Drinking desalinated ship water

[Jan]

I have just read an interesting thread on cruisecritic. A poster there asked why her legs had swollen so much on her cruise. (She had not flown to get there.) Apparently it is caused by the intake of too much salt. Desalinated water has a lot of salt left in it and she had drunk a lot of water, lemonade (not pop) and iced tea.

Mainly we drink bottled water when cruising and we don’t over-indulge in much else. So up to now we haven’t had the problem.

Just thought this might help Dibb cruisers.

[wdw-wanderer]

Aah - I didn’t know that. It helps explain my swollen ankles on the last Norway cruise. I’ll be more careful next time.

[Jan]

Glad I could help someone.

[Cloverlady]

Hi

I asked a similar question on here last week

Your theory is one of the theories we similarly affected ladies on the cruise were debating during our last cruise, (where I was sporting very big feet!)

This theory, along with all the other theories was poo-poohed by some of the others - but I have to say it does seem the most likely reason!
Makes a lot of sense, as I had a lot of ice in my drinks.

I'd read that they DO de-salinate the water, but only as far as the salt becomes undetectable, so still quite salty.

It will be interesting to see if I avoid so much ice on my next cruise in October!
I will avoid lots of ice in my cocktails in the interests of research!

[Omega1]

Opinions on this vary, many say it’s the high salt content of the food that is the issue and that desalinated water has a very low salt content. They have to add minerals to create ‘flavour’, otherwise it’s like drinking distilled water.

[TGT]

We mostly stuck to bottled beer and didn't have a problem! hic!

[disney owl]

just to say for the other side, we sail P&O and drink the on board water with no problems at all

[jas72]

I don't recall getting swollen feet or legs does it only affect females? I drank a load of free water on my 14 night cruise last year.

[Jan]

Not everyone gets it.

[Gary]

I thought the drinking water on ships was distilled, so would have no salt at all in it.
My guess would be that the extra salt you are getting is from the food.