuclear submarines the Navy has ever lost, reported the United States Naval Institute.

The Navy agreed that Ballard could search for the Titanic if there were any time left in the mission after finding the subs — and after confirming whether the Soviet Union had played any part in sinking them.

"We saw no indication of some sort of external weapon that caused the ship to go down," Ronald Thunman, then the deputy chief of naval operations for submarine warfare, told National Geographic.

With 12 days left in the mission, Ballard found the Titanic using a hunch that the ship had split in two and left a trail of debris.

"That's what saved our butts," Ballard said to National Geographic. "It turned out to be true."

Ballard said the Navy was nervous that people would catch on to why they were actually scouring the ocean floor.

"The Navy never expected me to find the Titanic, and so when that happened, they got really nervous because of the publicity," Ballard said. "But people were so focused on the legend of the Titanic they never connected the dots."

So, 23 years later, Ballard disclosed the truth about his mission. He also wrote about his experience finding the ship in his book " The Discovery of the Titanic. "

"It was one thing to have won — to have found the ship," he wrote. "It was another thing to be there. That was the spooky part."

Correction: July 18, 2023 — An earlier version of this story misstated when the USS Scorpion disappeared. It was lost in May 1968, not May 1965.

Read the original article on Business Insider

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‘Is She Sure?’ How the Breeders Joined Olivia Rodrigo’s Guts Tour.

The ’90s alt-rock icons hit the Madison Square Garden stage for the first time Friday night, after the 21-year-old pop star invited them to join her on the road.

By Jenn Pelly

Olivia Rodrigo remembers her life in two parts: before she heard the Breeders’ “Cannonball,” and after, she told the crowd at Madison Square Garden on Friday night, when her Guts World Tour arrived in New York.

And that is how the ’90s alt-rock idols came to play the New York arena for the first time last week, 31 years after that song from their platinum 1993 album, “Last Splash,” charted on Billboard’s Hot 100.

Rodrigo’s camp initially approached the Breeders in September about opening some dates on the tour supporting her second album, “Guts .” “My first reaction was, Wow, that seems kind of odd,” the band’s bassist, Josephine Wiggs, said in an interview. “But after I’d thought about it for a while, I thought, ‘That’s actually really genius.’”

Kim Deal, the singer-guitarist who leads the band with her twin sister, Kelley, said she was surprised when they got the invite. “I’d heard ‘Drivers License,’ and I liked that a lot,” she said, referring to Rodrigo’s breakout 2021 smash.

Kelley wondered if it might be a mistake. “I thought, ‘Is she sure? Do they really mean us?’”

But Rodrigo made her enthusiasm clear when the shows were confirmed, reaching out personally to share her excitement. “She texted each one of us individually,” Kelley recalled.

“And said, ‘Really happy to hear that you’re going to do this,’” Wiggs added. “Very classy.”

Aside from Kim, who played Madison Square Garden in 1992 when her earlier band, Pixies, opened for U2, no one in the group had ever performed at the venue before. Kim hadn’t been back since, and said she had no memory of that previous gig: “I usually remember the bad shows, so it’s a good thing that I really don’t remember that one.”

With the first date in the books, the Breeders spent part of Saturday afternoon glimpsing Rodrigo’s soundcheck — she was belting “Ballad of a Homeschooled Girl” to an empty arena — and then briefly chatting with her. “So easy to talk to!” Kim reported as the Breeders headed up to the stage to adjust their own amps and pedals. The lights were up; two men vacuumed the previous night’s pink and purple star-shaped confetti.

“How about we do a piece of ‘Cannonball,’ like when everything comes in?” Kim asked the band, which also includes the drummer Jim Macpherson. They had already tested the distorted ahh-ooohh-ahh vocalizations that open the song. Kim blew a whistle to emulate the record’s microphone feedback.

Rodrigo was born a decade after the release of “Cannonball,” but the 21-year-old heard it as a teenager and remembers “instantly falling in love with the Breeders,” she wrote in an email. “I thought Kim was the coolest girl in the world,” Rodrigo said. “I’m very inspired by them and everything they stand for. They are absolutely iconic, and playing these shows with them has been a surreal honor.” (The Breeders have joined the tour for four shows at the Garden that wrap on Tuesday, and four more at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles later this summer.)

Mischief, wryness, confidence and camaraderie feel encoded into the poised riffs and bass line of “Cannonball,” and it’s easy to imagine girls gently headbanging along to it for eternity. Rodrigo went louder and crunchier on “Guts,” long inspired by artists who are “not trying to recreate a version of rock music that guys make,” as she told The New York Times last year.

Soundcheck proceeded like a supercut. “Should we do half of ‘Do You Love Me Now’?” Kim asked before crashing the song open and letting its twin harmonies ring out. “A little piece of ‘Drivin’ on 9’?” signaling the aching country tune. “Should we throw in ‘Gigantic’?” Kim asked before unleashing the titanic anthem she co-wrote and sang as a member of Pixies. (She dedicated its “big, big love” to Rodrigo during the show.)

Earlier, the band sat in a green room processing its Guts experience so far. Kelley had been impressed by the emotional arc of Rodrigo’s songs the previous night. “I was texting somebody, ‘I’m so empowered right now!’” She later reached out to praise Rodrigo’s voice as “really special,” observing, “Her tone and control are spectacular!”

“She performs with a really good sense of humor,” Kim added.

Wiggs said she could hear some Breeders commonalties in a Rodrigo chord progression, while Macpherson detected a bit of the band in “Jealousy, Jealousy,” from her first album, “Sour.” “The bass riff was almost like a ‘Hag,’ ‘Hellbound’ -ish kind of thing,” he said.

The Breeders expressed shock at how young Rodrigo’s fans were, and the collective decibel of their screams on Friday night. “You’re going to be surprised by how loud it was,” Kelley said. Weren’t their own amps loud, too? “Not louder than 30,000 tweens,” she said.

Kim roasted her bandmates for withholding stage banter the night before. “Looking out at the sea of 7- and 8-year-olds, I had no idea what to say,” Wiggs said, deadpan. “I could just about manage to say something to people who are obviously teenagers. I was like, OK, maybe I’ll try to make eye contact with the dads.”

The Deal sisters are no strangers to parental accompaniment at gigs. “My dad used to have Ray Charles in his headphones, watching us play, when he drove us around in the r.v. with Nirvana,” Kim said, referring to the band’s 1992 tour with what was then the biggest band on Earth. “He’d have his cassette Walkman,” Kelley added. “He was a big supporter, but he’d heard us a million times.”

In Kurt Cobain’s liner notes to Nirvana’s 1992 compilation “Incesticide,” he detailed the recent life experiences that had meant the most to him since “becoming an untouchable boy genius,” including “playing with the Breeders” on the list. “Nirvana and Foo Fighters would really curate their opening bands, which is I think what Olivia is doing in a way, curating new music that she wants fans to get to know,” Kelley said.

Most of the young people watching from the front rows on Saturday were not familiar with the Breeders — who are all in their 50s and 60s — though there were exceptions. “My parents know who they are!” exclaimed an 18-year-old fan named Mack. “My dad said they had some jams back when he was younger. He didn’t know if I would like them, but I trust Olivia.”

Another fan, Elle, 16, was with her father, who saw the Breeders at Lollapalooza alongside Smashing Pumpkins and the Beastie Boys. “For me, this was really cool,” he said. “I don’t know the tour’s other openers as well, but I’ve loved the Breeders since ’94 when I saw them last.”

Rodrigo’s fans were decked out in sparkling skirts, purple bows and platform boots in honor of their heroine, who took the stage in a series of short, glittering skirts. The Breeders are known for more understated sartorial choices. Had they given any thought about to what to wear?

“I sent out a ‘help’ text to a friend of mine,” Kelley admitted. “I said, I’m trying to upgrade my look from my T-shirt and jeans that I typically wear, but staying in my comfort zone. He said, ‘I find glitter or sequins to always be the answer.’ I just waited for him to laugh or something. That was no help to me at all. So I went with a T-shirt and jeans.”

“Like she’s been dressing since seventh grade,” Kim said.

Moscow Tours & Travel Packages 2024/2025

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St Petersburg & Moscow in Style - Winter

• Explore the majestic St Petersburg & Moscow on private city tours
• Admire the rich Russian history, art and architecture
• Travel to Moscow on a highspeed train
• Enjoy the local cuisine in stylish restaurants

Golden Ring of Russia

Lower Volga Voyage

• Visit magnificent Red Square and Kremlin and examine the collection at theKremlin’s State Armory.
• Experience Russia’s diverse musical traditions at lively folk music performances
• Explore Volgograd, the site of the decisive battle of World War II’s eastern front

Best of Russia

Volga Dream Russian River Cruise

Highlights of Russia

St Petersburg & Moscow in Style - Summer

White Russian - 7 days

• Discover Moscow's UNESCO-listed Red Square, home to spectacular St Basil’s Cathedral, Lenin's Mausoleum and the historic GUM Department store
• Explore the grounds of Moscow's mighty Kremlin, with its numerous governmentbuildings, gold-domed cathedrals and the giant tsar bell
• Celebrate New Year's Eve in Moscow!
• Take in the highlights of St Petersburg including a guided tour of the exquisite Church on Spilled Blood, Peter & Paul Fortress and Cathedral
• Take a guided tour of the remarkable Hermitage Museum at the Winter Palace

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Vodka Shot - 6 days

• Explore the beautiful city of St Petersburg, including the exquisite Church on Spilled Blood, Peter & Paul Fortress and Nevsky Prospekt
• Marvel at the dazzling array of art and exhibits in the world-famous Hermitage Museum, at the Winter Palace in St Petersburg
• Discover a lavish residence of the tsars on a day trip to Catherine Palace at Tsarkoe Selo (winter: mid-October to April) or Peterhof Palace and gardens (summer: May to mid-October)
• Take in the highlights of the capital on a walking tour, visiting Moscow's famous Red Square, home to the historic GUM Department Store, Lenin’s Mausoleum and spectacular St Basil’s Cathedral
• Take a guided tour of the Moscow Kremlin, Russia’s political power house. Stroll around the grounds of this fortified complex, visit the Kremlin's cathedrals and see the mighty Tsar Bell

Route of the Romanovs - 10 days

• Learn about the last days of the Romanovs in Yekaterinburg, visiting the sites where Tsar Nicolas II and his family were assassinated and buried
• Straddle two continents at the famous obelisk Europe/Asia border marker in Yekaterinburg
• Experience the Trans-Siberian railway on an overnight train journey from Moscow to Yekaterinburg

New Year's in Moscow - 9 days

• Visit Catherine Palace at Tsarkoe Selo on Christmas Day and marvel at the incredible Amber Room
• Spend a night in Novgorod, an ancient city by the Volkhov River - explore the kremlin, cathedral and other sights and enjoy a traditional Russian banya (sauna)

Back in the USSR - 7 days

Russian Revolution - 9 days

• Visit historic Novgorod, an ancient city which straddles the Volkhov River. Explore the attractive riverside kremlin and experience a traditional Russian banya (sauna)

The Snowball - 6 days

• Visit Catherine Palace at Tsarkoe Selo and marvel at the incredible Amber Room

Mood for Moscow - 4 days

• Head underground to visit a Stalinist-era Soviet Bunker on an optional excursion
• Stroll to the vibrant Izmailovo Market, which lies behind the walls of an ancient Kremlin, and shop for an array of souvenirs

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Moscow reviews & ratings, capitals of the north.

some hotels could have been better

It was jam packed with every place I wanted to go and see. I especially love my photo of us setting out on the night time river cruise in St Petersburg and the Peter...

I really did not buy much and what I did buy was small gifts for others .

Johanna-Marie

Good hotels, some better than others. Interesting itinerary

Too rushed. Optional tour rather too short

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