Living onboard information?

[JF - retired RRT]

Living onboard a cruise ship is just a MYTH a good story but not true. If you believe that I have a bridge for sale. :D :D

Tony

 

Not a myth. There's a man who "lives" on a Royal Caribbean ship (I think it was the Allure, but not positive). He goes round and round wherever the ship goes. His cabin has his name on the door - "Mario's Suite". I've seen pictures and read threads discussing him on the RCCL board.

 

Edit: and then, of course, I read a little further and there he was! Mario Salcedo on the Allure.

Edited August 31, 2016 by JF - retired RRT

[Silver Sweethearts]

This from a Seabourn blog:

 

"Celebrating 2,500 days on Seabourn - The staff on Seabourn Quest recently organized a special surprise for one of our most loyal guests, Mrs. Alene Witzke. It turns out that Mrs. Witzke hit a milestone when she was sailing on Seabourn Quest earlier this month – she reached 2,500 nights on Seabourn, which is nearly seven years!!"

 

This was dated September, 2011. We had the pleasure of meeting her after that on a Seabourn cruise, and she was still going strong. She only went to see her family during the holiday season and then it was back to Seabourn.

[johnmik1]

Surprised no one mentioned this. The thing about Lorraine artz was that the reason she sailed all the time was that she and her husband sold Princess the land for their hq. As part of the deal they got cruises for life.

 

So far as I know there is no program per se. You just book b2b2b. I think the info you've been given is accurate. That's not to say that someone making that kind of booking might not be able to negoiate a bit on pricing

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

When I heard the story,it was that they leased Princess the land in Santa Clarita and as the landlord she made special deals.I was also told by a senior officer that she brought her own furniture and always had a suite.Many years ago we had dinner with the Passenger Services Director,in his cabin,and I noticed a stationary bike in the corner.When I asked him why he had that instead of going to the fitness center,he told me that it belonged to Lorraine who had just left to live on the Royal and they were waiting to ship it to her.I remember her always wearing green.Sadly she died a few years ago.

[Ando]

Coincidently I was only thinking about this live-abroad topic this week. A question I raised to myself is how would you manage obtaining a visa for countries that require you to have them in advance of arrival and do not offer the "onboard visa" option? China, India & Brazil come to mind immediately.

 

If I were to commit to living onboard I would look for a ship that visits several regions e.g. Emerald Princess visits the Mediterranean, Asia, Australia/New Zealand, Alaska & South America over the next 18 months.

 

A visa in advance would be required for India (a very annoying 1 day stop on the transit from London to Australia :mad: ) and Brazil. I would imagine that you would then need to spend some time (weeks) ashore to arrange these visas, and typically you need to do this in your country of residence, or face a much longer processing delay if you obtain a visas in another country. You would generally need to apply for a multi-entry visa which is valid for 12 months, so I envisage you may need to spend up to 2 months "at home" to secure the 2 or 3 visas you may require for the next 12 months.

 

I guess you could use that as your "vacation time" from living onboard the ship, trading your cabin for hotel/s or airbnb-style apartment/s and catch up with family & friends.

 

It does sound appealing though.....

[Steelers0854]

Coincidently I was only thinking about this live-abroad topic this week. A question I raised to myself is how would you manage obtaining a visa for countries that require you to have them in advance of arrival and do not offer the "onboard visa" option? China, India & Brazil come to mind immediately.

 

 

 

If I were to commit to living onboard I would look for a ship that visits several regions e.g. Emerald Princess visits the Mediterranean, Asia, Australia/New Zealand, Alaska & South America over the next 18 months.

 

 

 

A visa in advance would be required for India (a very annoying 1 day stop on the transit from London to Australia :mad: ) and Brazil. I would imagine that you would then need to spend some time (weeks) ashore to arrange these visas, and typically you need to do this in your country of residence, or face a much longer processing delay if you obtain a visas in another country. You would generally need to apply for a multi-entry visa which is valid for 12 months, so I envisage you may need to spend up to 2 months "at home" to secure the 2 or 3 visas you may require for the next 12 months.

 

 

 

I guess you could use that as your "vacation time" from living onboard the ship, trading your cabin for hotel/s or airbnb-style apartment/s and catch up with family & friends.

 

 

 

It does sound appealing though.....

 

 

 

I would think that with the Internet on board and ashore combined with a travel agent this wouldn't be a problem?

[easyboy]

Some info on Princess:

http://www.snopes.com/travel/trap/retire.asp

Thanks for the link

[CZEE]

Living onboard a cruise ship is just a MYTH a good story but not true. If you believe that I have a bridge for sale. :D :D

Tony

 

When we took the previous Royal Princess, the ship's godmother, I think they called her had a suite. Hers was the only suite with a doorbell. She lived on the ship most of the year and had furnished it with her own belongings. When the Royal was decommissioned she, obviously didn't live on it anymore. I heard she was deceased.

 

The crew treated her like royalty. She had special place settings in the Horizon Court and had special guests for dinner in her cabin or in the restaurant.

 

It has been done. Not sure if Princess wants to do it anymore. She made lots of friends for the line.

[PescadoAmarillo]

Thanks for the thorough and helpful reply as well as the informative blog you maintain. It's good to hear from everyone here but particularly from someone with actual experience in doing something very similar to what I was seeking info about. Your experience is probably the one that in reality others have had as well. It seems like it would be a real pain to track all of the deposits and final payment dates while monitoring for rate changes that may be applicable and available before your locked in. Cudos to you guys for managing that as well as those who do it year round.

 

How does Princess handle your onboard account? Will all the b2b2b2b's does the account have to be settled at the end of each voyage? What about your cabin/onboard id card? Is the free wifi account balance you get under captains circle program reset each voyage, requiring it to be set up again for the next voyage? Are you required to disembark and reboard after each one just as you are for any b2b?

Thank you! Sorry for the delay in responding. Things are busy around here, preparing for another (shorter this year) season of cruising. I am on my iPad and will not answer each of your questions individually but will take them collectively.

 

It is a real pain to track everything related to our travel, but well worth it in the end. It helps to have a real attention to details because the details are many and sometimes complicated. We had more than 50 FCCs each at one point in time, old ones and new ones and ones with four year expiration dates and others with two year expiration dates. It was messy. Why so many? We often have multiple scenarios booked for each season (this year it was four). If we want the same cabin throughout, we have to book early and lock it in before we've really finalized our plans.

 

Final payments are tracked on our shared calendar (we joke that if I get hit by a truck, my husband's very first call has to be to Princess). Once they start up (usually in July), we pay them in blocks based on our credit card cutoff date; i.e. all those that will be due before the next cutoff. It's a bit easier that way.

 

I check cruise fares and airfare daily. We have seen unexplained one day drops in the past. I'm afraid of missing even one day. I probably spend 30 minutes a day on cruise planning, and that doesn't count our endless discussions related to where and when to cruise.

 

One thing that saves time is to get our bookings linked. This means I only have to complete the Cruise Personalizer one time, for the first cruise. It also means we are less likely to get upgrades as they realize we'd want them for all the cruises; otherwise, why give up our cabin?

 

Once on board, what we do is no different than someone doing just two cruises B2B. Our on board spending rolls over until the end (if we never disembarked, would we ever have to pay?). Internet carries over from one cruise to the next, but we can't purchase for the following cruise until the prior cruise's allotment is used up. Therefore, it really carries forward for one cruise only and we do have to sign up for new minutes every cruise. If a cruise is a logical booking (could have been done as two separate cruises), the wifi allotment is for the combined cruise. It just depends on if there is a single booking number for two cruises, or one booking number.

 

Immigration totally depends on the disembarkation city. Outside the US is almost a non-issue; if it's within the US, we are required to go through immigration each turnaround. In Fort Lauderdale, Global Entry makes that process much easier.

 

What hasn't really been discussed is that living in a ship, or staying on one for extended periods, is very different than taking one cruise a year. When I first started cruising, I couldn't imagine anything more wonderful than living on The World, and maybe that would be different because there you truly have your own condo on the ship to escape to.

 

But realize that you are around people all. the. time. I used to be a fairly social person but I have become much less so after spending months on a ship. I need my alone time to be able to function and it's hard to find on a ship. The upside is that we get to know the crew very well, and it's very special to have that relationship. We really are quite spoiled. And we've met some wonderful fellow passengers that we see year after year. That's fun. But it would not be enough for me forever.

 

Bottom line- I could never live on a cruise ship. My life would lack the purpose I need to feel connected to the world. It's not ten (or 15 or 52) times the fun of one cruise, but the cost is. For us, it's the perfect way to escape cold and snow at home while still maintaining our lives and connections to home. But sell everything and live on board? Not for me.

[PescadoAmarillo]

I forgot to discuss health insurance and medications. We are fortunate to have health insurance that pays outside the country but we still purchase Princess Travel Care for every cruise. (We've used the Cancel for Any Reason coverage more than any other). Medications, however, are trickier. When we cruised for five months one winter, I had to get overrides from my insurance company to leave with enough supply of meds. One of my meds requires a periodic blood draw. They did that on the ship, sent it to a lab in Fort Lauderdale, got the results which I had faxed to my doc at home who transmitted the scrip to Publix in Fort Lauderdale. They didn't have the drug in hand so I had to wait until the next turnaround day to pick it up. The ship's doctor's prescriptions could only be filled at one pharmacy (Walgreens) in Fort Lauderdale as the docs are licensed outside the US. My insurance isn't taken at Walgreens. Altogether it took 30 days from blood draw to picking up the pills and was a huge PITA.

 

Staying onboard for extended periods of time also assumes a level of health that many people with the time and money to do it wouldn't have. One passenger told us she could not possibly go several months without seeing her doctor. The ship's doctor is good but is not a substitute for the several specialists many of us see at least annually.

[gottagocit]

PescadoAmarillo,

 

Thanks so much for taking the time to respond to the questions. Your info really helps me understand many of the logistics involved.

 

I know it's not the same but we once sold our home, downsized, bought an RV and travelled fullltime in it for over 4 years. We enjoyed the experience and learned a lot about ourselves and how to manage without many material things as well as coping with living in a small 'box' so in some ways living in a cabin for months/years at a time wouldn't be a problem. Some of the things you describe could make it more difficult but I think they too could be managed in our case.

 

For us I t really comes down to the cost which we'll have to put some thought and work into evaluating they closer.

 

Thanks again and smooth sailing,

Chris

[paul929207]

When we took the previous Royal Princess, the ship's godmother, I think they called her had a suite. Hers was the only suite with a doorbell. She lived on the ship most of the year and had furnished it with her own belongings. When the Royal was decommissioned she, obviously didn't live on it anymore. I heard she was deceased.

 

The crew treated her like royalty. She had special place settings in the Horizon Court and had special guests for dinner in her cabin or in the restaurant.

 

It has been done. Not sure if Princess wants to do it anymore. She made lots of friends for the line.

You are referring to Loraine Artz. She live for years on Princess ships. She lived on the original Royal Princess. When it left the fleet she moved to another shiI am not sure which. She moved to the middle Royal when it joined the fleet. She was the godmother of it. (Princess Di and Princess Kate were the godmothers for the first and the current Royals, respectively.

 

Loraine spent about 5 months on board and then would go home (LA) for a month. She repeated this pattern for years. When we sailed with her in 2007, she ha about 350 Princess cruises and over 4000 days.

 

Eventually her health deteriorated and she had to leave the ship. She passed away a few years ago.

[golfb4cruzing]

The family knows that if my dear wife passes on first, forward my mail to a ship to be named at a later date. I think it's a great option.

[Brisbane41]

I've seen a few threads here over the years as well as magazine articles about individuals and/or couples living onboard Princes ships full time. It's a subject that I've always found intriguing but never researched.

 

For some reason today I thought about again and decided to call Princess to get more information. I was a little surprised to initially be told by the agent there was no such program. After insisting I had been told differently he offered to put me on hold and ask someone else. After a few minutes he returned and said he had confirmed there was no such program and I could simply purchase b2b2b2b voyages and stay onboard as long as I wanted. I tried to explain what I've read but got no where so I gave up. I guess I'll call back and try again with someone else when I feel like sitting on hold again.

 

Does anyone have firsthand factual information about this program that you could share? Or perhaps know where to read something about it on their website?

 

Thanks,

Chris

 

Its one of those cruising myths that you have fallen for and it often gets pushed around the internet as fact. A similar myth is about the cruise line being cheaper than nursing homes for some people and their relatives sending them on a cruise. This also is a myth as cruise lines disembark people not fit enough to travel or are suffering medical conditions that make it impracticable for them to travel.

 

Just because you read it somewhere does not mean that its true.

[moki'smommy]

There are a couple of cruise lines where you purchase your "suite" in the same way you would buy a condo, but that is ALL those lines do. They don't have people coming on board for a week or whatever unless they are arranged guests of an owner and will be staying in the owner's suite.

 

As to people being disembarked due to illness--that is true for an obvious acute illness, and the crew on the ship are certainly not there to provide care for chronic conditions. However, far too often people do get on board when perhaps they are physically or mentally unable to handle cruising. That was one of our "issues" with Celebrity. We were seated at a table of 6, and the youngest at the table other than myself and my daughter was over 70. There was a pair of ladies traveling in one cabin, their friend in another cabin, and a relatively recent widow who had planned to cruise with her husband. Her children told her to go anyhow and put her on the ship. Whether thru grief or dementia, she was totally confused about everything and would attempt to latch onto me around the ship. Three times I escorted her to guest services or an appropriate location when she was walking around with excursion tickets saying, "I don't know what to do with these." She was pleasant, but it was not my job to babysit her! I'd like to assume the best and figure that her family didn't appreciate her condition. She had no business on a ship alone!

[cruzsnooze]

 

 

 

 

 

It seems to me the b2b2b2b option would be far more complicated and time consuming potentially causing you to deal with things such as dozens and dozens of deposits and final payment deadlines simultaneously, potentially packing and unpacking in order to move around the ship frequently from cabin to cabin, exchanging shipboard account cards frequently and potentially having to disembark and reboard at the end of each voyage even if you don't care to visit a given port. I'm sure there are more issues the method causes and some of these can likely be resolved. But were we to do this I would much rather this be a retirement situation with the fewest possible headaches and most possible r&r.

 

 

B2B2B would be more cost effective. Each cruise you would receive your loyalty credit which should be $100 with that many cruises. I'd also invest in 100 shares of Carnival stock so you could get shareholder credit each cruise. As an elite you would get a fresh mini bar each cruise which you could convert to water, soda, coffee cards and such, and if you used a TA you could get OBC from them. If you're entitled to a military credit that would be another plus to book as B2B2B since you'd get that each and every cruise.

So there's math to be done before deciding what works out most beneficial for you.

[ExDean]

If living on a cruise ship is a myth, then we sailed with the myth.

 

We were on the old Royal (what a wonderful ship) for a Panama Canal partial transit in April 2010. On board was a widow woman (whose name I have forgotten) who lived on the Royal for months at a time. She was present at the frequent cruisers cocktail parties and assisted Captain Justin Lawes pass out the rewards.She was introduced as a "resident" of the ship. She considered the crew as her family. You would often see her in the lounges participating in the entertainment and interacting with her fellow cruisers. When not on the ship she would visit her children for a month or so and the come back on board. She had her "permanent" mini suite as her "home." She told us it was less expensive than a retirement home. She was written up in a travel magazine some years ago. She was a lovely lady.

 

So yes, there are some few folks who do "live" on a ship. We'd just like to afford a couple or so cruises a year.

[shredie]

People keep giving an example of "a lady who lived on the ship." My guess is they are all talking about the same person, Lorraine Artz. She was an exception to all kinds of rules.

[shellbeachjim]

If living on a cruise ship is a myth, then we sailed with the myth.

 

We were on the old Royal (what a wonderful ship) for a Panama Canal partial transit in April 2010. On board was a widow woman (whose name I have forgotten) who lived on the Royal for months at a time. She was present at the frequent cruisers cocktail parties and assisted Captain Justin Lawes pass out the rewards.She was introduced as a "resident" of the ship. She considered the crew as her family. You would often see her in the lounges participating in the entertainment and interacting with her fellow cruisers. When not on the ship she would visit her children for a month or so and the come back on board. She had her "permanent" mini suite as her "home." She told us it was less expensive than a retirement home. She was written up in a travel magazine some years ago. She was a lovely lady.

 

So yes, there are some few folks who do "live" on a ship. We'd just like to afford a couple or so cruises a year.

You are referring to Lorraine Artz. She was on the original Royal Princess for many years until it left the fleet in 2005. She was the godmother of the second Royal Princess (the former R-Eight, now MV Adonia). This ship left the Princess fleet in 2011. One reason for leaving the fleet was the complete lack of mini-suites on the ship.

 

We were on a few cruises at the same time as Mrs. Artz. Her cabin on the original Royal Princess was on the lido deck. She had a very nice sign either on her cabin door, or beside it indicating that it was her cabin. The pool attendants were instructed not to move the deck chair above her cabin before a specified time in the morning. I don't know where her cabin on the second Royal Princess was located. By the way, her usual lunch companions while we were on our cruises were Alan and Alana Cooper.

[Times Prince]

...

 

It is a real pain to track everything related to our travel, but well worth it in the end. It helps to have a real attention to details because the details are many and sometimes complicated. We had more than 50 FCCs each at one point in time, old ones and new ones and ones with four year expiration dates and others with two year expiration dates. It was messy. Why so many? We often have multiple scenarios booked for each season (this year it was four). If we want the same cabin throughout, we have to book early and lock it in before we've really finalized our plans.

 

Final payments are tracked on our shared calendar (we joke that if I get hit by a truck, my husband's very first call has to be to Princess). Once they start up (usually in July), we pay them in blocks based on our credit card cutoff date; i.e. all those that will be due before the next cutoff. It's a bit easier that way.

 

I check cruise fares and airfare daily. We have seen unexplained one day drops in the past. I'm afraid of missing even one day. I probably spend 30 minutes a day on cruise planning, and that doesn't count our endless discussions related to where and when to cruise.

 

One thing that saves time is to get our bookings linked. This means I only have to complete the Cruise Personalizer one time, for the first cruise. It also means we are less likely to get upgrades as they realize we'd want them for all the cruises; otherwise, why give up our cabin?

 

Once on board, what we do is no different than someone doing just two cruises B2B. Our on board spending rolls over until the end (if we never disembarked, would we ever have to pay?). Internet carries over from one cruise to the next, but we can't purchase for the following cruise until the prior cruise's allotment is used up. Therefore, it really carries forward for one cruise only and we do have to sign up for new minutes every cruise. If a cruise is a logical booking (could have been done as two separate cruises), the wifi allotment is for the combined cruise. It just depends on if there is a single booking number for two cruises, or one booking number.

 

Immigration totally depends on the disembarkation city. Outside the US is almost a non-issue; if it's within the US, we are required to go through immigration each turnaround. In Fort Lauderdale, Global Entry makes that process much easier.

 

What hasn't really been discussed is that living in a ship, or staying on one for extended periods, is very different than taking one cruise a year. When I first started cruising, I couldn't imagine anything more wonderful than living on The World, and maybe that would be different because there you truly have your own condo on the ship to escape to.

 

But realize that you are around people all. the. time. I used to be a fairly social person but I have become much less so after spending months on a ship. I need my alone time to be able to function and it's hard to find on a ship. The upside is that we get to know the crew very well, and it's very special to have that relationship. We really are quite spoiled. And we've met some wonderful fellow passengers that we see year after year. That's fun. But it would not be enough for me forever.

 

Bottom line- I could never live on a cruise ship. My life would lack the purpose I need to feel connected to the world. It's not ten (or 15 or 52) times the fun of one cruise, but the cost is. For us, it's the perfect way to escape cold and snow at home while still maintaining our lives and connections to home. But sell everything and live on board? Not for me.

Thanks so much for all this great information.

 

Even on shorter cruises up to 17 days we have found that most of our financials could be handled by online banking. Even booking and paying for cruises is handled by email to our TA, where final payment is always authorized by a phrase "please charge my Visa card number ending in xxxx".

 

We did, however, have a problem where a retail credit card company lost a check we sent by mail before embarking. Instead of contacting us by email as authorized, they phoned our home phone and sent new bills with overdue notices via regular mail, despite our instructions to contact via email. Bad Citibank! So setting up some sort of monitoring for unexpected stuff at home is needed.

 

We've seriously considered longer term cruising, especially with the political nonsense going on. Were you able to negotiate everything while onboard, or did you have a TA who set things up?

 

I'll have to review your blog, but didn't the entertainment get somewhat repetitious? We like to read (Kindle), but even that needs a break.

 

But we're with you - when we consider longer term cruising we start to think about family we will miss seeing, and the social life we would miss being involved in music at our church.

[Crzn-Life]

FYI: in an earlier post someone mentioned they didn't know which ship Lorraine was on between the Royal 1 and the Royal 2. It was the Sea Princess.

[tango55]

there has many news articles about buying a residence suite.in florida a lady paid around 3 million for it.she sold her house.i've heard that some ships are like a time share.building ships cost a lot of money,so people buy a cabin.they use it for a time then time share it out for when they don't use it.not sure it was on princess ship.

[AdoraBelle]

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=136

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_The_World

Edited September 2, 2016 by AdoraBelle

[Aus Traveller]

there has many news articles about buying a residence suite.in florida a lady paid around 3 million for it.she sold her house.i've heard that some ships are like a time share.building ships cost a lot of money,so people buy a cabin.they use it for a time then time share it out for when they don't use it.not sure it was on princess ship.

I am sure Princess does not do this. The only one I know that operates like this is "The World." This ship has been discussed earlier in this thread. It does not operate like a cruise ship as everyone has their own apartment. It would not have the social life and activities that occur on a cruise ship. There is also an expensive maintenance fee. I read that it ranged from $60,000 to $100,000 per year. That is after spending between $1 million and $3 million for the apartment. Just think how much income you would get if you invested that $1-$3 million well.

Edited September 2, 2016 by Aus Traveller

[Aussie Gal]

If I was on a ship for 3 months or more, I think I would get tired of the food. There is one way of finding out how you would enjoy being away from home for so long and that is doing either a World cruise of say 103 or so days or doing the Oceania World Cruise of 180 days which our friends did earlier this year and that was on one of the smaller ships.

 

They loved it but of course there were downsides to it as well. One was when one of the couple, ended up with pneumonia and they thought they may have to leave the ship but he was able to get better with the help of the medical staff on board. Secondly, missing everyone at home especially birthdays etc.

 

I really think that my time limit would be 60 days. We have done numerous cruises of 35 days and at the end of each cruise, I haven't wanted to leave the ship but I think by the time 60 days came around, I would be contented to return home, just to have a home cooked meal, to lie in my own bed and of course to see our family and friends.

 

Jennie

[PescadoAmarillo]

Thanks so much for all this great information.

 

Even on shorter cruises up to 17 days we have found that most of our financials could be handled by online banking. Even booking and paying for cruises is handled by email to our TA, where final payment is always authorized by a phrase "please charge my Visa card number ending in xxxx".

 

We did, however, have a problem where a retail credit card company lost a check we sent by mail before embarking. Instead of contacting us by email as authorized, they phoned our home phone and sent new bills with overdue notices via regular mail, despite our instructions to contact via email. Bad Citibank! So setting up some sort of monitoring for unexpected stuff at home is needed.

 

We've seriously considered longer term cruising, especially with the political nonsense going on. Were you able to negotiate everything while onboard, or did you have a TA who set things up?

 

I'll have to review your blog, but didn't the entertainment get somewhat repetitious? We like to read (Kindle), but even that needs a break.

 

But we're with you - when we consider longer term cruising we start to think about family we will miss seeing, and the social life we would miss being involved in music at our church.

The biggest issue we've ever had was when Chase's credit card files were compromised and we were issued a new card one week into a 3-4 month cruise. The card was the one we used for auto charges; it never left our safe because we thought changing all those accounts in the event something happened would be tough. Well, it was very tough to get the information from a new credit card sent in the mail back at home, activate the card from outside the country and get the card updated with several vendors, all using expensive and slow Internet. But we did it.

 

We seldomly tire of the production shows and if we have seen other entertainers enough in one session, we opt for the live musical entertainment. Plus we leave home with way more videos on our iDevices than we actually watch. (Love Boat reruns get old in about 12 minutes, though.)

 

We are often still making or changing plans while we're on a cruise. The Future Cruise Consultant has been pressed into duty more than once, but I've also lost track of the number of times I've phoned Princess over the Internet from outside the country (hint: keep a non-800 number handy).

 

Obviously if we didn't love it so much we wouldn't do it (for six years straight), because while life on board a ship is easy, getting us there and keeping our lives and house at home going while we're cruising is not.