USPS economy parcel post

An update on my experience: All our boxes have arrived!  The first arrived about 6 weeks after we mailed it. The others arrived over the following days and the last took 8 weeks (it was temporarily "misplaced" by the idiots at Parcel Force but has been subsequently discovered). Everything arrived unharmed.  One of my boxes had clearly been opened for inspection but there was no notice of why it was opened.  It contained all our ski gear and a pair of ice skates. Go figure!  All told we paid about $200 to mail four large boxes, each weighing about 30 pounds. Not a bad deal if you don't have too much to move.

i'd like to apologise on behalf of the idiots at parcel force--DF has worked there for 14 years!

Ack!  Even air mail isn't so great.  My mom sent me a package on 25 October from New York that only arrived to me in London today.  Air mail is supposed to take "about a week."  This one took nearly three weeks.  And there was a "correlation date" sticker on it from my local Parcel Force depot in Charlton, indicating that it's been there since at least the 2nd of November.  What took them so long?  I'm not in the boondocks!
Oh well, I got my care package of yummy stuff anyway.