Travel
Is living on cruise ships the new retirement?
Meet the retirees who’ve swapped suburban living for the open sea and discover why more people are choosing to spend their retirement cruising from port to port.
By Rachael Mogan-McIntosh
Great-grandparents Marty and Jess Ansen love catching up with their grandchildren in Brisbane. But after the hugs, they don’t go back to their retirement village, their nursing home living room, or their aged-care-modified family home. Instead, they return to the Coral Princess, where they have spent, so far, more than 2000 days at sea across 111 cruises.
They have no plans to stop anytime soon – in fact, they’re booked up through 2026. Jess has taken up hula-hooping and the couple start every day with a 5.30am hour of ping-pong.
“It’s a lifestyle,” Jess told A Current Affair. “You go for dinner, you go to a show, you go dancing. Through the day you have all these activities.” The downside is that they don’t know how to wash up or make a bed anymore, says Marty, because they haven’t done it for so long. Now, that’s the kind of downside we could all get used to quickly…
Start here: Cruise curious? Top tips for first-timers
A life less ordinary at sea
The Ansen’s are part of a growing trend worldwide: older people choosing to spend their retirement years full-time on cruise ships. For many, this lifestyle offers some of the benefits of residential aged care – three squares a day, cleaning and laundry amenities, and a program of activities – without the sense of being in ‘God's waiting room.’ There are different versions of this life at sea. You can ship-hop on short cruises booked back-to-back, join months-long world cruises or buy lavish apartments on built-for-purpose permanent communities.
Try it out: Careful: a short cruise might give you a cruise addiction
What it really costs to live at sea
The economics vary, with length of cruise, time of year, type of cabin and age of the liner itself all playing a role.
When American website Cruzely.com analysed the costs of a year-long stay on the ‘moderately priced’ Caribbean Princess, they concluded that a couple could expect to pay $193,000 USD for a year in a balcony cabin, with estimated onboard costs and incidental fees factored in. Ahem, it seems one person’s ‘moderately priced’ is another’s way of saying retirement at sea isn’t exactly the pensioner special.
Consider also that a single supplement is charged at 85% – an important factor to consider, as most costs are applied to a double stateroom. The singles tax is alive and well in cruise land.
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The Royal Caribbean’s 274-night Ultimate World Cruise, which takes guests to 150+ destinations across 7 continents and 60+ countries, prices their staterooms from an interior cabin at $59,999 pp to a junior suite at$117,599 pp and ‘other suites’ including their Royal Suite estimated at upwards of $760,000 per person.
For the ultra-rich: a floating private community
For one-percenters with an intellectual bent, The World is the biggest private residential ship on the planet. It permanently circles the globe and has apartments at price points ranging from three to fifteen million.
Rather than shuffleboard and cabaret with the ‘newly-wed, the overfed, and the almost dead’, residents on The World can dine with Nobel Prize winners and hike in the footsteps of Mawson. Pets, however, must stay below-stairs in ‘The Kennels’, where owners must observe visiting hours.
No such problem on the upcoming Storyline’s MV Narrative, which claims it will be the first residential ship to allow pets on board, and also the most environmentally sustainable.
YouTube couples living the dream
YouTube is full of couples living life at sea. “We spent about $5,000 USD a month doing it,” say Angelyn and Richard Burke, who took back-to-back cruises for 51 days and recorded their experiences on their YouTube channel. “For us, it was a lot more cost-effective than maintaining a large suburban home.”
The case against? “The cons for us started to creep up the longer we spent on board,” says Angelyn. “The food started to get repetitive. And there’s a lack of connection with friends and family.” Online connectivity presented a problem too, according to Richard. “You get slow and almost non-existent internet when you’re crossing the Atlantic.”
YouTubers Nancy and Mike call their channel ‘Living Phase 2’ and believe in the mantra: ‘empty nest, full life’, while Laura, in her mid-fifties, calls it “living bougie on a budget.”
Health, safety and sea-borne risks
Health can be a concern. Liners can be breeding grounds for infection. In 2020, cruise ships worldwide were affected by Covid-19 and in 2023, there were dual outbreaks of gastro-enteritis and Covid on the Grand Princess as it docked in Adelaide. The Australian government advises that cruising increases your susceptibility to Covid-19, influenza, acute gastroenteritis and other infectious diseases and warns that there may be significant added costs if you require health care onboard. Recent analysis of data from 252 cruise ships entering American ports showed that the risk of getting sick with gastro was significantly lower on larger ships and longer voyages.
Could the cruise life be your next chapter?
When it comes time to ponder the design of your retirement lifestyle, living permanently at sea is an interesting option to throw into the mix. “It’s always a moving picture, isn’t it,” says Jess, the hula-hooping Brisbane-born great-grandmother enjoying her permanent cruise ship life. “You sit on your balcony and you have a glass of wine and you look out. It’s moving all the time.”
So perhaps the real question isn’t whether you could live at sea, but whether you can imagine ever wanting to come back to shore.
Feature image: iStock/courtneyk
Tell us in the comments: Do you love cruising? Could you live there?
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