Live On A Cruise Ship And Visit 135 Countries And All Seven Continents - $30,000/year

[once_upon]

We no longer have elderly parents to take care of. Although it sounds wonderful to have someone cook for you, clean for you, have access to medical care (but not intensive care), etc.

The meals become repetitive (they did.on an 18 day cruise,) as they have to use all the food on board. The showers are small. You want to get away from your spouse or travel.mate - there's only so many places to hide.

No target, no Amazon. I like cruising but 3 years?.that's too much. I know there are people who do it. It works for.them. it wouldn't work for me - and as I said i.like cruising and i.know my limits.

 

[moebius]

How does applying for visa work? How will the visa be sent to you if living on a ship?

 

[skatingguy]

How does applying for visa work? How will the visa be sent to you if living on a ship?

There's usually an application to fill out, and then it has to be sent to a consulate, or government office with a valid passport to be processed. Once approved the visa can be mailed where needed. I would think that if a person needed multiple visas for the trip it could make things complicated.

 

[once_upon]

When we needed visa to enter Australia and New Zealand, we filled out applications through their country app. Once completed (which took about 5 minutes from start to finish), the visa shower up on our phones.

When we got into the countries, our passport scan showed we has current visas.

some cruise ships have special arrangements with some countries. As example, years ago when we went to St. Petersburg as long as we were on a cruise approved tour group, we did not need a visa. But if we were exploring with a non cruise sanctioned tour, we would have been required to have a visa.

I dont think visa obtaining is as hard as it once was.

 

[ballettmaus]

Don't cruise ships/cruise lines take care of the visa process during world cruises?

 

[once_upon]

Don't cruise ships/cruise lines take care of the visa process during world cruises?

My experience is sometimes.

Some countries, if you disembark and don't want to do cruise sponsored activities require to get your own visa.

Like in St Petersburg, as long as we were doing cruise approved, cruise sponsored excursions we were covered. Some people wanted to go out on their own, they were required to a) get their own visas, b) have a plan of where they would being going and submit it to immigration offices 30 days in advance and c) the name of the guide or others they were with be submitted.

I wondered at the time and certainly now, if the immigration officer who was friendly with me got in trouble and that's why I didn't see her on day 2. Despite what I might post like, I'm friendly and carry on mindless pleasantries when in line to have passports scanned.

 

[Vash01]

When we needed visa to enter Australia and New Zealand, we filled out applications through their country app. Once completed (which took about 5 minutes from start to finish), the visa shower up on our phones.

When we got into the countries, our passport scan showed we has current visas.

some cruise ships have special arrangements with some countries. As example, years ago when we went to St. Petersburg as long as we were on a cruise approved tour group, we did not need a visa. But if we were exploring with a non cruise sanctioned tour, we would have been required to have a visa.

I dont think visa obtaining is as hard as it once was.

I think cruise ship visas are different- often not required because the stay I the country is very short. I have not beeni that situation. Theydo have requirements regarding expiration date of the passport. In 2020 I could not take a cruise that went through Colombia because my passport was expiring in just a couple months. Itwas not allowed even if I just stayed on the ship while in their harbor.

Traveling on the land (like one week in Russia, in my case) required the full visa process on line. It was not hard because the tour company was my host. I couldn't just go there without An invitation. They required the dates,addresses at the hotels. For the visa I Just had to follow the rules they listed. For example don't smile for your passport size photo When you send it with the visa application.

 

[Vash01]

I would love to travel for three years. If I sell my home and store the belongings, i could live on the cruise ship. For me the major problem will be to not go to a meditation retreat which takes several days. I can't afford to miss that.

 

[once_upon]

Actually most travel outside the US, especially on cruise ships, require that your passport does not expire for 6 months after your return to the US. I'm surprised you got on any cruise ship if it expired within 2 months of return to US.

I think the last time we renewed our passports, we did it early for that very reason.

I know that Australia and New Zealand asked for dates we would be there, where we were staying and who would be our sponsor us (cruise line). It all was done through a phone app. Simple - scan our passports, take a self picture (it had to be a picture that was confirmed as acceptable by the app).

In Columbia, we did our own wandering (not sanctioned cruise tour) and didn't have any visa issues.

There was another cruise we were looking at the required us to get our own visas, but I don't remember what country it was.

 

[Private Citizen]

When we needed visa to enter Australia and New Zealand, we filled out applications through their country app. Once completed (which took about 5 minutes from start to finish), the visa shower up on our phones.

[...]

I dont think visa obtaining is as hard as it once was.

Keep in mind visas come in very different flavo(u)rs:

• - E-visa, which is what Australia and New Zealand (and Turkey and others) do for eligible visitors - basically a web form where you pay money and get near instant-approval. The US requires these, too, of foreign nationals except for Canadians. It's called an ESTA, not to be confused with the Pasha troll . EU-Schengen and the UK are also introducing their own digital e-visas within the next year or two (still getting delayed).
• - Visa on arrival, which can be indistinguishable from a passport stamp in some cases, and in other cases involve a form and payment, often a physical version of the e-visa process.
• - Full-form visas, where you have to go to the consulate or send off your passport, along with an application and fee - e.g., to travel to China on a US passport.

Although the first two are technically "visas," they're more of a pre-registration or arrival formality.

Full-form visas are still hard to get. Few countries require them for US or EU nationals, but people with developing country passports are not so lucky. E.g., I work with someone with an Ecuadorian passport, which weren't even biometric or machine readable until the past couple of years, and their life was hell with getting visas. They basically needed to get a new passport every year just from all of the visas that were required for work travel, and they had to plan trips around not having their passport for weeks at a time while getting the visas.

The US also requires full-form visas for many countries, and even some European friends of mine have been rejected for ESTAs because they've visited places like Iran or Cuba. Their full-form visas have taken six months or more to get.

Actually most travel outside the US, especially on cruise ships, require that your passport does not expire for 6 months after your return to the US. I'm surprised you got on any cruise ship if it expired within 2 months of return to US.

This is a good rule of thumb, and I agree that it's good to replace your passport before it has less than six months validity. That said, the six-month rule is not uniform. Many countries only require validity for the entirety of your stay or three months beyond your stay. If your passport has less than six months of validity, you're not out of luck everywhere - just consult the State Department web site closely before booking travel.

US citizens can return to the US with any valid passport (and during covid an expired one). The US exempts a surprisingly long list of countries from the six-month rule, even though the reciprocal is not true.

In Columbia, we did our own wandering (not sanctioned cruise tour) and didn't have any visa issues.

Colombia doesn't require any visa for US nationals.

On the topic of cruises, I'm not a cruise person, but I like this idea! My job requires too much connectivity and availability within specific time zones. Instead of paying them $30k or $60k, I'd consider doing a payment-in-kind pre-retirement gig where I do something for the cruise ship. I'm good at planning and organization, and I'm knowledgeable enough to give suggestions and probably at least a basic city tour for most cruise stops in Europe.

 

[MacMadame]

You'd think the cruise line would do this but apparently, they don't (or don't necessarily) because there are tons of articles online about how to get your Visas if you are going on a cruise to somewhere that needs a Visa. It seems to me that people would just assume they didn't need them and wouldn't do what they needed to do and much angst and trouble would ensue when they weren't allowed on the cruise or couldn't get off at certain stops.

 

[once_upon]

Some of the latest stuff I read, there are some cruises who do not let you board if you don't have all the proper paperwork or don't meet the passport requirements.

With our last few cruises, we were told that no longer stamp a passport?

 

[tony]

Pulling this thread back because a CNN notification on my phone came up saying the 3-year cruise was canceled officially after several delays, and some of the planned passengers have nowhere to go because they sold/rented out their properties for the next 3 years. Mess.

https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/three-year-cruise-canceled/index.html

 

[skipaway]

Pulling this thread back because a CNN notification on my phone came up saying the 3-year cruise was canceled officially after several delays, and some of the planned passengers have nowhere to go because they sold/rented out their properties for the next 3 years. Mess.

https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/three-year-cruise-canceled/index.html

Apparently the company couldn’t or didn’t buy the ship!

 

[MacMadame]

My friends signed up for this cruise. They are still in Turkey where they were originally going to embark. They didn't sell their house and have savings so they are going to travel around for a while and come up with a new plan. I feel sorry for the ones that put everything on the line to go on this cruise and are now stuck in Turkey.

The CNN article was pretty good though I think it minimized how shady the former CEO of Miray (who owns Life at Sea) was being since they decided not to use the original ship.

The timeline that I got from my friends is:

They had a ship they were going to use in their fleet. Most people who signed up signed up when that was the ship.

An engineer looked over the ship and said it wasn't seaworthy and probably wouldn't last 3 years. CEO of Miray says the ship has its certificates that say it is seaworthy. But they are going to buy a new ship anyway that's slightly bigger because "there was so much interest in teh cruise" It's not because the original ship had anything wrong with it.

Some people asked for refunds at this point and got them.

Most of the Life at Sea people leave to go start a new company.

Sept comes and they are supposed to buy the ship but they don't. They also don't say anything until about a week before embarkation. Even though the ship was supposed to be in dry dock for renovation for 3 week and it's less than 3 weeks before the cruise is supposed to start so Miray know they aren't going to make it.

A week before embarkation, they tell people the ship will not embark on Nov 1 first from Turkey but Nov 11 from Amsterdam. Note that they still have not bought the ship yet. If they had bought it that day, the timeline would work but they didn't.

For somewhere between 2 and 3 weeks they kept saying that "the funds transfer was taking longer than expected but they expect to close on the ship 'next week'" (It was at this point that I said "they don't have the money") They also said the ship would be in dry dock for 2 weeks and do the rest of the work during the week it repositioned to wherever the cruise would now start (still not specified).

They then said embarkation would be on Nov 30th from a TBD port. In the meantime, most people had non-refundable tickets to Turkey so they went anyway. To Miray's credit, they did pay for people's hotel rooms the entire time and arranged some touristy things for them to do.

Then the CEO quits and the owner sends this email that says the cruise will embark on Dec 1st. Or not. (The email in the CNN article was accurate and most people reading that would think the cruise was not canceled.)

Celebrity announced they bought the ship out from under Miray. The next day someone from Miray sends another email saying "To be clear, the cruise is canceled."

Miray finally admits they don't have the money and blames it on investors pulling out because of "unrest in the Middle East." Keep in mind, the cruise was not scheduled to go to the Middle East for months (I think in the 2nd year). Also, the investors must have pulled out in late Aug or early Sept since the ship was supposed to be bought in Sept and at that point, nothing in particular was going on in the Middle East.

Anyway, my friends say that Miray is paying for everyone to get a plane ticket to anywhere in the world and will pay to ship their belongings that are in Turkey to anywhere they want and will refund everyone in 3 installments starting in Dec. They are happy enough as they aren't among those who are screwed.

Btw, the old ship was 80% full which was the original plan but the new ship had only 50% of the cabins spoken for. Also, the original ship they were going to use is still out there taking people on cruises and absolutely could have been put into dry dock to be renovated when Miray realized they couldn't by the new ship. So, again, what they are saying doesn't exactly line up.

I am so glad I didn't talk myself and Mr. Mac into doing this cruise.

 

[Vagabond]

I'm gifting this. The link will be valid for two weeks.

They Sold Everything to Go on a 3-Year Cruise. How It All Unraveled.

The Life at Sea cruise was supposed to be the ultimate bucket-list experience: 382 port calls worldwide over 1,095 days. The only thing missing was a trip-worthy ship.

www.nytimes.com

By Oct. 27, only days before the cruise’s scheduled departure — and with 30 passengers in Istanbul, ready to board — the company announced the trip had been delayed to Nov. 11 and would depart from Amsterdam. Days later, the departure was postponed again, to Nov. 30.

On Nov. 16, Ms. Youssef learned from a newspaper that the Lara had been acquired by another company. “We were frustrated and felt stuck in limbo, with no information to go on but what we discovered on our own,” she said. Ms. Holmes resigned from Miray the same day.

On Nov. 19, Mr. Ugurlu issued a statement saying that investors had pulled out because of the unrest in the Middle East; the next day Miray confirmed that the cruise was canceled.

Thoughts?

 

[Judy]

what a disastrous mess. It would never have appealed to me. I’m good with shorter vacations and def not 3 years on a cruise ship but .

 

[MacMadame]

Thoughts?

My friends signed up for this tour. The account in the NYT is pretty accurate and even gives some additional details that the articles published in the first week of Nov. do not have.

IME from talking to my friends and reading these articles is that everything went to pieces when the first ship was deemed inappropriate and that is when Miray started speaking out of both sides of their mouth.

For example, they claimed there was nothing wrong with the original ship but they were buying the new ship because it was slightly bigger and they wanted to respond to "unprecedented" demand. Except they had only planned to sell 80% of the cabins and they did sell that many. For the new ship, they ended up only selling 50% of the cabins. So they were lying about why they bought the new ship or at least fudging the details.

Another example was when the sale of the new ship fell through, the owner of Mirary Cruises (Vedat Ugurlu) met with the people in Istanbul and said what my friends described as "We're going to sail on Dec 1st. Unless we aren't." So they were still fudging and giving people hope when they shouldn't.

Oh, and they kept saying the sale of the new ship was delayed because of a funds transfer "taking longer than expected" and "we expect it to go through next week" even though what really happened is that they did not even have the money and were looking for investors. Not to mention, they had lost their investor before Oct 7th so it had nothing to do with the "situation" in the Middle East.

Some people who are into cruising have been snickering about how dumb the people who put down deposits were because who does that when there isn't a ship? And that the cruise was priced too low and people should have realized that. But I don't agree.

First of all, there was a ship at first. Secondly, it's true that the cheapest cabin was $30k a year which is only about $82 a day and that's not enough to run a cruise. But there weren't that many $30k cabins. The most expensive cabins were more like $192k a year which is more like $520/day. Who knows what the mix was and if the average per day ended up being similar to other cruises. Third, Miray is an established cruise line with a good reputation.

However, I do wonder about the people who sold everything and used their life savings to do this cruise and even quit their jobs. That seems pretty risky given that no company had done a cruise of this length before and also what if you realized part-way through the cruise that this isn't for you but you've signed a 3-year contract? Plus, how are you going to retire if you've spent your life savings already?

My friends said that they had put down about 6-months of payments as a deposit and that the way payments were structured, they would never be more than 6 months ahead and that they could afford to lose that amount and were therefore going to stick it out and see how it turns out. They enjoyed their time in Turkey and are now in Australia and who knows where they will go next. They've rented out their house and put most of their stuff in storage so they are going to use the money they would have spent on the cruise to travel around the world.

The article mentioned that the people involved are working on other 3-year world cruises. The former CEO of Miray (Kendra Holmes) who jumped ship in Nov is working for a company that runs a "boutique" cruise organized around gems and precious metals. IOW, they spend the entire cruise trying to sell you gold bars and rubies. They also do not have a ship appropriate for a world cruise but claim they have one they'll use to explore Europe until they can get a bigger ship. The rest of the Life at Sea people formed Villa Vie Residences and you can buy cabins or just sign up for a segment as a typical cruiser. They seem more legit than Kendra Holmes' operation but all these multi-year/residence cruise companies are having issues getting started.

Residential cruise ship startups selling condos at sea for over $100,000 are struggling for the same reason

Companies like Storylines are launching condos-at-sea that will continuously sail around the world. Most are facing delays and don't have a ship yet.

www.businessinsider.com

P.S. Just read that Miray Cruises is saying that the cruise isn't canceled just postponed until May 2024. Sure, Vedat Ugurlu.

 

[sk9tingfan]

About 7-8 years ago, my oncologist floated a retirement proposition to me, also to include her finance-industry husband. She wanted to establish a chemotherapy presence on one of the cruise ships in order to provide cancer and other infusion-based patients with an opportunity to get away from winter. The practice would function from November through April, allowing her to return to the preferable weather from May through October in New England. And she wanted me to administer the practice.

I suggested that she establish a presence on land in the Virgin Islands and not be dependent on a specific ship. She could service the myriad of ships in port and also be on US soil, always preferable in terms of carrier recognition.

Unfortunately, the raft of hurricanes swept through the Carribean, blowing this idea into oblivion....

 

[MacMadame]

CNN has done some excellent investigative reporting following up on the doomed 3-year cruise and the resulting lawsuit:

https://www.cnn.com/travel/how-the-three-year-cruise-fell-apart/index.html

 

[genevieve]

Fyre Festival for boomers... can't wait for the competing documentaries on Hulu and Netflix

 

[MacMadame]

Fyre Festival for boomers

That's actually pretty accurate and I suspect that there are a lot of similarities between them when it comes to how things went wrong. Good/fun idea. People in charge who didn't have the right expertise. Taking money and then not spending it on what it was supposed to be spent on. People showing up for the event and it being canceled and they are stranded.

There is a current "Ultimate World Cruise" which is 9 months long and a bunch of clueless influencers are on board trying to stir up drama. One of them said (before he found someone to sponsor him on the cruise and was just at home making drama content) that it was going to be Fyre Festival "all over again," but he's an idiot and that's stupid. The cruise setup is pretty normal for cruise lines and Royal Caribbean is a very established cruise line using a well-known ship. The only thing new is the length of the whole thing. Most cruise lines that do "world" cruises do them for a few months -- the longest is around 6 months. But the principle, setup, and pricing are the same as proven cruises including ones done by this same line.

 

[AJ Skatefan]

I was on a cruise recently and we saw this ship. You actually buy an apartment and live on the ship!

The World | Luxury Residences at Sea

The largest private residential yacht on Earth, with 165 residences. Live your journey in luxurious comfort and enjoy life-changing experiences aboard The World.

aboardtheworld.com

 

[MacMadame]

I was on a cruise recently and we saw this ship. You actually buy an apartment and live on the ship!

The World | Luxury Residences at Sea

The largest private residential yacht on Earth, with 165 residences. Live your journey in luxurious comfort and enjoy life-changing experiences aboard The World.

aboardtheworld.com

It's the only successful attempt at this concept. Others have tried but not succeeded.

But these cabins cost a minimum of a million dollars for the tiniest. The other thing is that cruise ships get retired eventually. So you are paying millions for something that will eventually go into the trash. It just seems strange to me.

 

[Private Citizen]

It's the only successful attempt at this concept. Otherwise have tried but not succeeded.

But these cabins cost a minimum of a million dollars for the tiniest. The other thing is that cruise ships get retired eventually. So you are paying millions for something that will eventually go into the trash. It just seems strange to me.

1) I doubt people who have that kind of money care
2) It's a depreciating asset, similar to a car, a Japanese home, or a yacht - which is probably the best comparison
3) It's probably still cheaper and easier than owning your own yacht
4) Many of the most ridiculous celebrity estate homes also sell for huge losses; the market for them is very small, and the ultra-luxurious finishes usually depreciate in value quite quickly.

No doubt, something like this is a huge expense and prone to all of the same problems that timeshares would have. There's a limited market, and I think the resale market would be extremely limited. But for a tiny fraction of ultra-wealthy (but not ultra-ultra-ultra wealthy) people, maybe it makes sense.

 

[MacMadame]

2) It's a depreciating asset, similar to a car, a Japanese home, or a yacht - which is probably the best comparison

True. But they sure don't market it like that.