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Living on a cruise ship just got way easier after launch of very 1st ‘residential’ cruise line
Both older folk and young adults alike have been ditching mortgage payments to live full-time on cruise ships instead.
D.G. Sciortino
08.25.22

Sometimes when we’re on vacation, we wish that it would never end. Storylines is making it so you don’t have to.

And it won’t cost you a fortune.

The cruise line has just announced their “more affordable” “residential community at sea” that allows you to live on a cruise ship while sailing the world.

“Many people love global travel experiences but they don’t love the logistics, planning, air travel, jet lag, and living out of a suitcase. Storylines takes the hassle out of international travel so that people can focus on exploring, adventures and cultural experiences. At the end of a long day discovering a new exotic location, they can come home to friends and familiar surroundings and sleep in their own bed,” Storylines co-founder, Shannon Lee, wrote in an email to Travel + Leisure.

The resident ships are currently being built in Croatia and will launch in 2024.

While they aren’t in everyone’s price range, they are less expensive than other residential cruise ships.

Storylines is offering fully furnished one to four-bedroom homes, as well as studios and two-story penthouses that range from $400,000 to $8 million.

The homes will be available for purchase or through limited 12 to 24-year leases. Even a 60-year lease will be available. The homes can also be rented or sold like other pieces of real estate.

A perpetuity clause will allow residents to roll over their agreement to a future ship without an additional purchase.

Residents will also be charged an annual living fee that ranges from $65,000 to $200,000 per unit for food and maintenance.

The MV Narrative will offer 20 different dining concepts and bars, a microbrewery, three swimming pools, a 10,000 book library, a movie theater, a state-of-the-art wellness center, pharmacy, post office, a bowling alley, and a solar-powered hydroponic garden farm.

Its 1,000-day maiden voyage will span six continents at the end of 2024 and spend about three to five days in each port.

“What a typical cruise line might do in one month or three weeks, we will take three to four months to do,” Storylines founder and CEO Alister Punton told CNN Travel.

Residents will also have the opportunity to weigh in on where they want to go next.

The cruise line expects all 547 of its units to be sold by the end of 2022.

“We have retirees and children and everyone else in between, including younger digital nomad types,” said Punton. “And a lot of families are coming on board. In this arena, it’s those in their 30s and 40s with young children. We’ve got the whole range.”

An educational program will also be offered for children along with a medical staff of nurses, doctors, and physiotherapists.

But before you can buy a unit you have to make the cut.

Residents are interviewed to make sure they are a “good fit for the community” and “understand all the founding principles.”

Those principles include “helping out around the ship,” using clean burning non-electric marine fuel, growing their own food, and giving back to the communities they visit.

Storyline residents consider themselves to be “citizens of the world.” The residential ship also aims to be a “green” cruise ship.

“We will definitely be the greenest cruise ship out there. That’s not just the fuels that we use [the ship will run on liquefied natural gas (LNG), one of the cleanest-burning non-electric marine fuels],” Punton said. “But there’s also all the other parts to it as well. So it’s how we source our food, how we store food in bulk, growing it on board the ship, converting waste to energy, limiting use of plastics and all those kinds of things.”

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