He lives and works 300 days a year on "The Freedom of the Seas"

[Chilcotin]

That's the life...

https://www.entrepreneur.com/business-news/this-remote-worker-spends-300-nights-a-year-on-a-cruise-ship/457259

 

[Tatka]

Super Mario #2?
I used to work from ships on some days when I didn’t have enough vacation.

He is right about healthy lifestyle. Even without 300 days on board you gotta do it or you cannot cruise for long 

Edited August 12, 2023 by Tatka

[Crism]

Freedom's coming to FLL and doing 7 nights next year. I wonder where he'll go. I've seen him around onboard chatting with passengers. Seems like a nice guy but we never spoke.

[zimmerman]

Eating healthy food

not drinking

not getting off at ports

working from an empty room

 

I’m not getting it… what’s the upside?

sounds like a lot of money for someone to clean your room (once a day) and prepare your food.

[Another_Critic]

"but by 2025 I'd like to get rid of my apartment, sell my car, and purchase a scooter that I'll store at a friend's garage. When I'm home, I'll have groceries delivered"

 

If he sells the apartment, then where is home?  Hotel room?

[Tatka]

5 hours ago, zimmerman said:

Eating healthy food

not drinking

not getting off at ports

working from an empty room

 

I’m not getting it… what’s the upside?

sounds like a lot of money for someone to clean your room (once a day) and prepare your food.

He loves the ocean. I doubt he works 24/7.

Eating healthy and not drinking every day is not bad

[LittleJoefromKokomo]

5 hours ago, zimmerman said:

Eating healthy food

not drinking

not getting off at ports

working from an empty room

 

I’m not getting it… what’s the upside?

sounds like a lot of money for someone to clean your room (once a day) and prepare your food.

Not everyone considers eating healthy food, not drinking on weekdays, having a calm workspace where you won't be disturbed and can be productive a bad thing.. 😎

I get what you mean but you look at his cruising from a vacation perspective (as do I) but if he doesn't have any partner or children a work from home life can be pretty lonely and boring. I work 80-90% from home and even if I have both wife and 2 children I sometimes feel like I get restless not seing anything else than my house for two weeks.

If I was single without anyone I could definately see his point. Beats being alone at home.

[lovesthebeach2]

8 minutes ago, UnregisteredUser said:

Not everyone considers eating healthy food, not drinking on weekdays, having a calm workspace where you won't be disturbed and can be productive a bad thing.. 😎

I get what you mean but you look at his cruising from a vacation perspective (as do I) but if he doesn't have any partner or children a work from home life can be pretty lonely and boring. I work 80-90% from home and even if I have both wife and 2 children I sometimes feel like I get restless not seing anything else than my house for two weeks.

If I was single without anyone I could definately see his point. Beats being alone at home.

I could absolutely live on a ship
I love the ocean, I wouldn’t have to cook or clean, I could still eat a healthy diet, I could still exercise, would have much more entertainment than I get at home….. what’s not to love about that 😁

 

[PATRLR]

6 hours ago, zimmerman said:

Eating healthy food

not drinking

not getting off at ports

working from an empty room

 

I’m not getting it… what’s the upside?

sounds like a lot of money for someone to clean your room (once a day) and prepare your food.

I agree.  I was wondering what's the point.  I compare him to a young woman we met on NCL Encore last November.  She was from Grand Caymen, rented out her apartment there and spent most of her time living and working from cruise ships.  The costs were a wash, or so she said.  But in her case, she moved around from ship to ship itinerary to itinerary, seeing new places, etc.  When we saw her, she'd been on Encore for a few weeks, coming down from Alaska to Miami and doing a week in the Caribean.  She was then flying to the west coast to get on some other ship for a few weeks in the Pacific.   She still worked, but balanced it with enjoying where she was.  That lifestyle sounds much more interesting to me than being on the same ship running back and forth to the Bahamas.

[loman]

Good for him !

He found something that works for him and went for it.

How many people never take that step ?

[BecciBoo]

3 hours ago, lovesthebeach2 said:

I love the ocean

Ditto, but I'm a nester, 10 days seemed long to me, I love my earthbound home.  I go to the Ocean to get fixed, but sadly, must return to the earth....LOL  Landmaid.

[GetToLivin]

Well, I think it's pretty well noted he said all the HR-friendly things in his interview (I take PTO for port-days, my workweek is my workweek, etc) so good on him for covering those bases 😉 But I do think this is like anything in life: when you're on vacation you treat it as such, and really, he's not on a vacation. If I go to Miami on vacation, I'm going to treat it like that: sleep in, eat differently, enjoy a cocktail at noon, etc. If I live there, I'm going to have a non-vacation schedule/life. He's just swapping land for sea -- and good for him. 

[zimmerman]

At the expense of having a proper base

At the expense of space

At the expense of having access to better and fresher food

 

even having access to a proper working environment (monitor and keyboard etc). Being hunch over a laptop 8-12hrs a day (probably on a static chair), is no fun.

 

it obviously works for him, so power to him. Don’t think it would work for me.

Edited August 12, 2023 by zimmerman

[Jimbo]

Wonder if he gets any special treatment on turn around days every 7 days. I would hope he doesn't have to bother getting off and back on every 7 days like B2B cruisers do. I bet he has something set up special for him so he doesn't have to leave his cabin.

[BecciBoo]

One man's trash is another man's treasure...same with your abode, one man's hovel is another man's palace....

[alfaeric]

1 hour ago, zimmerman said:

At the expense of having a proper base

At the expense of space

At the expense of having access to better and fresher food

 

even having access to a proper working environment (monitor and keyboard etc). Being hunch over a laptop 8-12hrs a day (probably on a static chair), is no fun.

 

it obviously works for him, so power to him. Don’t think it would work for me.

What is a "proper base"?  For most people, it's a place to store your stuff, sleep, do your things, and eat in.  Take out "store your stuff" and you can live pretty much anywhere.  Plenty of van lifers don't have a home or apartment to deal with, no reason you can't do exactly the same at sea.  The only thing you need to deal with is mail, and van lifers do that with post office boxes- which is easy to check if you find one close to the port.

 

And why does one need more space than an entire ship?  Again, without stuff, the private bedroom need is lessened a lot.  More people van life in smaller spaces than live on cruise ships.  They do just fine.

 

As for better and fresher food- sure, you don't get to go to places where you can get organic food.  But ships take on fresh food every single week.  Just like going to the grocery store.  And I don't know about you, but I honestly wonder what kind of variety people get at home.  Cycle through the MDR and Windjammer's choices- I'd wager it's at least equal to the best families who change their choices a lot all the time.  

 

Your point about the laptop is valid, although it's also something you can deal with- get a dock and use the room monitor via the HDMI cable.  Also, the number of people who live with just a laptop for work is pretty darned high.  

 

I get that this isn't for everyone (just like van life isn't for everyone).  But it's also not that hard to envision making work really effectively.  Especially if once every other month, you treat the trip as vacation.

[seasidemama]

It's not for everyone but he made it work for him so all the more power to him. I imagine living single in a small apartment with not much opportunity to socialize, having to cook, clean, food shop and launder on your own can get pretty monotonous as well.

[HappyTexan44]

My only confusion is why he still has an apartment.  

 

Since he isn't changing ships, there is nothing stopping him from setting up a nice work space in his cabin.   Speaking of being cramped, college dorm living is something I never understood even when I was in college.   This seems light years better.  Yet, dorm living is accepted as a normal way of life.   

 

Edited August 12, 2023 by HappyTexan44

[JessyCruises]

My husband and I both work onboard frequently. We are in our late 40s and still working full time.   We certainly don't do as many nights as the guy in the article - last year was 110 nights,  this year will probably be 125 and 2021 we had 46 beginning 8/22/22.  I think that is a lot for two unretired people and we can only do that because we can work onboard.

 

I have been a remote worker for over 10 years.  My husband is in sales and we was on the road pre-covid but lost his job in spring 2020 because of covid.  The new job he started in Aug 2020 and now he is also remote.  We worked onboard before covid, but once we started sailing again at the end of August 2020, we immediately realized the potential of us both being able to work onboard if we wanted to take longer cruise vacations.  Because of the cost of travel from where we live, we now like to take cruises 3 weeks at a time, sometimes 4 so most of our cruises are B3Bs.  If we are going to a port we love or have never been to before, we will take a vacation day, or if we are travelling with friends or family we take vacation days as well.  Otherwise, we both work Mon-Fri 8:00-4:30 EST from onboard.  We either work in the cabin or some other place that is quiet.  If I do not have calls scheduled, I have been known to work from one of the big beds in solarium, especially then it is quiet on a port day.  Then, as soon as 4:30 hits, we get ready and are out the cabin door ready to explore the ship and enjoy the venues.  Our bosses do not care where we are as long as we can both do our jobs exactly the same as we can at home.

 

We have a condo at home (it's actually across the street from the cruise terminal in Saint John NB Canada) so there is minimal upkeep.  Our son still lives with us so he takes care of the dog and the condo while we are away.  It is great because he gets his privacy and has it own place 1/3 of the year. 

 

Edited August 12, 2023 by JessyCruises

[Sunshine3601]

14 hours ago, Crism said:

Freedom's coming to FLL and doing 7 nights next year. I wonder where he'll go. 

If he's onbosrd for 300 nights  a yr I doubt it matters.

[JessyCruises]

2 minutes ago, Sunshine3601 said:

If he's onbosrd for 300 nights  a yr I doubt it matters.

It decreases the # of turnover days which can be annoying especially if they fall on a work day and you need wifi first thing in the AM or have a conference call scheduled 

 

 

[Sunshine3601]

3 hours ago, Jimbo said:

Wonder if he gets any special treatment on turn around days every 7 days. I would hope he doesn't have to bother getting off and back on every 7 days like B2B cruisers do. I bet he has something set up special for him so he doesn't have to leave his cabin.

When I first read the article online the other day I wondered this too.  I doubt customs would make special arrangements.  He would have to get off and back on like others doing b2bs, etc.  He's probably so used to it it doesn't matter.  Same goes for muster station.  They know him by now and probably just check off his name as done.

[JessyCruises]

3 hours ago, Jimbo said:

Wonder if he gets any special treatment on turn around days every 7 days. I would hope he doesn't have to bother getting off and back on every 7 days like B2B cruisers do. I bet he has something set up special for him so he doesn't have to leave his cabin.

I doubt it. Even Mario has to follow the normal B2B process like everyone else.  I have been on several B2Bs he has been on and he is always stuck in the line with us.

[cruisequeen4ever]

I always love hearing these stories. I work from home now, but I need high bandwidth and speed to do video calls and run certain programs all day. I lost hope of ever being able to work onboard when a few weeks ago, our speed dropped to around 100, and my calls got twitchy. 🙄 Mayyyyybe it was a fluke, but I can’t count on it and then not be able to once onboard. I guess that would be my question. What do people do the first time they try it? Do they tell their boss that if it doesn’t work out, they’ll just take unpaid days and then never try it again? 

[moposh]

I don't think I would like this.  Plus, I have a dog so it wouldn't be doable.