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Aging Baby Boomers: Could older folks live aboard cruise ships?
Myrtle Beach Online ^ | 12/19/04 | John Pain

Posted on 12/20/2004 5:44:16 PM PST by qam1

MIAMI - Gil and Teresa Betthauser spent more than a decade of their retirement touring the nation in a motor home, and now in their 70s, they can't imagine the idea of ending their travels to move into an assisted-living facility.

That's why they're intrigued by a recent study that proposes seniors who need only minimal care should take the money they would have spent on assisted living and book permanent passage on cruise ships.

"When people have an opportunity to go to the Bahamas, they'd have something to look forward to and they'd live longer," said the 76-year-old Teresa, who currently lives with her husband in a retirement community in Tucson, Ariz.

The two Northwestern University physicians who wrote the study, Drs. Lee Lindquist and Robert Golub, make the case that the costs for an entire year in an assisted-living center are comparable to those on a cruise ship. Doctors or nurses are always on call on larger ships. All meals are taken care of. Libraries, movie theaters and pools are available for entertainment.

And perhaps most importantly, the allure of being in the warm weather all year and visiting exotic places might persuade some resistant seniors to get the care they need.

"It comes to a point where they can't live at home alone," Lindquist said. "That's the hardest thing to do, to send someone to an assisted-living facility. No one thinks they're old enough."

The authors acknowledge that crew members would have to receive additional training, such as in dispensing pills and helping the elderly get dressed. And only seniors who weren't bedridden or seriously ill could live at sea.

"With assisted living, these are pretty much independent seniors. They'd need help with maybe one or two activities, meal preparation, shopping or taking medications," Lindquist said.

The study calculated an annual cost in a double cabin on a Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. ship at about $33,000 per person. A search on Yahoo's travel Web site had prices as low as $399 per person in a double cabin for a seven-night cruise in the Gulf of Mexico on a Norwegian Cruise Line Ltd. ship. Port charges, taxes and government fees could bring that up to about $26,000 a year per person.

That's not a bad deal, the study contends, because the average annual cost at an assisted-living center is about $22,000 per person, according to federal and private data. In large cities such as Chicago, those costs can exceed $48,000 a year.

There would be extra costs, such as transport from the ship for emergency care and crew training. But Lindquist said she has gotten hundreds of e-mails since the study's November release from people interested in the idea, including the Betthausers. Lindquist suggests there could be an untapped market among America's more than 35 million people who are age 65 or older.

About 800,000 Americans with an average age of 80 are in assisted-living facilities, according to the National Center for Assisted Living.

There might only be 30 or 40 elderly people living on each ship, so companies wouldn't have to worry about being known as "the old folks cruise," Lindquist said. That way they could also mingle with a younger crowd, said Lindquist, who got the idea after taking a cruise with her parents, who are in their late 50s.

So far, the cruise industry hasn't enthusiastically responded to the proposal. The two biggest cruise companies, Carnival Corp. & PLC and Royal Caribbean, refused to comment on the plan.

About 9.8 million people traveled on cruise ships last year, and more than a quarter were 60 or older, according to industry figures.

But the International Council of Cruise Lines, a trade group that represents the major companies, doesn't think the industry is prepared to handle a large number of permanent residents with special medical needs.

"Cruises are intended to be a vacation. They're not intended to be a long-term assisted-living facility," council President Michael Crye said.

Cruise lines also have been marketing themselves to a more active crowd over the past two decades, getting away from an old saying that the typical passenger was "newlywed, overfed or nearly dead."

Crye said none of the council's members was considering Lindquist's idea but agreed one day there might be a market for this type of cruising. "Baby boomers are going to be over the next decade or 20 years people that are going to be in this category," he said.


TOPICS: Extended News
KEYWORDS: babyboomers; genx; greedygeezers; youpayforthis
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To: Cacique
Death with "dignity?"

Hard to imagine.

61 posted on 12/20/2004 11:13:26 PM PST by Do not dub me shapka broham (Why did it take me so long to come up with a new tag-line, huh?! What's up with that?)
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To: Xenalyte
ping.
62 posted on 12/20/2004 11:49:09 PM PST by Do not dub me shapka broham (Why did it take me so long to come up with a new tag-line, huh?! What's up with that?)
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To: vpintheak
They will only go for it if they don't have to pay a dime.

Yep. I can just imagine my Medicare and Social Security taxes being ratcheted up to pay for the newly-discovered "need" of year-long luxury cruises. And somehow I don't think that elderly people who live in the inner-city and who can barely afford heat will quility for this entitlement -- the government won't so much as give them a blanket. This "cruise benefit" will go to people who really could pay for it but vote to make the taxpayer pick up the tab. And the cost for this "entitlement" will skyrocket once the regulators and the trial lawyers are done with it.

63 posted on 12/21/2004 5:26:54 AM PST by Wilhelm Tell (Lurking since 1997!)
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To: who_would_fardels_bear

"Why can't someone work out a deal with a hotel for say $50/night for room and board for a year plus reasonable access to the hotel doctor?"

I ran these calculations about five years ago in relation to a patient healing in a hospital compared to putting them up in the Waldorf Astoria. Nurses working per diem would come in and issue medication and a doctor would make a hotel call.

It was cheaper by one half to put someone up at the Waldorf. This of course providing the patient didn't order more than one bottle of Dom Perignon per day.





64 posted on 12/21/2004 5:31:00 AM PST by EQAndyBuzz (60 votes and the world changes.)
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To: qam1

I could certainly live on a cruise ship, if they brought back the skeet shooting off the fantail.

Thanks for the post.


65 posted on 12/21/2004 5:51:29 AM PST by lodwick
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To: Phantom Lord

Thanks for the FreedomShip linkage...if they can keep those prices, I am there.


66 posted on 12/21/2004 6:03:44 AM PST by lodwick
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To: ScottFromSpokane

What a freakin great idea...However, those of you who've been on a cruise will understand this. HOW FAT WILL THESE PEOPLE GET!!!!


67 posted on 12/21/2004 6:05:56 AM PST by Hildy ( To work is to dance, to live is to worship, to breathe is to love.)
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To: qam1
A good idea.

However, medical care would be more of a problem that the article would suggest. While "family practice" type medicine abord ship would be manageable, seniors frequently need specialists. What happens when they are suddenly sick in Acapulco?

They'll get sent to a Mexican hosptial, which will not treat without a credit card or big cash upfront--not too different from extortion, a bitter thing considering how illegal immigrants are bankrupting emergency rooms across the US. Medicare would not cover. This happens to an appalling number of Americans abroad every year, maxed-out credit cards and inferior medical care.

I'd propose staying close to US shores, and thinking seriously about hiring on extra docs who might even manage a small hospital on board.

68 posted on 12/21/2004 6:38:52 AM PST by Mamzelle
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To: valkyrieanne
"Ship of Fools" and "Whatever happened to granny?"

I hear you. I live not too far from a resort area where a lot of vigorous retirees do their best to keep children far, far away from their golf games and cocktail parties.

I also have taught a few Sunday School classes where I took kids to the nursing homes. How the poor seniors, now unhealthy and dependent, long for these little kids! They beg them for hugs, and cry real tears for another word or minute of their attention...how the world can turn.

69 posted on 12/21/2004 6:42:32 AM PST by Mamzelle
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To: EQAndyBuzz
Factor in liability insurance and you will quickly see why you can't park grandma in the Waldorf. The Waldorf would not allow themselves to get into the management of such an enterprise, which would open them up to incredible liability exposure. So, the lawyers have already shot down what seems to be a good idea. On the other hand, a cruise ship might have legal advantages.
70 posted on 12/21/2004 6:45:28 AM PST by Mamzelle
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To: Phantom Lord; lodwick

Is he actually putting up any significant share of the money for the "Freedom Ship"? I know the web site has been up for ages. The project is considered a joke on the cruising newsgroups I've read. I would be interested if that has changed in any way.


71 posted on 12/21/2004 6:46:04 AM PST by HostileTerritory
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To: Mamzelle
Single-room-occupancy hotels used to help a lot of people, not just the old. My mother-in-law lived in an SRO hotel for women in downtown St. Louis right at the end of WW 2, while she was working as a legal secretary. She was right off the farm and in love with "the big city."

The hotel was full of "single gals" who didn't yet have the money for an apartment, or didn't want the responsibility, yet needed a safe and relatively cheap place to live close to work.

Many single working people used SROs as a transition from home to independent living (i.e. like saving money for a house & marriage.)

Older people lived in SROs (from modest rooming houses to the Waldorf) when they no longer would or could care for a house.

As you say, the lawyers have gutted all those options.

72 posted on 12/21/2004 7:03:58 AM PST by valkyrieanne (card-carrying South Park Republican)
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To: HostileTerritory

All I know about the thing is the idea. Nothing else.


73 posted on 12/21/2004 7:06:30 AM PST by Phantom Lord
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Comment #74 Removed by Moderator

Comment #75 Removed by Moderator

To: qam1

Folks, in front of you lies a sight for the eyes, the Bahamas in all their sunwashed glory and there, to the left anchored alongside the shuffleboard court are the Ellingtons, the Smithfields and the Rothfurgers; to your right even older and more stately, lounge the Wellingtons and the Canards...


76 posted on 12/22/2004 2:12:10 PM PST by Old Professer (The accidental trumps the purposeful in every endeavor attended by the incompetent.)
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Comment #77 Removed by Moderator

To: sf4dubya

Oh, I'm familiar with ResidenSea. The "Freedom Ship" is much more like the Chrysler Building sitting lengthwise on a barge, and that's a whole 'nother ball of wax.


78 posted on 12/22/2004 3:14:48 PM PST by HostileTerritory
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