Hello World

Oh, man.

There are those who are choosing to spend their retirements on cruise ships rather than in retirement homes. What started out as a rampant internet urban legend has apparently become the truth, as the price of permanent cruise ship living is comparable to, if not lower than, that of retirement communities.

Here’s the internet source, which is itself adapted from an earlier “it’s cheaper to live at a Holiday Inn than in a retirement home” meme:

About 2 years ago my wife and I were on a cruise through the western Mediterranean aboard a Princess liner. At dinner we noticed an elderly lady sitting alone along the rail of the grand stairway in the main dining room.

I also noticed that all the staff, ships officers, waiters, busboys, etc., all seemed very familiar with this lady. I asked our waiter who the lady was, expecting to be told she owned the line, but he said he only knew that she had been on board for the last four cruises, back to back.

As we left the dining room one evening I caught her eye and stopped to say hello. We chatted and I said, “I understand you’ve been on this ship for the last four cruises.” She replied, “Yes, that’ s true.” I stated, “I don’t understand” and she replied, without a pause, “It’s cheaper than a nursing home.”

So, there will be no nursing home in my future. When I get old and feeble, I am going to get on a Princess Cruise Ship. The average cost for a nursing home is $200 per day. I have checked on reservations at Princess and I can get a long term discount and senior discount price of $135 per day. That leaves $65 a day for:

1. Gratuities which will only be $10 per day.

2. I will have as many as 10 meals a day (of fantastic food, not institutional food) if I can waddle to the restaurant, or I can have room service (which means I can have breakfast in bed every day of the week).

3. Princess has as many as three swimming pools, a workout room, free washers and dryers, and shows every night.

4. They have free toothpaste and razors, and free soap and shampoo.

5. They will even treat you like a customer, not a patient. An extra $5 worth of tips will have the entire staff scrambling to help you.

6. I will get to meet new people every 7 or 14 days!

7. TV broken? Light bulb need changing? Need to have the mattress replaced? No problem! They will fix everything and apologize for your inconvenience.

8. Clean sheets and towels every day, and you don’t even have to ask for them.

9. If you fall in the nursing home and break a hip you are on Medicare; if you fall and break a hip on the Princess ship they will upgrade you to a suite for the rest of your life.

10. There is always a doctor on board.

Now hold on for the best! Do you want to see South America, the Panama Canal, Tahiti, Australia, New Zealand, Asia, or name where you want to go? Princess will have a ship ready to go. So don’t look for me in a nursing home, just call shore to ship.

PS: And don’t forget, when you die, they just dump you over the side at no charge.

It’s obviously tongue-in-cheek, but really–there are some good points here. The service on cruise ships is notoriously excellent, the food is spectacular, you get the chance to do a ton of travelling to foreign ports (albeit ones corrupted by American tourism dollars), and you are exposed to a steady stream of fresh faces. With costs more or less equal, who wouldn’t at least consider choosing a perpetual caribbean cruise over a sterile and lonely nursing home?

As the article points out, there are some serious non-economic concerns with the lifestyle–cramped accomodations, superficial friendships, loss of contact with family–and I’m sure there are plenty of other good reasons why it’s best to leave this idea alone. But I can definitely see it as an appealing option for a retired widow/widower (or an old married couple) in decent health. If not as a permanent arrangement, at least for a year or two of all-you-can-eat decadence at sea.

[link from kottke]