The vessel will need to undergo a $45m refit in April next year before launching anytime in 2019.
Storylines this month has started selling 302 cabins on a 584-foot luxury cruise ship that would serve as a globe-trotting retirement home for adventurous boomers, who at the leading edge are turning 72 this year.
The floating retirement homes are set to range from $255,000 to $1.1m.
Instead of operating as a normal cruise ship, passengers will pay up to $1,400,000 to buy cabins and live permanently on board, sailing to ports around the world. The package includes food, alcohol, excursions, jet skis and scuba gear, the use of the support yacht, medical care and a running track. Monthly service fees for the five tiers of accommodation will be up to $9,500 a person.
Headquartered in London and with offices in Manhattan, New York, Storylines officially went to market and launched globally in January 2018. The firm says that out of the 25.3 million people who took a cruise in 2017, none of them were offered a permanent residence at sea, yet 92 percent of cruisers said that they would cruise again. Storylines offer the opportunity for people to live on a cruise ship permanently, and to experience life on and off board the ship as it travels the world.
The Storylines website says the project is ‘definitely not a timeshare’, though owners will be able to let friends or family use their ‘cabin-condos’ when they are not on board.
The only other successful cruise ship condo is called The World — but that is more for the 1 percent than the middle class, with condo staterooms going for $1.8 million to $15 million.
On The World, the condo owners actually own the ship. Storylines will own its floating cruise condo — the residents, like those in non-floating condos, will pay a monthly maintenance fee.