Lee Wachtstetter, an 86-year-old Florida woman, has been living on a cruise ship for the last seven years, and she’s loving every minute of it too.
Known affectionately aboard the Crystal Serenity as "Mama Lee," she sold her Florida home and began a residence at sea after her husband passed away.
"My husband introduced me to cruising," she told the Asbury Park Press. "Mason was a banker and real estate appraiser and taught me to love cruising."
Clearly he did well for himself, because "during our 50-year marriage we did 89 cruises," she says, and since, "I’ve done nearly 100 and 15 world cruises."
When asked how many countries she’s visited, Wachtstetter said: "I stopped counting after 100. Just say I’ve been to almost any country that has a port."
Her favorite is Turkey, where she can’t get enough of the Grand Bazaar shopping center in Istanbul. Yet for the most part, it’s been there, done that.
"When most everybody goes ashore it’s so quiet, I have almost the whole ship for myself," says Lee, who has not only seen it all, but lived to 86 after all.
She’s no loner, either, keeping in touch with her three sons and seven grandchildren despite being at sea for most of the year, thanks to her laptop.
She estimates that she will pay $164,000 this year to travel on The Crystal Cruise Line, which she says stands out from the competition for one reason:
"I enjoy dancing, and this was the best of the remaining ships that still use dance hosts," she told the paper. "My husband didn’t dance, just didn’t like to."
"Before coming aboard this ship I lived on a Holland America liner for three years," she said, but she bolted once they no longer offered dance hosts.
Her love for dance is as strong as her immune system, as she rarely needs to go to the doctor’s office, Lee says. A big key to that is a lack of stress.
"The day before my husband died of cancer in 1997, he told me, ‘Don’t stop cruising,’" she said. "So here I am today living a stress-free, fairy-tale life."
