CRUISING LIVE A BOARD

When you surf the Internet for retirement options, the possibility of retiring on a cruise ship seems to be popping up more and more often the closer we get to the time that boomers are going to retire.

The benefits of retiring on a cruise ship are eloquently described everywhere and generally well known. It is also clear that retirement for the rich retirees is generally well catered for through expensive world cruises and floating apartment complexes. As ever if one has the money most things are possible.

The subject of this article is about how to make retiring on a cruise ship of a regular cruise line affordable, flexible and convenient for the person of average means.

The focus here is on retiring on a commercial cruise line because dedicated floating retirement homes will most probably be too expensive. Not only that, but it will take the charm of meeting different people of various ages on a day to day basis and the constant change in entertainment and itineraries out of the success formula, both of which are clearly part of the secrets to staying young and energetic.

That given, let me list some of the things that could make retiring on a cruise ship a costly, inflexible and at times an inconvenient experience for those of us who are not wealthy.

Start with the cost; Most of us will retire with probably $2,000 to $5,000 per month in retirement money. We will focus at the lower end of the bracket $2,000 and see if we can make this work.

Some of the cruise lines will offer an interior/inside stateroom/cabin for roughly $60 per day per person if you book last minute. Also if you book last minute one could potentially get this for one single person. If you are a repeat customer they might even upgrade you or give you a further discount. This translates to $1,860 per month. So on a $2,000 per month budget you would only have $140 per month left. Not very much, but doable. In addition If you only have $2000 per month you can only afford itineraries that are 30 days or less, doable but tricky.

The important thing here is you need to find a way to constantly book last minute in order to keep you rate affordable and find itineraries of 30 days or less to remain within your budget.

There are other things to consider.

First; you have to get to the ship, which can be cheap if you live in Miami, FT Lauderdale, Tampa, Port Everglades, Vancouver, Los Angeles, San Francisco or any of the other ports that cruise lines use as their embarkation points. Most of us though do not live by these ports and will have to fly. So that needs to be added to at least the initial cost.

Second; you need to be able to remain on the same ship as long as possible to make it convenient and avoid further transportation costs to another port to continue your journey. The way the airfares are moving this is inconvenient and not a very cheap proposition that would put this lifestyle out of your reach with a limited budget. An alternative is that you switch to another ship at the same port on the same day, sometimes unavoidable but still inconvenient.

The takeaway here is that you need to pick your itineraries and cruise lines with precision and good timing in order to avoid the inconvenience of moving ship and/or incurring unwanted transportation costs.

Now would it not be nice if there was some sort of body with members, a Union, which took care of all these details for you. A Union that you could join free of charge and that had such a strength in numbers it could get affordable pricing, convenient itineraries and flexibility to help your dream come true?

I am attempting to put together precisely such a group that will negotiate such pricing for you, have strength in numbers to make it flexible reliable for you to live aboard cruise liners without worrying about the details and so on.

The Union of members will negotiate:
• Affordable pricing,
• Flexible payment terms, so that you could go on longer itineraries without having to pay for the entire itinerary up front,
• Coordinated and contiguous itineraries, that will maximize your live aboard on the same ship and make swaps as convenient as possible and keep transportation cost to a minimum,
• Provide on shore facilities at major departure ports
• Provide umbrella health insurance for members

Please come and join us at http://cruisingthruretirement.blogspot.com free of charge so that we can build one of the most powerful unions of retirees’ and soon to be retirees’ in order to make retiring on a cruise ship a reality for all.