Retiring to a cruise ship

[FIRE Artist]

Well this is one way to geo-arbitrage and attend to assisted living needs.

"Assisted living is not a cheap proposition. It costs thousands and thousands of dollars a month, depending on where you're staying," McDaniel says. "So cruising is potentially a far more cost-effective way to retire."

https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/living-on-a-cruise-ship-cost-benefits/index.html

[seattlecyclone]

I'm not seeing how this attends to assisted living needs. The cruise ship will make food for you, sure, but all the other stuff that an assisted living facility provides doesn't seem to be included with your standard cruise fees.

[FIRE Artist]

I'm not seeing how this attends to assisted living needs. The cruise ship will make food for you, sure, but all the other stuff that an assisted living facility provides doesn't seem to be included with your standard cruise fees.

Yeah, I think that the guy who said that is thinking of a living situation where your housekeeping, laundry, cooking etc. are taken care of for you, but he does mention that medical facilities are limited, so this would be for earlier retirement before you need that care.   

[seattlecyclone]

I'm not seeing how this attends to assisted living needs. The cruise ship will make food for you, sure, but all the other stuff that an assisted living facility provides doesn't seem to be included with your standard cruise fees.

Yeah, I think that the guy who said that is thinking of a living situation where your housekeeping, laundry, cooking etc. are taken care of for you, but he does mention that medical facilities are limited, so this would be for earlier retirement before you need that care.   

It's not even about the lack of hospital facilities. A cruise ship isn't a substitute for an assisted living facility for the same reason a hotel is no substitute for an assisted living facility: nobody there is going to help you to the bathroom when you can't get there on your own anymore, clean you up when you fail to make it there in time, get you dressed when you can't reach your toes to pull your pants on, etc.

Cruising can certainly be a way to see the world, and if you're able to completely cut out any land-based expenses while you're at sea it can even be a reasonably affordable way to live. Any comparison to assisted living costs is irrelevant because it's not the same thing at all.

[Askel]

Breaking news!:

Cruise industry, desperate to somehow convince Americans to get on boring overcrowded disease factories again rebrands as exciting new retirement plan. 

[ixtap]

Breaking news!:

Cruise industry, desperate to somehow convince Americans to get on boring overcrowded disease factories again rebrands as exciting new retirement plan.

Actually, there was a rash of these articles pre pandemic. As matter of fact, the linked article says it was updated today. It could just be a rehash of an old one.

[Askel]

I will admit, I'm impressed by them pulling it off for $100/day for a couple. $36500/yr is a very reasonable price to live the life you want by the standards of this forum.   

[solon]

lol at "disease factories"

[Fru-Gal]

My parents went on a small cruise and noticed an elderly woman getting special treatment, sitting alone. They were told by staff that she was a widow who lived on the ship and had for many years.

[sonofsven]

That is fascinating; definitely not for me, tho.
Speaking of "disease factories", I saw a big Princess cruise ship heading up the Columbia River recently. I've seen them before, heading to drydock and maintenance work in Portland.
I looked this one up: started in Florida, on way to Victoria, BC, became a covid superspeader en route, dumped off passengers in SF and headed to Portland!
Sure enough, a few days later in the paper: "Cruise ship employees test positive for Covid".

[elaine amj]

$89/night is impressive. I’ve definitely been tempted in the past and in the future, would definitely like to try cruising for a longer period of time. It is harder to afford if you also have to carry the costs of a regular home. But if you are “homeless” or renting out your home…

I’d also like to try slow travel with a 3-12pm this road trip in my minivan someday.

For the past couple of years we have travelled up to a cottage 6 hours away every other week all summer and fall and we really enjoyed that.

That all said, actually FIREing has cured a lot of my wanderlust and I also like staying home a lot now.


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[wageslave23]

Its a nice headline but our FIRE budget for housing, food, vacation, and entertainment comes in at about $25k per year.  The rest of our needs (misc personal items, clothes, gifts, health insurance) is not included in a cruise ship amenities.   Not to mention you'd have to pay me $100 a day to stay on a cruise ship for more than a week or two.  But if they want to be confined to a crowded hotel on water, good for them.

[StarBright]

One of my coworkers has inlaws that did this and they love it! But it is a fancy ship for rich people (more like a ship where you buy a condo) and not just Carnival.

She and her husband occasionally flew to meet the boat when it was at interesting destinations and stayed in her parent's friend's condos. It sounded like people treated the boat like a moving vacation house. 

[elaine amj]

Hmmm..might be nice to rent one of these cruise ship condos :) kinda like an airbnb at sea!


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[By the River]

One of those luxury condo cruise ships docked here a few months before Covid hit.  Its named the MS World.    Not sure what the ship or residents did during covid when many countries were shut down. 

[eniacs]

I used to work on cruise ships as an electrical officer, worked for P&O cruises in the UK (owned by carnival). I started on their smallest ship the artemis and sailed on a few others including oriana.

Both these ships had cabins that were "Owned" (permanently rented) by rich ish retirees. As long as you are mobile enough you can go on the ship and get looked after. I've never seen a company advertise this as a thing, but it certainly does happen. Costs are about £100/night/person so can be very competitive if your care costs are high.

[dizzy]

Also worked a contract (7 months) on a cruise ship, acupuncturist.  Was offered a chance to extend, or change to the music department, no thanks.

I can verify that a lot of people were living long term on the ship.  HAL, so we had an older clientele- average age something like 60-85.  I had some patients who had been on the ship for a few months, they would switch ships every so often just to change things up.  Knew some who weren't my patients who had been on there over a year.

The medical team was better than I expected.  We had our own little pandemic scare with the flu, with staff mandatory vaccinations up until herd immunity was reached, and we were denied entry into 3 small Pacific island nations, ending up at sea at one point for 8 days.  Held together ok.  I ended up getting a lot of patients then since the wait for the Western medical team was long, or the meds weren't effective for them/they didn't want to take.  That being said I would never ever ever want to cruise myself. 

But I can see the appeal for some and many long term care facilities in the US are pretty terrible .  It's just when SHTF that things can skyrocket in a super bad way.

[Scandium]

One of those luxury condo cruise ships docked here a few months before Covid hit.  Its named the MS World.    Not sure what the ship or residents did during covid when many countries were shut down.

Had to look it up.
https://www.cruisemapper.com/ships/ms-The-World-1119
Yes apparently you buy and apartment and "live" on it, though sounds like most use it as a vacation home. Not exactly in the "frugal" category of living: A 1-bdrm costs about $1.5 mill, plus $150k+/year fee. I'm also going to guess food and drinks are not included either. Though perhaps there is some tax savings, since you won't be in any one country for long? Someone do the math!

And instead of the usual un-appealing cruise crowd you have to deal with a bunch of superrich assholes instead. (Except Arnold Schwarzenegger could be your neighbor, and he's of course awesome, so that's a plus!)

[beekayworld]

I follow a Canadian couple on Youtube who had a couple of out-of-the-box ideas.

For a senior residence: Getting a monthly rate at a Holiday Inn for a room with a kitchenette. This included breakfast, free wifi and utilities, maid service, and was walking distance to a grocery store.  Some have swimming pools/laundry facilities/gyms.

For long term care: Having four couples in the apartment building share a nurse.  They figured an apartment at $2k/month and salary of $40k/year would cost each couple $16k/year.

I don't understand if she's working 7 days a week, 24 hours a day? If she's just working 8 hours a day, why would she need her own apartment? Maybe somebody here understands. If she's just working 40 hours a week, she's not helping with every bathroom visit; maybe she's just for skilled nursing care and the spouses help with the aide type tasks (bathing, bathroom, brushing teeth, giving medicine.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOJqNj6Xo3M&t=6s

[seattlecyclone]

I don't understand if she's working 7 days a week, 24 hours a day? If she's just working 8 hours a day, why would she need her own apartment? Maybe somebody here understands. If she's just working 40 hours a week, she's not helping with every bathroom visit; maybe she's just for skilled nursing care and the spouses help with the aide type tasks (bathing, bathroom, brushing teeth, giving medicine.)

I could imagine they'd like someone who could be nearby much of the time for emergencies, and if they throw in rent they can probably get away with a lower salary so they might as well.

[beekayworld]

Thanks! That's probably what they are thinking.