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What it’s like to live on a cruise ship for 8 years
I'm so spoiled that I doubt I would ever be able to readjust to the real world.
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By Lee Wachtstetter March 7 at 9:03 AM
Lee Wachtstetter is an 87-year-old Floridian.



Lee Wachtstetter shows off the cushioned wall hanging displaying her earrings that was a crew member’s gift. (Si Liberman)


I still remember his words. “Don’t stop cruising,” my husband told me the day before he died of cancer in 1997. Mason was a banker and real estate appraiser who introduced me to cruising. During our 50 years together, we had taken 89 cruises.

Alone and struggling to maintain a large four-bedroom home after his death, I took my daughter’s advice, sold our house and a lifetime’s accumulation of furnishings and collectibles and became a permanent resident on a five-star cruise ship.

That decision took quite a bit of soul searching. I worried about distancing myself from friends and family. But as I thought about it, I realized that my children were grown and doing their own thing. Nothing was holding me back.

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Crystal Cruises’ reputation and the availability of dance hosts for passengers traveling alone (there are meet-and-greet cocktail parties and other events for people traveling alone) are what really sold me on the Crystal Serenity.

I enjoy dancing, and this I believe is the best cruise line that still uses dance hosts. My husband didn’t dance, just didn’t like to, but encouraged me to dance with the hosts. Before the Serenity, I lived on a Holland America liner for three years. The day they announced they were stopping the dance host program was the day I decided to leave.

I love to eat and regularly dine at a table for eight. You meet interesting passengers that way. Since coming on board more than seven years ago, I’ve put on 23 pounds. To shake them off, I went on a four-month liquid and fruit diet. It was working, but the pounds came back after resuming my normal eating habits. I just order half portions now and believe what they say. “The older you get, the harder it is to lose weight.”

[Boys play with dolls, and girls play with spaceships. Someone tell the toy makers.]

Most days I spend quite a bit of time in the bright Palm Court lounge doing needlepoint work. It’s my second love. Been doing it for 50 years and have helped teach it to other passengers. Whatever I make, I give to crew members. They really bend over backward to keep me happy. If they don’t have what I want, they get it even if they have to buy it off the ship or custom make it. One crew member built extra storage shelves for me. Another made a neat framed cushion wall hanging that holds almost all my earrings.

As a former registered nurse with a good immune system, I’ve very rarely felt the need to see the ship’s doctor. But trying to get rid of a lingering, nasty cold once, I did. His RX: “You have laryngitis. Don’t talk.”

I’m so spoiled that I doubt I would ever be able readjust to the real world.


As told to Si Liberman, a New Jersey-based journalist and travel writer who profiled Lee Wachtstetter for USA Today.

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