The soldiers were well prepared for the adventure. Most of them were travelling with brand new trunks that they had carefully chosen. The young Lieutenant Joseph Kessel recalls:

`The purchase of my First trunk (what a sovereign word for whom has dreamt of travels since he is aware of himself), the choice of new uniforms, the wait for infinite horizons, grounds and heavens, cities and women, were everything going through my head.`
They also had received a memorandum on rules and behaviors to follow during the mission (document found at the military archives in Paris):
` …Do not keep your coat on while being inside a Russian home`…` It is rude to keep your gloves on when shaking hands`…`the cigare is almost never smoked in a Russian home`…
On board of the President Grant a routine was quickly created. To Robert Meyer, it consisted of:
`Three days per week, two hours per day: cleaning of the dormitories, the dining hall and the deck number three; orderly of the jail twice per week, cleaning of the toilets, the kitchen and the drier room.`
For the officers, it was a little different. No manual work duty was involved. They killed time by playing cards and money games, while getting to know each other telling squadrons war stories and doing physical exercise on the deck or inspecting the ship from the chocks to the decks.
`The distractions were slim. No alcohol on board whatsoever. The prohibition was not yet law in the USA, but the military ships were strictly dry.`
In the evening of 13 November, there was an attack warning. All the people on board of he ship were asked to stop their activities in order to come on deck:
`Needless to say, after seeing the gunners next to the cannons and the sailors next to the lifeboats, there was a lot of apprehension amongst us. There was no doubt that we had been spotted by a German submarine. Indeed, the radio had warned the ship of the presence of a Jerry in the area.`
About half an hour later, the alert came to an end and everybody could go back to their occupation. The soldiers were relieved and proud that they did not panic and kept their cool. According to Joseph Kessel, this procedure was also a common exercise they had to repeat on a daily basis.
Two days later, a heavy storm was shaking the ship causing Robert Meyer to get thrown from the stairs:
`I woke up with some pain this morning: I couldn’t bend over to tie my shoes. All my side was painful, which came from a fall I made yesterday in the stairs(…) the adjutant said that it was nothing serious (…) once again I had a narrow escape, because of the height of the stairs, I could have get killed.`
The rest of the trip was quiet. Two weeks of sailing on the Atlantic Ocean, the ship finally entered the New York Bay on Sunday 24 November 1918. For the first time, Robert Meyer saw New York City:
`At 6am, the tide was high, and the ship maneuvered in order to enter the port. The sight was superb, we could see the Statue of Liberty lighting up the world (…), we were sailing along New York City inhabited by Italians and Jerries living there since before the war, we could see the skyscrapers, very curious and very original.`
Joseph Kessel, caught in te excitement of a money game, missed the sight of the city and its lights during the arrival. By the time he got to the deck, the ship was already at the piers of Hoboken, New Jersey.
`The madness shows me how the exercise of a passion robbed me of a spectacle, which I  cared a lot about.`