Mario Salcedo

Mario Salcedo (born ), nicknamed Super Mario, is an American businessman and a long-term passenger on cruise ships. He has continuously lived on Royal Caribbean International cruise ships since 2000, aside from about 15 days on land a year and a 15-month gap during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021.

Born in Cuba, Salcedo immigrated with his parents to the Miami metropolitan area when he was seven years old and later became a naturalized American citizen. He received economics and finance undergraduate and graduate degrees, after which he worked in Miami at a multinational corporation where he rose to the level of international finance director. The role required a large amount of traveling in Latin America. After 21 years of work, he resigned from the company in 1996 at the age of 47, and embarked on more than 100 cruises on different cruise lines between 1997 and 2000. He eventually settled with Royal Caribbean after experiencing Voyager of the Seas, the largest cruise ship at the time, in January 2000.

Working from the cruise ship, Salcedo manages an online investment management business for 10 high-net-worth individuals. By 2016, Salcedo had been on more than 1,000 cruises, 850 of which were with Royal Caribbean, and had spent more than 6,000 nights on board Royal Caribbean ships. The documentarian Lance Oppenheim profiled Salcedo in the documentary short The Happiest Guy in the World in 2018.

Early life and early career Mario Salcedo was born in in Cuba. After his parents felt they could not stay in the country, he immigrated with them to Florida when he was seven years old. and became naturalized American citizens. Estimating that he spent 90% of his time traveling, Salcedo accrued three million miles for airlines' frequent-flyer programs. With the dual objectives of global trekking and founding a small business, he resigned from his director job in 1996 when he was 47, having developed occupational burnout.

Living on cruise ships Dismayed with air travel, He marveled at how the ship was "so revolutionary—the first ice skating rink, the first rock climbing wall, so many elements that took cruising to another dimension". To increase the chances of his remaining in the same room, Salcedo reserves cruises two years ahead of time. On the wall near where he works is a plaque that bears the words "Super Mario's Office".

Salcedo's exploits were documented by Lance Oppenheim in The Happiest Guy in the World, a 10-minute New York Times Op-Doc that debuted on April 19, 2018, at the Tribeca Festival. Aeon praised the documentary short for its "clever cinematography and editing" and found it "subtly probes deeper questions of freedom, capitalism and meaning-making". In the documentary short, Salcedo bemoaned not being able to receive Fox News on his room's television.

With occasional breaks, Salcedo has been living on cruise ships continuously for over 20 years with only a 15-month gap caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Personal life Salcedo has never been married, and he has no children. He is not on social media. Spending roughly 15 days a year on land, Salcedo uses the time to visit doctors, the bank, or travel to his next cruise port via airplane.