Absolutely this. Unfortunately it's hard to find a train that crosses the Pacific. Even the cruise liners don't actually go anywhere anymore.
Transoceanic is kind of a situation where the distance is so great and ships are so slow that air travel wins out. You take a vehicle with a private cabin in lieu of a plane for trips of 6-12 hours or so. The European Nightjet service is fantastic. Amtrak is more than decent on the routes where it works despite the slow speed. They just restarted their old NYC <-> Boston sleeper service, which is a good alternative to Acela+hotel if you're traveling light. I hate flying domestic so much that if I'm not in a hurry I'll take Amtrak as long as it's under a day's travel.
Acutally that makes me wonder. What if instead of flying Chris to Everfree, they sent him via a 4 day journey on Amtrak. (Coach -- which on Amtrak is about the same as domestic airline first class in terms of seat size) $297 (Private room) $1821. If he's on coach they could spring for a first class lounge pass in Chicago ($35) so he could use the showers there midway, or in a sleeper room he'd have a shower available on the train.
Regarding ocean liners, the last ocean liners that serve the US are via Cunard lines from New York to the UK, $900 for the cheapest cabin (but this does include meals, etc. for the 6-day trip, so not a terrible deal).
This one route still makes it possible to get from the US to Japan entirely by surface travel, and aside from only short several mile trips from train station to dock, almost entirely in private accommodations. Basically like sitting in a hotel room for your entire trip.
- Private cabin on Amtrak train from wherever in US to NYC
- Private cabin on Cunard from NYC to Southampton
= Train without private cabin from Southampton to London to Paris
- Private cabin on train from Paris to Moscow
- Private cabin on train from Moscow to Beijing,
- Private cabin on train from Beijing to Shanghai
- Private cabin on ferry from Shanghai to Osaka
- Private cabin on train or ferry from Osaka to other destinations in Japan.