Loyal to Royal, top passenger finds 'perfect lifestyle' at sea

He might have been a Merchant Marine or a ship's captain or a career Navy officer, so great is his love of the sea. But Mario Salcedo instead decided to carve out a lifestyle as a perpetual cruise passenger.

Salcedo has taken 600 cruises, most of them in the last dozen years. And 480 of those cruises have been on Royal Caribbean International.

His favorite ship is Royal's Liberty of the Seas, and he essentially lives onboard from October to April, while the 3,600-passenger ship plies the Caribbean out of Fort Lauderdale.

He typically sails on the Liberty's transatlantic crossing in April, when it repositions for its Europe summer seasons, then flies back to Florida and becomes a passenger on other Royal ships until the Liberty returns in the fall.

Cuban by birth, Salcedo's family settled in the Miami area in the early 1960s and became naturalized citizens. Undergraduate and graduate degrees in finance and economics led Salcedo to a career in international finance, and he traveled extensively in Latin America and throughout the Caribbean. He took his first cruise vacation in 1996 and was immediately hooked.

He saw cruising as "the perfect lifestyle," so at the age of 48 Salcedo left the corporate world and launched a "simple-to-manage financial venture" that he could oversee from a distance and on turnaround days when he briefly returns to his Miami condo.

"I booked six back-to-back cruises to see how it would work out, and I've been doing it ever since," he said.

At any given time, Salcedo has his cruise schedule for the next 18 months nailed down.

Salcedo's longtime travel agent, Joyce Wood, is an outside agent affiliated with Cincinnati-based Cruise 800.

"I book all of my cruises while I'm onboard the ships, and that's because I want the onboard credits they give for doing that," Salcedo said. "And every booking I make is passed along to Joyce, so she takes ownership of the booking and gets the commission."

Wood's role is important to Salcedo because she continually reviews the pricing of each cruise he has selected, and if the fare on a cruise drops prior to sailing, she gets him the lower fare.

"I don't have the time to sit on the Internet and go through all the bookings and see which ones have gone down in price," he said. "So Joyce is responsible for identifying any price changes, and she sends me a revised confirmation showing the new price."

Salcedo added: "Also, she is better equipped to handle upgrades, and if I request a complimentary cruise through the Crown & Anchor [loyalty program], she handles that, too. In fact, if there's any problem with a booking at all, she fixes it."

He typically books a junior suite.

"I don't get special pricing," he said. "They apply a 150% single supplement to my bookings, which is offered to Crown & Anchor members who have at least 350 'cruising solo' points."

Wood said she met Salcedo through a referral from a client, who happened to sail aboard the same ship with him.

"That was about eight years ago, and he's been my client ever since," Wood said. "Mario is a very nice man, and he appreciates what I do for him. In this business, most people don't really care about their agent. All they're looking for is price. But Mario is a really down-to-earth person. I wish all my clients were like him."

Although Wood is affiliated with a cruise agency, she also books land vacations, group tours and specialized travel.

"Customer service is my focus," she said, adding, "I'm hoping to hold onto Mario as a client for a very long time."

Salcedo said he's come to think of the Liberty of the Seas officers and crew "as family."

But it wasn't always that way. When he began his life at sea, Salcedo spent months at a time on the Freedom of the Seas, but a few years ago the Liberty crew said they wanted to "adopt" him.

"So I switched to the Liberty, and I've sailed now 120 times on the ship," he said. "I've had very memorable moments here, magical memories, and I struck a close relationship with the officers, the captain, the hotel director and the crew. You can imagine the treatment I get when I am here."

Onboard, he's known as "Super Mario," a nickname coined by the Liberty's captain, Charles Teige.

Betsy O'Rourke, Royal Caribbean's senior vice president of marketing, called him "a great ambassador for the Royal Caribbean brand as our most frequent guest onboard. His nickname is Super Mario not only because he sails with us approximately 300 days a year, but he is super delightful with the crew, the other guests and many of us shoreside employees who love spending time with him onboard."

When the Liberty repositions to Europe for the summer, Salcedo cruises on other Royal ships: "Sometimes the Independence, the Majesty, the Allure, and others, too -- but always Royal Caribbean," he said. "I don't cruise on any other line, ever."

For cruise news and updates, follow Donna Tunney on Twitter @dttravelweekly.