Woman who lives on a cruise ship explains key differences to living on land

Christine Kesteloo is living the dream.

She spends half of the year on a cruise ship on a hassle-free, paid-for vacation.

However, there’s a catch.

READ MORE: World’s largest cruise ship five times bigger than Titanic about to set sail

Christine Kesteloo shares updates about her semi-permanent holiday living on a cruise ship on TikTok quite regularly, and she sometimes gives interviews.

In one such interview, with the Insider, she shared the biggest challenge that comes with her situation.

On the surface, everything seems perfect.

“I live on a cruise ship for half the year with my husband [who works as a chief engineer on board, ed.] and it’s often as glamorous as it sounds,” Kesteloo told the Insider.

“After all, I don’t cook, clean, make my bed, do laundry or pay for food.“

However, Kesteloo said the last part is the one that gets her in trouble.

Everything is paid for, including all kinds of food and drinks, which also happens to be available 24/7.

This is challenging because it means she needs a lot of self-discipline when it comes to what she eats and drinks.

“One of the hardest things about living on a cruise ship is that I know right now, if I just leave my cabin, I can go and have cookies, pizza, a shake, I could have anything I wanted,” she told her 790,000+ followers on TikTok.

“I had a salad for lunch, I had some fresh fruit, but that didn’t fill me up, [and] all I can think about is eating a burger with some French fries.”

It’s an interesting take – we keep hearing about people living on a ship, but this particular aspect had never been addressed before.

While it is true that people tend to gain weight on a cruise ship, some people in the comments pointed out that this definitely falls into the ‘first world problems’ category.

“Let’s face this is a nice problem to have,” one commenter said.

“Hashtag first world problems,” another echoed.

Others ‘sympathize’ and fully agree with Kesteloo, though.

“I’d be huge if I lived there. I would feel like I’m on a constant vacation, and who diets on vacation?” one commenter wrote.

“I never thought about those who actually live on a cruise ship. I would be 500 pounds,” another said.

This is definitely one of the collateral issues that come with living on a cruise ship, but it isn’t the main one.

As a man who’s spent over 20 years on a ship explains, the biggest issue is you ‘forget’ how to walk on land.

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