Travel Minute — Costa Concordia & the Titanic Celebration

The tragedy of the Costa Concordia should make the world re-think the commercialization that’s attending the April anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic.

Imagine it’s ten years from now, and you lost your parents on board the Costa Concordia, as a family in Minnesota did.  And you heard a strip-mall attraction called “The Costa Concordia Experience” was hosting re-creations of the last dinner aboard the ill-fated ship.  An evening featuring a sumptuous feast, music, and a “surprise” at the end of the night?

That’s exactly what is happening this year to commemorate the 100^th anniversary of the Titanic’s sinking.  Oh, and for $19.95, you can also buy a “Collector’s Edition Necklace” with a blue glass heart—meant to suggest a sapphire in which is inset a flake of coal from the wreck of the Titanic. 

Ugh. 

This isn’t an original thought by me.  Columnist Eric Felten, writing in the Wall Street Journal, said this is thanks to the movie “Titanic” that romanticized the giant ship’s fate.  But there’s nothing romantic—or worth celebrating–about 1,500 people freezing to death in seawater.  Or a couple of dozen dying in waters off the coast of Tuscany.