Woman pays $164K per year to live on luxury cruise ship
Lee Wachtstetter, an 86-year-old Florida widow, took her daughter’s advice. She sold her five-bedroom Fort Lauderdale-area home on 10 acres and became a permanent luxury cruise ship resident after her husband died.
Mama Lee, as she’s known aboard the 11-year-old Crystal Serenity, has been living on the 1,070-passenger vessel longer than most of its 655 crewmembers — nearly seven years.
The Florida widow made the decision to spend her days at sea after her husband passed away. “The last thing he ever said to me was the day before he died, ‘Don’t you quit cruising,’” Wachtstetter told CBS Miami. She began going on cruises more frequently but became tired from all the “packing and unpacking.” So she decided to sell her house, car, and the majority of her belongings to set sail.
What she misses most is her family, but manages to keep in touch with her three sons and seven grandchildren with her laptop computer. “I hear from one of them every day, and visit with them whenever we dock in Miami. Last year we docked in Miami five times.”
Her daughter has since passed away, and so have all her close friends in the Fort Lauderdale area.
The Crystal Serenity Cruise ship became Wachtstetter’s new home. She’s lost count of all the countries she’s been to, she told USA Today, “I stopped counting after 100,” adding, “Just say I’ve been to almost any country that has a port.” Her husband was a banker and real estate appraiser and taught her to love going on cruises. “During our 50-year marriage, we did 89 cruises. I’ve done nearly a hundred more and 15 world cruises,” Wachtstetter said.
Nowadays she doesn’t bother to get off at every port because she’s most likely visited the place many times before. “I do what I want, when I want IF I want,” the retiree insisted. She spends her days aboard the Crystal Serenity dancing, regularly dining, meeting new friends, and doing needlepoint. “The crewmembers bend over backward to keep me happy. Some are almost like family now,” she said to USA Today later adding, “I’m so spoiled I doubt that I would ever be able to readjust to the real world again.”
