RETIRING AT SEA
‘Cult cruisers’ who book back-to-back sailings found navigating the pandemic difficult
On a Wednesday morning in March, Rita Deitchman, 74, was wearing a Royal Caribbean diamond necklace, earrings and bracelets as she perched on the boardwalk of the cruise company’s 6,988-passenger ship, Wonder of the Seas, in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
This was Deitchman’s 196th cruise — her 18th since September 2021, when, after a year and a half on shore while the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention halted sailings from U.S. ports and then the cruise lines worked out their COVID-19 protocols, she got back on a ship. She waved her hands, delighted to greet everyone strolling her way.
“I love to meet people, to socialize,” she said.
Deitchman is among a small and devoted band of cruise passengers, self-described “cult cruisers” who book back-to-back cruises for, well, more or less forever, aiming to essentially live on board. Since she resumed cruising, she has spent only one day on shore for laundry and regrouping while she waited for her next sailing.
When the pandemic shut down all sailing from United States ports, these cruise enthusiasts basically lost their homes.
So for them, the return to cruising was more than an invitation to book another vacation. It was a welcome home.
While tales of these cult cruisers are primarily anecdotal, when Cruise Critic, a leading cruise review site, did a survey in 2017 of 3,100 people about the concept of retiring at sea, 59% said they had a strong interest in the idea, and another 27% said they’d consider it if the price were right.
“The average person is getting their week vacation and maximizes the week,” said Mark Tamis, the senior vice president of hotel operations for Royal Caribbean International. “But it’s not that uncommon to try to live on the ship.”
Deitchman and her husband moved from Scranton, Pennsylvania, to a small condo in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, three years ago so they’d be closer to the ships. But they never expected to actually reside in their tiny condo for as long as they did.
“It was just meant to be a place to do laundry while we waited for the next cruise,” she said.
Stuck on dry land
As they waited to resume cruising, many of the devoted fans continued to allocate their time to cruising, though they were landbased.
Denorah Irby, 53, of Bridgeport, Connecticut, spent her time during the pandemic looking at cruise videos on YouTube with her husband, Curtis. Those videos weren’t necessarily of cruises they’d taken or planned to take. They were simply videos of strangers on cruises, as the Irbys desperately tried to get their cruise fix off the water.
“It was a tough two years,” Denorah Irby said.
Frank Shumard, 69, had a big plan for when he retired from his position as a transportation safety director for Waste Corporate of America six years ago: He would move from his home in Shell Knob, Missouri, to a condo in nearby Table Rock Lake, and he’d spend his winters cruising and his summers on the lake. “I didn’t even care where I was going when I was on the cruise — I was happy just to sit up on the lounge chair and watch the ocean go by.”
When the pandemic crushed his plans, it was the closest Shumard came to being clinically depressed, he said. During the pandemic, Shumard felt totally lost.
He cheered himself up by creating a “drink of the day” and posting it to the Holland America Cruise Facebook fan page. Eight hundred drinks later, Shumard and his partner, Lynn Shriver, climbed back onboard, and spotted his favorite bartender.
“It was so nice to see a face that I knew, and to shake hands, and it was such a relief to see that he was there, that he was well: It was magical,” Shumard said.
Loyal to their lines
All the major ship lines, from Royal Caribbean to Princess to Holland America, have their own loyalty programs that reward frequent sailors with everything from drink coupons to room upgrades. But while the perks are big business — and the cruisers proudly wear their loyalty badges in the forms of pins and other jewelry — many cult cruisers say they don’t return to the same lines because of the rewards.
Instead, they pledge fealty to a specific cruise line for how it syncs with their personalities and desires. The Royal Caribbean cruisers, for example, say they love the friendly crew and passengers they consistently meet on the ships. (The cruise line says one of its biggest fans has spent 9,500 nights onboard.) Viking cruisers point to the line’s luxury and all-inclusive pricing (Wi-Fi, basic alcohol packages during meals and shore excursions are included in the base fare). Holland America fans return for the crew, the food and the intriguing itineraries, like a 35-night cruise that makes stops along England, Scotland, the coast of Norway, Iceland and the Norwegian-controlled Arctic island of Spitsbergen. Many Holland America ships include outposts of B.B. King’s Blues Club, and the focus on live music also draws many repeat visitors.
Diane St. John’s retirement plan involved seeing the entire world through the lens of a Holland America cruise. The 77-year-old retired English teacher, who lives in San Luis Obispo, California, when she’s not cruising, said she was halfway done with her eighth around-the-world cruise (each of which is about 120 days) when the pandemic hit, and she was forced to disembark in Fremantle, Australia, barely making it out of the country before the borders closed.
St. John’s first post-pandemic cruise was a backto-back cruise on the Koningsdam: A California coastal cruise followed by a week to Mexico. Then, she took three back-to-backs.
“I just felt that we were at home, and we were so comfortable,” St. John said. “It was like being home again, and wrapped in a fuzzy blanket.”
She didn’t cry, though. “I save my tears for disembarking after four months of a world cruise,” she said.