Sleeping with the fishes? Controversial plan to turn cruise ship into hotel and CEMETERY
IF YOU’VE ever dreamed of being buried at sea, this luxury cruise liner might have a solution.
A marine club in Hong Kong has a radical plan to make over a 60,000 tonne ship.
The HK Ship Art Club wants to install a cemetery on the vessel with enough space to hold 48,000 urns.
But that’s not all - under the controversial design, the space would also be used as a hotel.
Restaurants, gyms and a cinema would all be side by side to the bizarre floating burial site.
Wreckless cruise ship SINKS BOATS at Italian marina
Entrepreneurs are seeking investor contributions to the tune of £49.8m (HK$500m) to fund the plan.
That includes the price of the ship itself, estimated at £13.9m (HK$140m), and rooms for 1,000 guests (of the living kind).
The price of accommodation isn’t likely to be cheap if the cost of an urn spot is anything to go by.
Rates for the 48,000 funeral urns would start at £5,973 (HK$60,000).
Adding to the thousands of urns would be entertainment such as lectures in philosophy and theology.
Kowloon Bay would be its resting spot but the morbid cruise liner could set sail when needed.
Though the concept might seem strange, it’s likely to be much more well received in Hong Kong.
Finding a space in a public columbarium is so rare, thousands are on waiting lists for just a square foot of space.
Private niches can cost in excess of £79,000.
In light of this, floating cemetery designs are not new to the bustling region.
In 2012, design firm Bread Studio wanted to build the Floating Eternity - a ship that would hold 370,000 funeral urns.
Another one was proposed in 2010 by Tin Shun Bu, who wanted visitors to access the vessel by boat.