Living on a cruise ship for 7 years...
 

Found this article entertaining:

http://www.thrillist.com/travel/nati...ip-for-7-years

An elderly woman has lived on a ship for 7 years, spending $164k per year. Not sure what this includes, but probably comes with unlimited shuffleboard.

I wonder how many nautical award miles she has accumulated?

My wife and I took a week cruise last year and met a couple that were in the middle of 12 weeks of cruises. And I remember thinking what would you do after the first couple of weeks?

7 years on a cruise? (And actually another 3 before that.) :eek: All I can say is if you have the money and enjoy it, more power to her. ^

Let's forward this to the readers of FT's Cruises forum. I'll move it there. Ocn Vw 1K, Moderator, TravelBuzz.

I have a few friends that spend most of the year on cruise ships, but usually not the same one. One friend just goes from ship to ship, usually staying on one ship for 5-6 months before switching ships. If he wants a break, he goes and visits one of the many friends he has around the world.

Part of me is ready to chuck it all and join them.

I know of a few old ladies living aboard ships. It's a healthy lifestyle choice and not too costly.

Isn't there a residential cruise ship offering? Like a floating condo? Seem to recall reading about that some years ago.

ResidenSea.

OMG!! 7 years on a cruise is not something I will be able to handle. I guess she loves water.

The was a lady on Princess that lived onboard, generally one of the smaller R class ships, Lorraine Artz (my spelling could be quite off). I was in the cabin next to hers (she was in one of the aft suites on the ship) on one cruise. Real nice person from the brief time that I interacted with her, and you could tell the crew loved her (heck, when we docked in one port with another Princess ship, a number of crew came over to greet her when she got off the ship). I think she was well over 4000 days at sea, and was the godmother for the R class Royal Princess. I'm not sure she was paying full fare though, there were some rumors about her having owned land that Princess decided they wanted for their headquarters, or something like that.

I saw that article yesterday, came here and figured someone was going to link it.

I think it's pretty cool, if you can afford it. Changing ships/routes every so often would at least keep things fresh in the long run though.

$164,000/yr is not too costly?

The ship would be like home for her now, but the nature of Crystal cruises means at least she is moving around the world. I like cruising, but I can't imagine more than a few weeks of 7 day Caribbean cruises out of Ft Lauderdale lol.

For some, $14k a month may be as much as an upper end assisted living facility would cost so as long as one was in good health.

I've heard over at cruise critic that there was one woman who spent years (over a decade) at sea until forced onto shore and into a care home. No sure if her name was Beatrice Muller or someone else. I heard she had either spent 4,000 days (or perhaps even a multiple of that) nearly continuously on ships.

That is my opinion too. I would try and go around the world in both directions and tick off ports of call and try to amass as many as possible. I would also break my trips up with some flying in between - e,g. change ship and get a flight to say Australia and board a ship there etc. Each to his/her own.

This has been going on for quite a while going back to the late 1990's when a gal from NJ lived aboard the QE2. They can stay on year round but they do have to leave the ship when it goes into drydock. Also, most of these long term guests negotiate a rate (or have their TA negotiate) and I know some who have really gotten themselves a great deal and a better alternative to a retirement community.