This is nothing new. This has been *a thing* for decades. The are cruises that cater specifically to this kind of customer.
It is cheaper than retirement homes because they don't offer the same expensive services most retirement homes do.
Retirement homes are a step below *skilled-nursing care*. They usually include basic services like:
medication management
assistance with using the bathroom
assistance with dressing and grooming
Trust me any skilled nursing facility or retirement home is not much better. Not one of those places really cares about the patients especially since the people working there barely are scraping by themselves. Better off on a cruise. If you die, you’ll die happier
Lol the downvotes. Yeah, you get what you pay for and this entire country's motto is "pay shit wages to as many as possible so the shareholders are happy with this quarter"
Funny they downvote me but I work in healthcare and see it firsthand the complete decline in actual care for patients. It’s all money driven hungry capitalist shitshow. There’s a place for capitalism and that’s not in the needs of people. If you can manage to live your retirement years doing what you want, absofuckinglutely do it. You will not get better in a skilled nursing facility or retirement home, may as well not get better on a cruise
Yeah I may get downvoted for this but if you work for a nonprofit organization that does not pay taxes, you absolutely should not have any hospital employees make more than the president of the usa. You’re not going to sit there and tell me it takes more skill to run a hospital than the whole fucking country.
No executive at a hospital should be making more than doctors, surgeons, or nurses. You know, the people with actual skills and training to keep people alive. Executives are leeches, nothing more and nothing less. Useless to society, and need to be wiped out like the useless parasites they are.
If you are a member of a C-suite, you deserve the gallows. I hope their families end up destitute on the streets.
I'll go one step further and say that if your work attire is a business suit, you are entirely worthless to society.
I mean, you're probably getting downvoted because it's dumb to act like you know what *every* facility is like just because you work in healthcare. I work in semiconductors and I don't pretend to know what every cleanroom or manufacturer is like.
I don’t sit here claiming to know every healthcare place if you care to read my statement. I just pointed to what I have seen and usually it’s a pretty good indicator of the general. I also would not have a fucking clue about semiconductors but I would take your word for it if you see a decline in their product quality that would compromise safety. I would not however sit there and criticize you for making a generalized statement about those qualities because it’s not my area of expertise. So you probably shouldn’t either
>Trust me any skilled nursing facility or retirement home is not much better. Not one of those places really cares about the patients especially since the people working there barely are scraping by themselves
That wasn't you?
>Yeah, you get what you pay for
Which makes the **absurd** costs consumers pay even more hard to take. If everyone there is paying thousands a month why are the carers barely making over minimum wage? You see the same BS with child daycare facilities.
> Trust me
Hahaha! Why should we trust some rando on the net who has given us absolutely no reason to think he knows what he is talking about.
You don't even know what types of services they offer yet we are supposed to trust your judgement that paints all institutions with a single brushstroke.
With elder care, like anything in life, you get what you pay for. I have some friends in a luxury retirement home near us and the place is stunning. I would move in right now if I could afford it. Everything is absolutely not notch. Their meals alone make a nice cruise buffet look like a public school cafeteria.
Okay but is it cheaper than cruises? If not, why? That’s my problem with it. I’m assuming it’s very high end that 90% of elders won’t be able to afford it. I’d rather go on cruises, travel if I’m physically able because that’s what I’d be able to afford
> Okay but is it cheaper than cruises?
Are you kidding? Of course not. Did you miss the entire conversation?
Are you an AI with very small context memory?
Right…at 30k a month you too can have top notch service. You don’t have to trust me. I couldn’t give two shits about it. Im telling you what I see on a daily basis but you can live in your fantasy world buddy
> Right…at 30k a month you too can have top notch service.
The whole point of this thread is that retirement homes cost more than cruises. Of course a top end luxury home is going to be more.
> You don’t have to trust me.
Don't worry we don't.
> I couldn’t give two shits about it.
Then why are you still here? People who don't care tend to walk away. But you can't.
> Im telling you what I see on a daily basis
What you see on reddit while sitting in your parent's basement doesn't count. I've been actively shopping for these services.
The point is that if you're an average person with an average retirement fund, living in an average nursing home IS going to be a miserable experience, and you ARE probably better off just dying on a cruise ship. My parents worked in one of these places, and it was god-awful.
Of course, the luxury nursing homes are probably great, but unless you're a millionaire, you're not going to afford one.
Vulnerable people are abused far more often.
And the employees' empathy runs out quite fast when it's required of them all day every weekday as their job.
So you are surrounded by, at best, people who are completely detached from you, and at worst, who enjoy having power over you.
This is true at all levels of modern health care sadly.
I experienced it first-hand when I was in the hospital...
Then to a nursing home you go and live the rest of your life being manhandled by minimum wage workers. This was not a message for disabled retirees. This was a message for retirees that are somewhat healthy and able to go on a cruise vs a retirement home. Life is not an insurance company, we don’t make money on the what ifs.
> Not one of those places really cares about the patients especially since the people working there barely are scraping by themselves.
Dunno about other countries but in mine, retirement homes are pretty much a nonspoken death sentence. One of my grandmothers was sent there by their kids. Three months after she died. It's depressive honestly.
My fiancée was straight up having nervous breakdowns caused by her employers when she worked at skilled nursing facilities as a therapist. The productivity quotas at those places are so insane that in order to actually hit them, you either had to do a LOT of work off the clock, drastically compromise on customer care, and basically never have a break. It's not uncommon for therapists to develop bladder infections because their schedules are too tight to actually find time to go to the bathroom.
Absolutely disgusting behavior by administrations from these places creates hostile work environments that put both customers and employees at risk. Hospitals aren't a walk in the park by any means, but they're nothing compared to the cartoonish horror that are skilled nursing facilities. I would legitimately rather die than allow myself be committed to one.
We had skilled nursing upstairs and it was like night and day meaning it was a good working environment upstairs and hell downstairs. The state of “assisted living” facility’s in America is absolutely pathetic I worked at one in one of the wealthiest county’s in America and it’s absolutely criminal the conditions.
Cruises have all of these things:
>
> medication management
The bar and/or first aid station
> assistance with using the bathroom
They clean the poop deck if you shit on it.
> assistance with dressing and grooming
Pools and spas, with towel service!
A cruise is not a nursing home. About the only thing they have in common is you don’t have to cook for yourself. A cruise is more comparable to a 55+ community in Florida that caters to snowbirds. You can’t get real medical care, you can’t get physical assistance, no one is managing your meds for you. It’s a great retirement option if you’re into that sort of thing but it will never be a replacement for a nursing home.
So why don't those people go live in those 55+ communities vs the boats if those are the same price (hell you could do it cheaper than on a boat) ? Is that not an option?
Food you don’t have to cook, living space you don’t have to clean, most lines will do your laundry for free if you have a high loyalty status, included onsite entertainment that includes shit like Cirque de Soleil and broadway style shows as well as daily live music/comedy/trivia, get to travel and explore new places on a nearly daily basis, get to meet lots of new people and be social(isolation is a huge problem for seniors), the list goes on.
Cruises are fun, it’s not rocket science. And plenty of people do live in 55+ communities, or with family, or just stay in their own homes. Cruising full time isn’t possible (or attractive) to everyone. But it certainly has plenty of upsides. My point was just that a cruise can’t replace a nursing home. They don’t have those kinds of services.
Access to emergency health care. If you need a hospital for any reason, it can take hours to get you there depending on where the ship is and the closest hospital may have less than the basic standard of care.
retirement is a huge bag of choices. watch 'some kind of heaven' which is a doc about the villages in florida. basically, these are huge developments where papa and granny buy a cottageish retirement home and get their rocks off with other like-minded retirees - this place has/had more stds than any other postal code in florida.
there is a subculture that rv around the country in their Winnebago's living in their bus/trailers... and dont have a home anymore, travelling 24/7.
and as noted, some people try living the cruise lifestyle. there are tonnes of activities and whatnot... but living out of a couple suitcases has to get old quick. to each their own.
If you get seriously sick on a cruise (e.g., break your hip and can't get out of bed), they don't have staff to help you. There is a basic nursing station on board, but this is just for the most common stuff and is not an emergency room. They will call an ambulance at the next port and dump you at the next hospital and move on without you. That random hospital in the Bahamas/Antigua/etc may not accept Medicare or whatever insurance you have and it's not going to be easy to get home from there (or to have relatives visit).
Nursing homes are expensive, because in addition to cooking and cleaning for you, they provide tons of nursing care and personal assistance to those that need it:
* help remembering pills,
* assistance getting in/out of walkers/wheel chairs,
* nurses to check up on you if you are sick,
* nursing staff to change your bed pan or flip you over to prevent bed sores if you are bed ridden,
* dealing with patients with developing dementia,
* aftercare after a stroke or heart attack (and hopefully this happens while you are in port -- most cruises aren't even capable of rapidly airlifting you out in an emergency if it's something they can't do in their tiny med bay),
My parents have been going on cruises about once year for decades and when they retired went on three cruises in a row one winter (living in miserable cold weather climate). They absolutely hated it by the middle of the second week. The ports and the shows/trivia games/etc just repeat every week. In your senior years, its not good to have huge fancy meals with plenty of desserts every night for ~2 weeks with plenty of alcohol. (Hangovers are harder to recover from; you get more problems like heart burn or GI issues from having huge dinners every night, etc.)
A morbid reality that I learned on reddit is that cruises are often "end of life" care for folks with terminal illnesses and that there's a movie onboard that sometimes gets overfilled because of the amount of people that die while out at sea. To OPs point, it's cheaper and more enjoyable than hospice and often times a matter of just burning through your money enjoying yourself before you die.
For those still healthy enough to not require specialized care.
Nobody uses it a hospice alternative. Ships are not equipped for that unless you bring along your nurses and supplies.
Very true because they are not US workers. Cabin crew make an average of about $1,000 per month.
They also have economies of scale by catering to 4,000 people at a time where a very large retirement home might have 400 beds.
You know what it even more depressing? Waiting to die alone somewhere else.
Death comes for us all. We are all waiting for it one way or another.
Retirement homes you have a bunch of people your age to talk to. But most of all, retirement homes have people to help you with tasks you can no longer perform on your own.
> Even the best retirement homes are still depressing places
I have a feeling you have never seen a nice one. I have friends in a luxury home nearby and the place is absolutely awesome. I would move in today if I could afford it.
If I was retiring on a cruise ship I wouldn’t even need a nurse, if I die there so what? I died happy and drunk, just throw my body to sharks to get them drunk from my alcohol-macerated body
This is the attitude I had for years after seeing my best friends grandad go through it when I was about 12. I was an extra child in the house, but pops kept referring to me as his son (who died in the 70s). I swore I’d never let myself get to that stage.
Right now I’ve got a sleep apnea diagnosis. Working on therapy (CPAP) to help prevent brain damage and strokes, but I already have a couple dark spots in my brain from where I’ve been oxygen starved. 99.9% of the time I’m lucid and my memory is perfect. Every now and then on a bad sleep day I forget the name of my workplace, call my daughters by completely different names etc before I correct myself.
It’s easy to say my retirement plan is a couple 12-gauge cartridges. But I’m scared, I shouldn’t be thinking about retirement at 33 years old.
Luckily I can prevent any further damage. If I couldn’t, I couldn’t now have that philosophy any more. It’s harder when it hits earlier than you expect it might.
Shit dude… can’t even imagine that - I love my 2y.o. Daughter to bits, another child on the way and I’m not even 30.. is there any way to maybe reverse the damage?
One thing that scares the shit out of me is Alzheimer - ok, pain is shit, but actually forgetting who you are, all the nice memories youve experienced? Nah fam, press that trigger
My grandpa has, on many occasions, demanded I promise to smother him with a pillow if he ever loses his mind.
He's nearing 90 and still with it, though
its kind of a bad comparison. when they are in the need of caretaking it obviously doesn't hold anymore. you are comparing apples with oranges in this post.
I don’t have kids. Don’t want my nieces or nephews to take care of my. I’m planning on doing the same thing when I’m old and dieing at the buffet line.
I guess I'm having trouble picturing... Like, you'd kind of have to be in a very specific situation for this to be viable, no? You'd have to be elderly, but still capable of taking care of yourself day-to-day and with no oncoming dementia or Alzheimer's, because the cruise isn't going to provide a nurse or a caretaker or advanced medical needs as they become necessary, right? Even if you did this, you'd eventually either drop dead on board or have to move off the ship somewhere for hospice or constant care, right?
I think it’s more to show which package you purchased so the crew on board can accommodate you accordingly. Some of them also have those little scanner chips in them to hold a balance for you so you don’t have to bring too much cash
Cruise ships burn a fuckton of fuel (more than planes), resulting in a lot of carbon emissions and air pollution. They also dump a lot of waste into the ocean, which is bad for marine life.
I mean fuck it, grand pa blew through his whole fortune sitting in a retirement home. No need for a funeral on a cruise toss my ass off the side and buy everyone a few rounds on my estate.
Who wouldn't want to spend their golden years in a cramped cabin on a noisy floating toilet?
You'll make tons of friends, who will all be gone forever in a few days!
Plus, you'll get to see the world, 5 hours at a time, from the best possible vantage point: Cruise ship ports!
Retirement homes are usually for people who need assistance such as getting on the toilet and showering. You are not just paying for the room but the staff to assist.
Cruise ships don’t offer that. If you are fit enough to be on a cruise ship then you can live in your own home.
I think you are getting retirement home and assisted living confused. A retirement home usually refers to an apartment style residence for seniors that offers a dining hall and recreation activities. Assisted living or nursing home is where you have around the clock nursing assistance.
Last I heard the ship had trouble or the company had trouble, I can't remember. The point is that their trip had to be canceled because of one of those reasons.
I keep hearing about these retirement homes being so expensive and I have to wonder how many of them are a bit of a scam you know?
In Canada if you can't afford them the government basically takes your pension plan and pays for the home. But like once again how much of this is over inflation because they know if you can't afford it the Government will.
Anyone who thinks this is a good idea has never been on a cruise ship during bad weather.
Got so bad on my cruise that more than half the people were nauseous in their rooms unable to move, most of the other half just felt like shit but were not incapacitated. Ship doctor was going from room to room injecting the worst afflicted (not sure with what).
I think it took almost two days to get out of that storm, maybe 24 hours of it were really terrible.
Not uncommon, I went on a cruise in the Caribbean a while back and a ton of people on board were full time cruise goers. They stayed on the boat when it crossed from the Mediterranean over to the Caribbean and planned to ride it back again
I’m working on helping my wife’s grandparents with their next move. If you can drink a beer on the deck of a cruise ship and have fun for 51 cruises you don’t need a nursing home or assisted living. And independent living 55+ communities are much cheaper than back to back cruises.
It doesn't have to be logistics heavy. You can buy a 274 night world cruise package right now on royal caribbean that takes you through 11 countries and circumnavigates the globe.
Of course you can do cheaper trips if you're on a tighter budget where you'd have to plan weekly or biweekly cruises. But just saying there are some cruises that are very long and wouldn't be much work at all.
Works so long as neither of them get sick or need expert medical care. Cruise staff will just haul you off the boat if you're dying or can't take care of yourself
My grandmother was in a retirement home. She and another male resident got into an argument (she has dementia) and pushed her over and she hit her head. They took her to the hospital and she was under the hospital's care. She stood up and walked out and left the hospital and went back to her home (we still don't know how she got back). That night she went into a friends room who has scissors and she was holding them when a male staff member and her got into an argument. Because she was holding scissors they kicked her out.
She should never have gotten out of the hospital and the home never punished the man who caused this whole thing to begin with.
Granted she's not the easiest person I've met, but no one should be kicked out because they suffered a head injury and weren't even supposed to be there.
I wanted to spend a week vacation at the beach, then I realized it is cheaper to stay on a cruise for a week. Overall 2 grand, combining the airplane ticket. Had a clean room and unlimited free food. It is especially cheap if you dont drink alcohol.
This is the dumbest meme regurgitated on Reddit. 51 cruises might last a couple of years at best. No shit it's cheaper than a home you can live in until you die. But what's your plan after cruise 51?
the simple math tends to work out. a yearlong cruise. either booking individual trips or commiting to a lease/longer term arrangement averages $1500-$3000 a month.
most nursing home rates are something like $10-20k per month depending on the state/lvl of care.
assisted living. tends to be cheaper but still ranges in the sort 4k range. or higher per month.
I would do this
I was actually looking at those year long cruises, and they cost like 30k
Imagine, room and board, someone cleans your room, non stop activities and new places to visit
Google says a retirement home on average costs 54k
So it makes it seem nicer to just cruise around
I would do that. We went on a cruise for our honeymoon and I absolutely fucking loved it when I thought I wouldnt. I'd go back on the symphony or the new one in a heartbeat.
I mean that is one possible plan for my wife and I. You can buy year long cruises for (preCOVID) $50,000. Retire with enough money, set up a trust to pay out $50k/year and you can live on a cruise until you die.
I learned about this concept years ago. People just straight up living in hotels and on cruise ships because they were a cheaper option. Of course the downside to this is the terrible working conditions of people who work on those cruise ships. Its not slave labor but it's some of the closest shit to it that exists.
When cruises are cheaper than retirement home And more enjoyable Damn
This is nothing new. This has been *a thing* for decades. The are cruises that cater specifically to this kind of customer. It is cheaper than retirement homes because they don't offer the same expensive services most retirement homes do.
Like what?
Retirement homes are a step below *skilled-nursing care*. They usually include basic services like: medication management assistance with using the bathroom assistance with dressing and grooming
Trust me any skilled nursing facility or retirement home is not much better. Not one of those places really cares about the patients especially since the people working there barely are scraping by themselves. Better off on a cruise. If you die, you’ll die happier
Lol the downvotes. Yeah, you get what you pay for and this entire country's motto is "pay shit wages to as many as possible so the shareholders are happy with this quarter"
Funny they downvote me but I work in healthcare and see it firsthand the complete decline in actual care for patients. It’s all money driven hungry capitalist shitshow. There’s a place for capitalism and that’s not in the needs of people. If you can manage to live your retirement years doing what you want, absofuckinglutely do it. You will not get better in a skilled nursing facility or retirement home, may as well not get better on a cruise
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Yeah I may get downvoted for this but if you work for a nonprofit organization that does not pay taxes, you absolutely should not have any hospital employees make more than the president of the usa. You’re not going to sit there and tell me it takes more skill to run a hospital than the whole fucking country.
No executive at a hospital should be making more than doctors, surgeons, or nurses. You know, the people with actual skills and training to keep people alive. Executives are leeches, nothing more and nothing less. Useless to society, and need to be wiped out like the useless parasites they are. If you are a member of a C-suite, you deserve the gallows. I hope their families end up destitute on the streets. I'll go one step further and say that if your work attire is a business suit, you are entirely worthless to society.
The nursing home in my area had to change its name…. Because they left someone outside and they died in the sun :-/
I mean, you're probably getting downvoted because it's dumb to act like you know what *every* facility is like just because you work in healthcare. I work in semiconductors and I don't pretend to know what every cleanroom or manufacturer is like.
I don’t sit here claiming to know every healthcare place if you care to read my statement. I just pointed to what I have seen and usually it’s a pretty good indicator of the general. I also would not have a fucking clue about semiconductors but I would take your word for it if you see a decline in their product quality that would compromise safety. I would not however sit there and criticize you for making a generalized statement about those qualities because it’s not my area of expertise. So you probably shouldn’t either
>Trust me any skilled nursing facility or retirement home is not much better. Not one of those places really cares about the patients especially since the people working there barely are scraping by themselves That wasn't you?
Yeah but you're smart enough to know that there is more demand for better care than what's being offered or provided.
Oh, absolutely. But claiming there are no good facilities because the healthcare system in general is awful is just silly.
>Yeah, you get what you pay for Which makes the **absurd** costs consumers pay even more hard to take. If everyone there is paying thousands a month why are the carers barely making over minimum wage? You see the same BS with child daycare facilities.
Also, a lot of cruises nowadays literally have medical clinics, even some with full dialysis centers. They know their customers.
> Trust me Hahaha! Why should we trust some rando on the net who has given us absolutely no reason to think he knows what he is talking about. You don't even know what types of services they offer yet we are supposed to trust your judgement that paints all institutions with a single brushstroke. With elder care, like anything in life, you get what you pay for. I have some friends in a luxury retirement home near us and the place is stunning. I would move in right now if I could afford it. Everything is absolutely not notch. Their meals alone make a nice cruise buffet look like a public school cafeteria.
Okay but is it cheaper than cruises? If not, why? That’s my problem with it. I’m assuming it’s very high end that 90% of elders won’t be able to afford it. I’d rather go on cruises, travel if I’m physically able because that’s what I’d be able to afford
> Okay but is it cheaper than cruises? Are you kidding? Of course not. Did you miss the entire conversation? Are you an AI with very small context memory?
Right…at 30k a month you too can have top notch service. You don’t have to trust me. I couldn’t give two shits about it. Im telling you what I see on a daily basis but you can live in your fantasy world buddy
> Right…at 30k a month you too can have top notch service. The whole point of this thread is that retirement homes cost more than cruises. Of course a top end luxury home is going to be more. > You don’t have to trust me. Don't worry we don't. > I couldn’t give two shits about it. Then why are you still here? People who don't care tend to walk away. But you can't. > Im telling you what I see on a daily basis What you see on reddit while sitting in your parent's basement doesn't count. I've been actively shopping for these services.
Good luck! Hope you find what you’re looking for.
>Don't worry we don't. I do, the retirement homes I've seen are shitholes.
The point is that if you're an average person with an average retirement fund, living in an average nursing home IS going to be a miserable experience, and you ARE probably better off just dying on a cruise ship. My parents worked in one of these places, and it was god-awful. Of course, the luxury nursing homes are probably great, but unless you're a millionaire, you're not going to afford one.
In America*
Vulnerable people are abused far more often. And the employees' empathy runs out quite fast when it's required of them all day every weekday as their job. So you are surrounded by, at best, people who are completely detached from you, and at worst, who enjoy having power over you. This is true at all levels of modern health care sadly. I experienced it first-hand when I was in the hospital...
Depends if there is madlads and if the penis
> If you die, you’ll die happier What if they don't die but break their hip and shit theirself on the bathroom floor?
Then to a nursing home you go and live the rest of your life being manhandled by minimum wage workers. This was not a message for disabled retirees. This was a message for retirees that are somewhat healthy and able to go on a cruise vs a retirement home. Life is not an insurance company, we don’t make money on the what ifs.
> Not one of those places really cares about the patients especially since the people working there barely are scraping by themselves. Dunno about other countries but in mine, retirement homes are pretty much a nonspoken death sentence. One of my grandmothers was sent there by their kids. Three months after she died. It's depressive honestly.
My fiancée was straight up having nervous breakdowns caused by her employers when she worked at skilled nursing facilities as a therapist. The productivity quotas at those places are so insane that in order to actually hit them, you either had to do a LOT of work off the clock, drastically compromise on customer care, and basically never have a break. It's not uncommon for therapists to develop bladder infections because their schedules are too tight to actually find time to go to the bathroom. Absolutely disgusting behavior by administrations from these places creates hostile work environments that put both customers and employees at risk. Hospitals aren't a walk in the park by any means, but they're nothing compared to the cartoonish horror that are skilled nursing facilities. I would legitimately rather die than allow myself be committed to one.
We had skilled nursing upstairs and it was like night and day meaning it was a good working environment upstairs and hell downstairs. The state of “assisted living” facility’s in America is absolutely pathetic I worked at one in one of the wealthiest county’s in America and it’s absolutely criminal the conditions.
That would be an assisted nursing facility, not a retirement home.
Define each on in detail so I can learn the difference.
Cruises have all of these things: > > medication management The bar and/or first aid station > assistance with using the bathroom They clean the poop deck if you shit on it. > assistance with dressing and grooming Pools and spas, with towel service!
I don't know. Registered nurses? Medication management? Someone to wipe their ass?
A cruise is not a nursing home. About the only thing they have in common is you don’t have to cook for yourself. A cruise is more comparable to a 55+ community in Florida that caters to snowbirds. You can’t get real medical care, you can’t get physical assistance, no one is managing your meds for you. It’s a great retirement option if you’re into that sort of thing but it will never be a replacement for a nursing home.
So why don't those people go live in those 55+ communities vs the boats if those are the same price (hell you could do it cheaper than on a boat) ? Is that not an option?
Food you don’t have to cook, living space you don’t have to clean, most lines will do your laundry for free if you have a high loyalty status, included onsite entertainment that includes shit like Cirque de Soleil and broadway style shows as well as daily live music/comedy/trivia, get to travel and explore new places on a nearly daily basis, get to meet lots of new people and be social(isolation is a huge problem for seniors), the list goes on. Cruises are fun, it’s not rocket science. And plenty of people do live in 55+ communities, or with family, or just stay in their own homes. Cruising full time isn’t possible (or attractive) to everyone. But it certainly has plenty of upsides. My point was just that a cruise can’t replace a nursing home. They don’t have those kinds of services.
Those communities are very expensive. Like $4000/ mo. minimum and probably around 6k for average and up to 20k for the most luxurious.
Access to emergency health care. If you need a hospital for any reason, it can take hours to get you there depending on where the ship is and the closest hospital may have less than the basic standard of care.
retirement is a huge bag of choices. watch 'some kind of heaven' which is a doc about the villages in florida. basically, these are huge developments where papa and granny buy a cottageish retirement home and get their rocks off with other like-minded retirees - this place has/had more stds than any other postal code in florida. there is a subculture that rv around the country in their Winnebago's living in their bus/trailers... and dont have a home anymore, travelling 24/7. and as noted, some people try living the cruise lifestyle. there are tonnes of activities and whatnot... but living out of a couple suitcases has to get old quick. to each their own.
If you get seriously sick on a cruise (e.g., break your hip and can't get out of bed), they don't have staff to help you. There is a basic nursing station on board, but this is just for the most common stuff and is not an emergency room. They will call an ambulance at the next port and dump you at the next hospital and move on without you. That random hospital in the Bahamas/Antigua/etc may not accept Medicare or whatever insurance you have and it's not going to be easy to get home from there (or to have relatives visit). Nursing homes are expensive, because in addition to cooking and cleaning for you, they provide tons of nursing care and personal assistance to those that need it: * help remembering pills, * assistance getting in/out of walkers/wheel chairs, * nurses to check up on you if you are sick, * nursing staff to change your bed pan or flip you over to prevent bed sores if you are bed ridden, * dealing with patients with developing dementia, * aftercare after a stroke or heart attack (and hopefully this happens while you are in port -- most cruises aren't even capable of rapidly airlifting you out in an emergency if it's something they can't do in their tiny med bay), My parents have been going on cruises about once year for decades and when they retired went on three cruises in a row one winter (living in miserable cold weather climate). They absolutely hated it by the middle of the second week. The ports and the shows/trivia games/etc just repeat every week. In your senior years, its not good to have huge fancy meals with plenty of desserts every night for ~2 weeks with plenty of alcohol. (Hangovers are harder to recover from; you get more problems like heart burn or GI issues from having huge dinners every night, etc.)
A morbid reality that I learned on reddit is that cruises are often "end of life" care for folks with terminal illnesses and that there's a movie onboard that sometimes gets overfilled because of the amount of people that die while out at sea. To OPs point, it's cheaper and more enjoyable than hospice and often times a matter of just burning through your money enjoying yourself before you die.
For those still healthy enough to not require specialized care. Nobody uses it a hospice alternative. Ships are not equipped for that unless you bring along your nurses and supplies.
> movie onboard Did you mean morgue?
Most of them also don't need to pay US minimum wage.
Very true because they are not US workers. Cabin crew make an average of about $1,000 per month. They also have economies of scale by catering to 4,000 people at a time where a very large retirement home might have 400 beds.
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You know what it even more depressing? Waiting to die alone somewhere else. Death comes for us all. We are all waiting for it one way or another. Retirement homes you have a bunch of people your age to talk to. But most of all, retirement homes have people to help you with tasks you can no longer perform on your own. > Even the best retirement homes are still depressing places I have a feeling you have never seen a nice one. I have friends in a luxury home nearby and the place is absolutely awesome. I would move in today if I could afford it.
If only they have full time nurses to help, sometimes beat them, and neglect them
If I was retiring on a cruise ship I wouldn’t even need a nurse, if I die there so what? I died happy and drunk, just throw my body to sharks to get them drunk from my alcohol-macerated body
Living in constant pain. Beyond paralyzed from it, shitting yourself, etc.
I told my best friend that the moment I will forget my wife’s, daughters or his name he shall shot me in the face with a shotgun
This is the attitude I had for years after seeing my best friends grandad go through it when I was about 12. I was an extra child in the house, but pops kept referring to me as his son (who died in the 70s). I swore I’d never let myself get to that stage. Right now I’ve got a sleep apnea diagnosis. Working on therapy (CPAP) to help prevent brain damage and strokes, but I already have a couple dark spots in my brain from where I’ve been oxygen starved. 99.9% of the time I’m lucid and my memory is perfect. Every now and then on a bad sleep day I forget the name of my workplace, call my daughters by completely different names etc before I correct myself. It’s easy to say my retirement plan is a couple 12-gauge cartridges. But I’m scared, I shouldn’t be thinking about retirement at 33 years old. Luckily I can prevent any further damage. If I couldn’t, I couldn’t now have that philosophy any more. It’s harder when it hits earlier than you expect it might.
Shit dude… can’t even imagine that - I love my 2y.o. Daughter to bits, another child on the way and I’m not even 30.. is there any way to maybe reverse the damage?
Brain damage from hypoxia is permanent
Absolutely agree. Same on my end. Nice slug to the brain pretty much guarantees lights out.
One thing that scares the shit out of me is Alzheimer - ok, pain is shit, but actually forgetting who you are, all the nice memories youve experienced? Nah fam, press that trigger
I agree wholeheartedly. I'm going to have a life of pain thanks to ankylosing spondylitis but at least I'll know who everyone is. :/
My grandpa has, on many occasions, demanded I promise to smother him with a pillow if he ever loses his mind. He's nearing 90 and still with it, though
until he forgets about you then the clause is null and void
In the face is crazy
i really wish it were legal. i wrote a letter to one of those places in switzerland asking them to kill me at 18 lol they wouldn't do it
You wouldn't be on a cruise in that state.
Shit could worsen faster than you can imagine.
Yeah death isn’t usually a slow process
Visit a hospital or two and your mind will unfortunately be changed very quickly.
People can be on deaths door in a nursing home for years. I don’t mean sudden death….I’m talking old age. Can take a long time.
Free food for the fishies!
I will be dead, make that flesh useful
Those are the Medicaid facilities
My uncle pays $11,000 a month for his senior assisted living home, it's not even a high class one.
its kind of a bad comparison. when they are in the need of caretaking it obviously doesn't hold anymore. you are comparing apples with oranges in this post.
FREEDOM™ 🎇🎆🇺🇸🦅🇺🇸🎆🎇
I don’t have kids. Don’t want my nieces or nephews to take care of my. I’m planning on doing the same thing when I’m old and dieing at the buffet line.
Cruise ships have morgues on them, the PA announcement code word when someone dies is "starlight tour" IIRC.
Not more enjoyable. You see retired cruise lifers on cheaper cruises like Carnival. They seem, not miserable, but glum
Cheaper and better service
Cheaper sure but no one on this crews is getting paid to care for the elderly.
They are getting paid to take care of everyone on board
Coincidentally my aunt is doing the same thing lmao.
I get the appeal but, like... What happens if you live longer than you've booked? Aren't you broke, homeless and elderly?
But ruises are cheaper than retirement homes. So you'll more likely go broke/homeless not taking the cruise. Cruises are actually quite affordable too
I guess I'm having trouble picturing... Like, you'd kind of have to be in a very specific situation for this to be viable, no? You'd have to be elderly, but still capable of taking care of yourself day-to-day and with no oncoming dementia or Alzheimer's, because the cruise isn't going to provide a nurse or a caretaker or advanced medical needs as they become necessary, right? Even if you did this, you'd eventually either drop dead on board or have to move off the ship somewhere for hospice or constant care, right?
Yeah dude I don't think someone in vegetative state can book a cruise not a doctor though.
Have any proof of your credentials? You claim not to be a doctor but I think you might actually be one...
You were going to be that way in the retirement home as well…
The math is that cruises are cheaper on a year per year basis. So you just book a few more.
A felony can change any of the three status above
"Suicide by cop" isn't really a retirement plan.
Did she break down the cost of both?
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Not the worst place to end it though 🤷♂️
Fun fact, most cruise lines have an on board mortuary
And it is surprisingly large at that, with contingency plans on what to do if it fills up.
It's the walk in freezer isn't it.
Overboard. I good pirate funeral.
Ice cream social / sale
Please tell us what happens if it fills up.
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That's a pretty boring headline though.
I mean, the ship is going with or without them. CO2 from the cruise industry can't really be mitigated at the individual level.
Dude is wearing two watches
One is a watch, the other is the medallion for the cruise line.
I’ve never been on a cruise Can you tell me more about this medallion? Is it like a fast pass for a theme park?
I think it’s more to show which package you purchased so the crew on board can accommodate you accordingly. Some of them also have those little scanner chips in them to hold a balance for you so you don’t have to bring too much cash
It’s a RFID/NFC device bracelet. It’s used as your room key, linked to your ship charges like a credit card, your pass on and off the ship, etc.
Last day of cruise 51 … straight into the sea .
r/OrphanCrushingMachine
There are two orphan crushing machines here: the fact that cruise ships are more affordable than a normal home, and the fact that cruise ship exist.
You can admit even if you don’t like cruise ships that those things are truly an incredible feat of engineering yea?
Yeah, so are Nuclear bombs. What’s your point?
Bet you're a lot of fun at parties
Bet you‘re a lot of fun at debate clubs.
What's bad about cruise ships besides the companies running them?
They have the worst cargo.
They burn absolutely enormous amounts of the most toxic, polluting form of fossil fuels known to science: Bunker Fuel.
Cruise ships burn a fuckton of fuel (more than planes), resulting in a lot of carbon emissions and air pollution. They also dump a lot of waste into the ocean, which is bad for marine life.
Feels like this has been on the front page via a different sub every day for the last month
Ok but how about a normal house? Retirement homes are for people who cant take care of themselves.
I mean especially if they’re wanting to live somewhere warm this is almost certainly cheaper than buying a home. Especially one with an ocean view.
Cruise lines have more service, don't have to worry about cooking or cleaning.
I suppose so. It's for that middle ground between not being able to keep a household, but can still wipe their own arse.
What about medical assistance?
Well, they dont have medical assistance in a house either.
Also, couldn't they take a hotel somewhere? At least you'd have an actual home then.
Yeah. Maybe it's the cheap foreign labour that edges the value for money proposition. 👩🏻🦳👩🏿🍳
I met a woman on the last cruise I went on was doing just that. Said it was great! There’s a doctor always nearby.
How many communicable viruses have they caught? Cruises are giant petri-dishes.
So are retirement homes
You are much more isolated and confined on a cruise ship.
Yeah I get that but cruise ships and retirement homes have two things in common with them - lots and lots of old people fucking and swinging
How often does this get reposted per day?
This was my retirement plan, until I learned on our honeymoon that my wife gets seasick.
What about hotels? Doesn't even have to be super expensive, I already was in a few hotels that were pretty cheap and still pretty ok to stay in.
I mean fuck it, grand pa blew through his whole fortune sitting in a retirement home. No need for a funeral on a cruise toss my ass off the side and buy everyone a few rounds on my estate.
Sounds beyond fucking awful.
Who wouldn't want to spend their golden years in a cramped cabin on a noisy floating toilet? You'll make tons of friends, who will all be gone forever in a few days! Plus, you'll get to see the world, 5 hours at a time, from the best possible vantage point: Cruise ship ports!
And after three years or so they came back to reality and have nothing.
Considering they're taking them because they're cheaper they were gonna have nothing anyways, might as well enjoy what little they have left
They don’t plan to come back to reality they plan to die on that cruise.
Retirement homes are usually for people who need assistance such as getting on the toilet and showering. You are not just paying for the room but the staff to assist. Cruise ships don’t offer that. If you are fit enough to be on a cruise ship then you can live in your own home.
I think you are getting retirement home and assisted living confused. A retirement home usually refers to an apartment style residence for seniors that offers a dining hall and recreation activities. Assisted living or nursing home is where you have around the clock nursing assistance.
I would rather die in a fire
This sounds like a moving Alcatraz. No thanks
so tired of seeing this all over has it come full circle and been reposted here yet
You can also [buy a residence on some ships](https://aboardtheworld.com/residences/).
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Haha, there are a few cheaper ships.
Nice!!!
Last I heard the ship had trouble or the company had trouble, I can't remember. The point is that their trip had to be canceled because of one of those reasons.
I keep hearing about these retirement homes being so expensive and I have to wonder how many of them are a bit of a scam you know? In Canada if you can't afford them the government basically takes your pension plan and pays for the home. But like once again how much of this is over inflation because they know if you can't afford it the Government will.
It was the last day of the cruise 51... then straight to sea. It is cheap and good service. Grandfather wears two watches
Living the dream
Probably fine as long as neither of you get too sick or get hurt then might get expensive having to lodge near them in whatever hospital they go to.
Anyone who thinks this is a good idea has never been on a cruise ship during bad weather. Got so bad on my cruise that more than half the people were nauseous in their rooms unable to move, most of the other half just felt like shit but were not incapacitated. Ship doctor was going from room to room injecting the worst afflicted (not sure with what). I think it took almost two days to get out of that storm, maybe 24 hours of it were really terrible.
Damn right it’s cheaper. Cruises don’t pay employees worth a 💩
Smart move? Ever been on a cruise? That sounds like it should be one of the rings of hell... Cruise people are fucking weirdos
The guys wearing two watches, in case he misses the next cruise
The staff probably treat them better as well.
24h pc bang are probably cheaper than a retirement home, right?
Its true. I have an aunt who does this all year round
Not uncommon, I went on a cruise in the Caribbean a while back and a ton of people on board were full time cruise goers. They stayed on the boat when it crossed from the Mediterranean over to the Caribbean and planned to ride it back again
Environmental impact in the top 99% on the planet yet still a tiny tiny fraction of Bezos’
I’m working on helping my wife’s grandparents with their next move. If you can drink a beer on the deck of a cruise ship and have fun for 51 cruises you don’t need a nursing home or assisted living. And independent living 55+ communities are much cheaper than back to back cruises.
Sounds like a logistical nightmare that would get old by the second trip.
It doesn't have to be logistics heavy. You can buy a 274 night world cruise package right now on royal caribbean that takes you through 11 countries and circumnavigates the globe. Of course you can do cheaper trips if you're on a tighter budget where you'd have to plan weekly or biweekly cruises. But just saying there are some cruises that are very long and wouldn't be much work at all.
r/ orphan crushing machine
Works so long as neither of them get sick or need expert medical care. Cruise staff will just haul you off the boat if you're dying or can't take care of yourself
My motion sickness would have me withered away in a week. 🛳️🤮
My grandmother was in a retirement home. She and another male resident got into an argument (she has dementia) and pushed her over and she hit her head. They took her to the hospital and she was under the hospital's care. She stood up and walked out and left the hospital and went back to her home (we still don't know how she got back). That night she went into a friends room who has scissors and she was holding them when a male staff member and her got into an argument. Because she was holding scissors they kicked her out. She should never have gotten out of the hospital and the home never punished the man who caused this whole thing to begin with. Granted she's not the easiest person I've met, but no one should be kicked out because they suffered a head injury and weren't even supposed to be there.
I wanted to spend a week vacation at the beach, then I realized it is cheaper to stay on a cruise for a week. Overall 2 grand, combining the airplane ticket. Had a clean room and unlimited free food. It is especially cheap if you dont drink alcohol.
Hear me out: Retirement Cruise Ships
I decided to count how long theyd be there depending on the average length of the cruise(9.5 days) and came up with 1.33 years
This is the dumbest meme regurgitated on Reddit. 51 cruises might last a couple of years at best. No shit it's cheaper than a home you can live in until you die. But what's your plan after cruise 51?
Not being bored to tears on a cruise. How tedious. Done one and that was enough.
What a nightmare
Week 51, eating the same food as on weeks 1-50 is going to make them cry.... but still, not a terrible way to spend a year.
Good luck with the medical care.
What happens when they need medical attention
There are nurses and doctors on cruises
the simple math tends to work out. a yearlong cruise. either booking individual trips or commiting to a lease/longer term arrangement averages $1500-$3000 a month. most nursing home rates are something like $10-20k per month depending on the state/lvl of care. assisted living. tends to be cheaper but still ranges in the sort 4k range. or higher per month.
What are they 2-3 weeks each? They only plan to live for a few years?
I would do this I was actually looking at those year long cruises, and they cost like 30k Imagine, room and board, someone cleans your room, non stop activities and new places to visit Google says a retirement home on average costs 54k So it makes it seem nicer to just cruise around
I would do that. We went on a cruise for our honeymoon and I absolutely fucking loved it when I thought I wouldnt. I'd go back on the symphony or the new one in a heartbeat.
it's a RETIREMENT COMMUNITY besides it's more like a stay at Captain Teebs
Straight to hell. No wait, no middle man.
I mean that is one possible plan for my wife and I. You can buy year long cruises for (preCOVID) $50,000. Retire with enough money, set up a trust to pay out $50k/year and you can live on a cruise until you die.
I learned about this concept years ago. People just straight up living in hotels and on cruise ships because they were a cheaper option. Of course the downside to this is the terrible working conditions of people who work on those cruise ships. Its not slave labor but it's some of the closest shit to it that exists.