- I'm a content creator who lives on a cruise ship for half the year, and I love it.
- I sail for free because my husband is a staff chief engineer on the ship.
- Our living space is small but we get to travel a lot and I don't ever have to cook.
I live on a cruise ship for half the year with my husband and it's often as glamorous as it sounds. After all, I don't cook, clean, make my bed, do laundry, or pay for food.
Our cabin on the ship essentially comes with my husband's job — he's a chief engineer who works three months on board and three off and I sail as a "wife on board." When we aren't living on a cruise ship, we're at our home in Vlissingen, Netherlands.
Luckily, living at sea isn't very new to me as I used to be a cruise director. I lost my job early on in the coronavirus pandemic and have since pivoted to full-time content creator.
Life's pretty good at sea, though it has some ups and downs.
Our life feels often like an ongoing vacation
For starters, a huge perk of this lifestyle is not having to prepare meals or do dishes.
I have sit-down meals in the ship's dining room for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. If I don't feel like doing that, I can go to the buffet or get pizza or hamburgers and fries whenever my heart desires. I have to pay for my own drinks, though I get a 50% discount.
I also love being in a new place every day, which is especially helpful for a content creator always looking to post something new. I have to wait until guests have gotten off at a port before I disembark, but I still get plenty of time at most stops.
Recently, I took my followers with me to Hawaii and the French Polynesian Islands. Now, I'm headed to Alaska. After that, we'll be checking out South America and the Panama Canal.
Although it can be difficult to visit family and friends, I still get to see my parents. They're retired and sometimes hop on the cruise with us for months at a time — yes, they get a family discount when they book.
With my parents growing older it's also nice to know that the ship has some medical care on board in case of an emergency. That said, I do pay for a special traveler's insurance.
This lifestyle comes with small drawbacks, but none I can't handle
As a "wife on board," I have access to most amenities for guests, though I'm not allowed to gamble at the ship's casino.
Sometimes I also encounter difficulties while trying to get work done on the ship. I buy internet on board at a discounted rate since my husband is a staff member but the service isn't always the best.
Recently, while in the French Polynesian Islands, we went eight days with no internet connection on the ship. Unable to share content without a signal, I ended up taking a forced vacation and read books while working on my tan.
The room we live in is also quite small, but perhaps no tinier than some studio apartments in New York City. Our bathroom is super tight and our space has a weird layout — at night, I have to climb over my husband to get out of bed to use the restroom.
Fortunately, we also have a balcony on the bow of the ship that's perfect for filming sunsets and sunrises from.
Living in a small space also means my husband and I are used to being together all the time. Some couples might not prefer this but we're only going on three years of marriage and we're OK with the constant closeness.
We can't have pets since we live on a ship, but I'm lucky to be surrounded by nature often. My online friends have jokingly dubbed the creatures I film my pets, from the dolphins outside my window to the bears in Alaska.
I also regularly don't know what day it is since my weekdays are better labeled as which city we're in. Sometimes we miss birthdays because we're switching time zones and "skipping" a day on the calendar. It feels like we're always changing our watches and clocks to keep up.
And, yes, I still get a bit of sea sickness but I've found remedies that work for me when I need them. Oftentimes, though, I appreciate the motion of the sea, which rocks me to sleep at night.
Living on a cruise ship is not for everyone but it's definitely for me
My husband and I have about 45 years of experience combined working and living at sea, so we're pretty used to it.
We plan to live on the ship for the next five years as he continues working as an engineer and I continue creating content for my followers and brands around the globe. I've loved sharing my adventures on my TikTok (@dutchworld_americangirl) for the past two years and I've already visited over 108 countries.
As I write this, I've got a view of the Alaskan mountains and I'm waiting for my husband to get off work so we can go upstairs and have dinner someone else will cook for us on dishes someone else will clean.
It's a pretty sweet life that some might judge, but I know it's truly a privilege to get to enjoy the world in this way.