Water (FYI)

Just off the Infinity. Tested the water with a TDS tester.

0-50 is ideal drinking water

50-100 is filtered or spring water

100-200 is hard water

200-300 is marginal drinking water

Water in Vancouver was 75

On board was 98

Bottled water was 175

Did the onboard water test several times at different locations

Must have had some "local" water onboard....usually the water is much softer than that! I find the water to be perfectly fine! Having had a well, I'm quite used to "hard" water....actually tastes better than municipal water.

Man, people do some weird stuff on board ......

Just off the Infinity. Tested the water with a TDS tester.

0-50 is ideal drinking water

50-100 is filtered or spring water

100-200 is hard water

200-300 is marginal drinking water

 

Water in Vancouver was 75

On board was 98

Bottled water was 175

 

Did the onboard water test several times at different locations

What brand of bottled water? I know Evian has a lot of minerals

Thanks rvmike. I looooove data! I keep reading where posters insist they swell because they drink ship water and thinks it’s due to the salt they think is being from the ocean water the ship filters.

This info is very handy.

Den

Bottled water was Niagara, bottled says purified my reverse osmosis.

Thanks rvmike. I looooove data! I keep reading where posters insist they swell because they drink ship water and thinks it’s due to the salt they think is being from the ocean water the ship filters.

 

This info is very handy.

 

Den

My feet and sometimes hands, do swell on board ships, but I never blame the ship's water. I believe it is due to the heavy use of sodium in the food on board.

Cool info!

FWIW...my extremities swell as well. I've decided it is due to the excessive walking/standing. (Excessive: more than normal.)

Man, people do some weird stuff on board ......

LOL and that is most likely not counting what might go on inside ones cabin... :evilsmile:

bon voyage

Yeah, I love data too. When it's reliable. Most home tester units aren't particularly accurate, but likely decent for a rough estimate. Wonder if the OP took a single sample in Vancouver, or multiple samples from different sources. Same with the bottled water- one sample from one brand of bottled water doesn't seem very representative.

According to the EPA the max concentration guideline for acceptable drinking water is 500 mg/L, not 200-300. And that's just for aesthetics. In the US, bottled water has to have a minimum TDS of 250 to even qualify as a mineral water.

For the nick pickers, the sample in Vancouver was taken straight from the tap (Pan Pacific Hotel). The bottled water was tested several times on board from different bars. EPA standard is max 500 and anything above is unacceptable. I stated 100-200 As hard water

My feet and sometimes hands, do swell on board ships, but I never blame the ship's water. I believe it is due to the heavy use of sodium in the food on board.

Cool info!

 

FWIW...my extremities swell as well. I've decided it is due to the excessive walking/standing. (Excessive: more than normal.)

I agree. It’s more standing and walking and dining at a restaurant instead of home and shall we say, a few more drinks!

Den

I love info like this! Good to know, as we don't have a drink package and will be drinking the ships water Friday on the Equinox. As long as there is no smell it will be fine.

I also swell on vacation, terribly. By the end of the trip I can barely get my shoes on. I swell after a long night at work, and usually by Friday night when I get home my ankles are huge. However, I have been taking regular Mucinex this week and I have had no swelling, even though it was very warm here.

I can't wait to test this out next week on our trip!

Correction, The water brand is Ice River Springs not Niagara.

Thanks rvmike. I looooove data! I keep reading where posters insist they swell because they drink ship water and thinks it’s due to the salt they think is being from the ocean water the ship filters.

 

This info is very handy.

 

Den

Does the testing referenced by the OP test for salt (besides calcium and magnesium) ?

I am one who swells if I drink ship's water.

I have never claimed it was from ocean salt, but I do know that sodium is a major additive in the process of adding trace minerals back after the purification process. In fact, Morton Salt is the primaryr manufacturer of those treatment additives. (I've personally seen paletts of these bags being loaded on from the pier. Because there is no way of knowing how much sodium is added into the water, I have switched to bottled water and have never had another issue.

This thread reminds me of being on the shuttle in Jamaica and locals walking up to the vehicle to sell you bottled water. Problem was, that some of them reused/refilled old bottles.

The check includes minerals,salts or metals

The check includes minerals,salts or metals

Very interesting.

I appreciate that this made me want to get even more information as I have always been puzzled about my swelling that happens only when cruising - but not since I switched to bottled water. After a bit more reading, I've learned that the hardness measures the particles, but does not provide further infomation as to which minerals are high or low concentrations. In fact, overall hardness does not have much bearing at all on the actual water quality.

Here's an article I found interesting. https://tappwater.co/us/tds-poor-measure-water-quality/

Curious as to why this was of interest to you?

Thanks for posting.

I live in So Ca and our city used to get water from an aquafer The county forced us to buy water from LA and our water became very hard Was forced to buy to bottled water so I checked several brands. We also have more purified water outlets than starbucks

I live in Michigan. Our water is rather soft in the summer but gets very hard in the winter time. It is so hard that people skate on it and even drill and chop holes thru it to fish. 🤗

Happy cruising 🌊🚢🇺🇸🌅

I'm curious, for those that say they switched to bottled water onboard and no longer swelled. Could it possibly be that when you are buying bottled water you tend to more often have it with you and drink more of it, which process alone would reduce your swelling? Don't presume the answer - just wondering. I myself find that when vacationing anywhere I tend to swell more - eat more salty food, drink more, often experience higher humidity, sometimes exercise a lot less. I can only speak for myself, but those are factors for me for sure.

I'm curious, for those that say they switched to bottled water onboard and no longer swelled. Could it possibly be that when you are buying bottled water you tend to more often have it with you and drink more of it, which process alone would reduce your swelling? Don't presume the answer - just wondering. I myself find that when vacationing anywhere I tend to swell more - eat more salty food, drink more, often experience higher humidity, sometimes exercise a lot less. I can only speak for myself, but those are factors for me for sure.

In my case, absolutely not. I always carry water with me in a reusable bottle. I used to fill it from the stations in the buffet. I originally thought it must be the added salt in the food that caused my "cankles", but then I read about the mineral additives used to treat the water, one of them being sodium. All water can have various amounts of sodium, it's the unknown of how much.

Processes such as desalinization and reverse osmosis remove trace minerals (such as sodium). Also, when water is treated to "soften" it, the sodium level of drinking water tends to be higher. Who knows how much sodium is added back in after the treatment? It probalby does not adeversely effect most people, but i think the fact that I drink alot of water, may have contributed.

All I know is I mostly drink bottled water throughout the day onboard. I do drink table water at meals. Problem solved.

The debate over EC and TDS has been an ongoing issue for a long time. These two measurements are used to determine the strength of hydroponic solution. Although they are widely used they should only be used as a guideline.

EC stands for Electrical Conductivity and is measured in mS/cm or millisiemens per centimeter. TDS stands for Total Dissolved Solids and is measured in PPM or parts per million. TDS is acquired by taking the EC value and performing a calculation to determine the TDS value. Because TDS is actually a calculation it is really only a guess at what the nutrient concentration is. (This means it isn't checking percentages of any one mineral like salt or metals) On top of that, there are three different conversion factors to determine TDS and different manufacturers use different conversion factors. In other words you could test the same solution with two different meters and get two totally different readings. But the EC is read the same by all meters the only difference is the conversion factor.

A little more reading, it seems the WHO recommends TDS concentrations below 1000 mg and the EPA secondary maximum contaminant level (SMCL) is half that.

So, 1 to 1.5 EC is safe.