Woman who has lived nine years aboard QE2 seeks new home
Some people cruise a little. Some people cruise a lot. And then there is Beatrice Muller, the 89-year-old widow from New Jersey who literally lives on the Queen Elizabeth 2.
A legend in the cruise world, Muller has booked back-to-back cruises on the Cunard ship in an endless string going back nine years, and she had planned to keep it up indefinitely.
The problem, of course, is that the 41-year-old QE2 is retiring in November, and as The Times of London reported over the weekend, Muller is now looking for a new ship.
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Muller sold most of her possessions in 1999 when she decided to start sailing full time, and The Times says she refuses to think about returning to land.
“What would I want to do that for?” she asked the paper's Will Pavia this week during an interview while the ship was docked in Southampton, England. "I was married to a wonderful man for 57 years. I have done my penal servitude – I want to travel.”
Muller began sailing on the QE2 full time after her husband died (during a cruise on the ship; the couple already had become regulars). She told The Times her cabin costs about $7,000 a month, which compares favorably to the cost of a retirement home in Florida. But “it’s far more pleasant,” she told the paper. “They don’t organize you like senior citizens’ homes must do."
So where will Muller go? The obvious choice is Cunard's Queen Mary 2 or Queen Victoria, but Princess and Holland America also have globe-trotting ships that might appeal to the endless wanderer. The Royal Princess, in particular, already is accustomed to year-round passengers (see our profile from last year of permanent passenger Lorraine Artz, who has spent more than 4,000 days at sea).
Cruise Loggers, if you could afford it, which ship would you chose as a permanent home? And what do you think about the idea of spending your golden years sailing around the world full-time?
She sure must be loaded!!!!!!!!!! It costs her $84,000 a year and in the nine years she has been on that ship she has spent a stagering $756,000. Dale
