As many baby boomers approach retirement and are starting to research long-term care solutions, new research indicates cruises may be a viable alternative to assisted living facilities. Lee Lindquist, an instructor in geriatric medicine at Northwestern University, says she was inspired to study the matter after recently taking a cruise with her parents…
LINDQUIST: There was a lot of the same patients that I see in clinics that were just kind of going around on the cruise ship and really enjoying themselves. And as I got to talk to a lot of them, a lot of the people that were on those cruise ships had taken 20 maybe 30 cruises over a year span. And if you think about it, that’s almost being on a cruise ship every other week of the year. And so putting two and two together, it kind of adds up, why not just live on a cruise ship?
Lindquist’s research found only a small difference in cost between cruise living and assisted care living…
LINDQUIST: On a month-by-month charge, assisted living facilities on average are charging anywhere from $2,300 a month which is the national average What we figured out by doing our analysis, was that there’s only about a $2,000 difference over a 20 year life span and that a lot of people that we spoke to actually gave it a higher quality of life- living on a cruise ship as opposed to an assisted living facility.
Lindquist says that the services offered by assisted living centers can all be found on cruise ships…
LINDQUIST: They both have a studio with single bath, they both have walk in showers. Cruise ship travel has the meals provided, all three meals, plus extras if you want to count the midnight buffet. There’s a 24 hr. physician available on the cruise ship for emergencies. They also do have things like I.V. antibiotics, I.V. fluids, where they can stabilize them right on the ship.
Lindquist says it would be easy to make a cruise a long-term care solution…
LINDQUIST: If they wanted to start doing it tomorrow, they could. What we recommended is that they start off with a smaller cruise and then kind of extend to however long they think that they would like to do that. These ships would act as their home- they would have one cabin with their name on it, they could get mail.
