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What’s the most ideal way to spend your retirement, you ask?
While many people might opt for a cruise, one couple have their very own spin on it.
Marty and Jess Ansen, from Australia, decided that living on a cruise ship would be a lot cheaper than moving into a retirement home… so they did just that.
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In June 2022, the pair decided to live their dream and headed off on the first of their many back-to-back holidays on board a Coral Princess ship.
It speaks volumes about the cost of retirement when opting to live aboard works out as the cheaper option - but if you love to feel the sea breeze on your face, it’s worth embracing it.
In a video for Princess Cruises, Jess said: “It’s a lifestyle for us, and we actually love the lifestyle.”
Jess added: “I just feels so blessed and welcomed, and it’s just wonderful.”
Who could argue with that?
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Speaking to A Current Affair last year, Marty said: "We're on board longer than anybody else. The wheels change over but we stay on board.”
Agreeing with her partner, Jess then said that as a couple, they regularly ‘welcome new captains on board the ship’ as well as their most recent hotel manager, Ren van Rooyen.
Ren told the outlet: “We always make a joke that I go away and I come back and it's like coming to see my family - my mum and dad again - they're like my second mum and dad on board.”
As well as the hotel manager, other members of the ship crew have reportedly begun to treat the Ansens as family - with Jess even being surprised on board for her birthday.
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It’s reported that the couple had been fond of cruising for four decades. However, after the COVID-19 pandemic shut down ship operations in 2020, Marty and Jess decided they were not wasting another moment on land.
“Eventually I said to my agent, 'Look, whatever comes, book it' and that's how it got to be such a long cruise," said Marty.
The pair say they never get bored of their sea-based odyssey, starting each morning with an hour of table tennis.
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“We do it together and we have a lot of fun,” said Jess, before adding that the exercise was great for working up an appetite.
As of September last year, the couple were docked in Sydney as the Coral Princess restocked and underwent preparation for its next round trip to Hawaii.
They then planned to spend a further eight months on board, before a few months on land and then jumping on the Crown Princess for a year-long vacation.
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"We don't know how to wash up anymore, we don't know how to make a bed, because we haven't done it for so long. So now we have to stay on board just to stay alive,” joked Marty.
Back in 2022, the Australians spoke to Today and said that living on a cruise ship was ‘just wonderful’.
"You have all your meals prepared, you don't have to cook, you go to a show every evening and go dancing after the show, then you go for supper and head back to your cabin,” said Jess.
Sounds like a dream.
Kya Buller