A pair living full-time on a cruise ship have shared one of the strangest realities of life at sea: they once lost an entire day.
Johan Bodin and Lanette Canen are among the long-term residents aboard the Villa Vie Odyssey, a residential cruise ship designed for people who want to live and travel at sea for the long haul.
The couple, who document their lifestyle on YouTube under Living Life on a Cruise, moved from life on land into a floating home where the monthly costs cover many everyday basics.
For them, that meant paying around $130,000 upfront for their cabin, followed by monthly costs of roughly $4,000. That fee covers essentials and onboard perks including meals, drinks, housekeeping, gym access, WiFi, and entertainment.
Life onboard is shaped by constant movement between ports, and that means the ship is regularly crossing time zones. According to the couple, crew members often adjust the clocks overnight while passengers sleep, so the change usually happens without much disruption.
But there was one occasion that went beyond simply moving the clocks back or forward. After crossing the International Date Line — which stretches from the Arctic southward through the Pacific toward Antarctica — they skipped a date altogether.
“In January we missed a day,” he said. “We went straight from January 24, the next day was January 26, so those are kind of strange things to wrap your head around.”
That was not their only surreal experience involving the date line either.
Traveling across it in the opposite direction created the reverse effect, giving them the same calendar day twice.
“Yeah we passed the date line twice, and one day we re-lived the same day,” said Johan.
“We had like Monday February 15 two days in a row,” he said.
Lanette said the shifts are not limited to the calendar, as the ship is constantly moving through different time zones.
She said: “The clock is constantly changing from each country that we go to. So normally they change in the middle of the night, like 3am.”
She added: “I would hate to be the crew member that actually has to set back the clocks every night.”
The couple have said that living on the ship also comes with a quieter rhythm than a typical holiday cruise, because many of the people onboard are staying for months or years rather than days. For them, that has turned the ocean into a home, with the calendar and clock often reminding them that life at sea runs on its own unusual schedule.