Contemporary Retirement
Retirement is changing. The type of retirement that their parents enjoyed is no longer enough for the baby boomer generation. Today’s retirees are younger, richer, fitter, healthier and better educated than previous generations of retirees. They also have much higher expectations. The aim of this blog is to help you get the vital, healthy, prosperous, productive and fulfilling retirement that you really want (and deserve).Monday, August 21, 2006
No nursing home for me!
Someone sent me this over the weekend - I must admit that the idea does have a certain appeal...
Two years ago, my wife and I were on a cruise of the western Mediterranean aboard a Princess liner. At dinner we noticed an elderly lady sitting alone by the rail of the grand stairway in the main dining room. I also noticed that the ship's staff, officers, waiters, busboys, etc, all seemed very familiar with this lady. I asked the waiter who the lady was, expecting to be told that she owned the cruise line, but he said that he only knew that she had been on board for the last four cruises, back to back.
As we left the dining room one evening, I caught her eye and stopped to say 'hello'. We chatted for a while and I said, 'I understand that you've been on this ship for the last four cruises?' She replied. 'Yes, that's true'. I stated, 'I don't understand', and she replied, without a pause, 'It's cheaper than a nursing home'.
So, there will be no nursing home in my future. When I get old and feeble, I am going to get on a Princess ship. The cost for an average nursing home is £111 per day. I have checked on reservations at Princess and I can get a long-term discount and senior discount price of £75 per day. That leaves £36 a day.
1. Tips will only be £6 per day.
2. I will have as many as 10 meals a day if I can waddle to the restaurant, or I can have room service (which means I can have breakfast in bed every day of the week).
3. Princess has swimming pools, a workout room, free washers and dryers, and shows every night.
4. They have free toothpaste and razors and free soap and shampoo.
5. They will even treat you like a customer, not a patient. An extra £15 worth of tips will have the entire staff scrambling to help you.
6. I will get to meet new people every 7 or 14 days.
7. TV broken? Light bulb needs changing? Need to have the mattress replaced? No problem! They will fix everything and apologise for your inconvenience.
8. Clean sheets and towels every day and you don't even need to ask them.
9. If you fall in a nursing home and break your hip, chances are you will die before being treated on the NHS; if you fall and break a hip on the Princess ship, they will upgrade you to a suite for the rest of your life...
Now, hold on for the best...
10. Do you want to see South America? The Panama Canal? Tahiti? Australia? New Zealand? Asia? Princess will have a ship ready to go!
So, don't look for me in a nursing home - just call shore to ship!
P.S. And don't forget, when you die, they just dump you over the side at no charge!
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