Live on a Cruise Liner rather than a Retirement Facility?-Speculation! & Truth!

Live on a Cruise Liner Rather than a Retirement Facility?Speculation! & Truth!

Summary of eRumor:

Summary of the benefits of spending your retirement money living on a cruise ship instead of a retirement home.  

The Truth:


An email comparison living on a cruise ship with living in a retirement facility has circulated on the Internet for quite a while.
It was mostly speculative and humorous.
Then versions started circulating saying that the writer had actually met someone on a cruise who was living aboard the ship and paying for repeated cruises instead of living on land.
We’ve not found the source of the original email or anybody who has actually had the experience stumbling across a retired person who has elected to live as a cruse ship passenger because it was cheaper than living on land.

The idea, however, is not complete fiction.

Two experts on elder care from the Northwestern University School of Medicine have evaluated the idea and their thoughts were published in the November issue of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

Then there’s the story of 86-year-old Bea Muller of Florida.
Her husband died aboard the Queen Elizabeth 2 while on a world cruise in 2000.
Face with moving back home to live alone in a retirement center, she decided to sell everything and book herself onto the ship one year at a time.
She’s been doing that ever since, even after the Queen Elizabeth 2 stopped doing trans-Atlantic crossings and operating only in Europe.
She is said to still dance each night away with her constantly rotating clusters of new friends.


Last updated 1-28-05
About 2 years ago we 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 whom 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?”

She replied without a pause, “It’s cheaper than a nursing home”.

Here’s the proof — 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 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.

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.

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