[johnvschmitt]

You are both true & making good points. It sounds like another "offshoring" idea then.

The bigger problem from my POV is that the old folks they serve are being treated as "steady state", when in fact their conditions are often deteriorating. And, when Grandma dies, will her family have to wait 1-2 weeks for her ship to return to port for a proper family gathering & funeral? Stinky...

[1337Coder]

Well would you believe that it is not uncommon for one or two people to die on a cruise? I went on a 10 day cruise a few years ago and three people died on it. They chucked 'em in the fridge and carried on the trip like it was normal.

[nknighthb]

Yeah, that makes sense. The US annual death rate is 8.39 per 1000[1]. The newest ship in Carnival's inventory holds up to 3,690 passengers[2]. I can't find crew capacity, but some googling suggests there ought to be more than 1000 crew on a loaded cruise that size.

So if you're floating around with 4690+ people, naïvely, about 39 people should die on it every year, or one every 9.28 days.

On a 10-day cruise of that size, somebody is going to die. I bet once you control for the unusually high average age of the passengers and maybe other factors (how many drunken idiots fall over the side and drown every year?), 3 people in 10 days would be pretty normal.

[1]https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/...

[2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnival_Breeze

[desas]

The drunken idiots falling over the side and drowning don't usually get found. As far as I remember, the odds of being found after falling off a cruise ship are really low.

[Fishkins]

I've heard cruise ships all have morgues for this reason.