An “endless” cruise has come to a grinding halt.
According to reports from Travel Gossip and elsewhere, passengers on the Villa Vie Odyssey were told to get off the “residential” cruise ship with all their belongings, after CEO Kathy Villaba announced that the company was “unable to secure the fuel necessary to continue operations.”
“As a result, the Odyssey will enter a temporary layup this afternoon, with crew remaining onboard to maintain the vessel and its essential systems,” she said in a message board post. “All residents must disembark by 2 pm today.”
The company made the news official in a media statement this morning that, like the announcement, was notably bereft of an apology. Villa Vie was halting operations in Cambodia, where the ship is currently located, it said, because of “extraordinary increases in fuel costs.”
By Villa Vie’s own estimates, monthly fuel expenses on a per cabin basis were historically around $1,800 but have now surged to up to $8,000. It now must benevolently suspend operations because “passing the full increase on to residents is not a realistic solution.”
Though fuel prices are beyond the company’s control, this sounds a lot like an example of disastrous mismanagement. And it will add to criticisms that these residential-style cruise ships — which allow passengers to rent or buy cabins so they can live at sea for years at a time — are an economically unsustainable business.
Fuel prices have been trending up for decades, and jumped aggressively since the US and Israel sparked a war with Iran in February. It would have certainly been apparent to the ship operators for some time if it couldn’t keep fueling its vessel.
But residents, it would seem, weren’t given any prior warning that their cruise would be coming to a halt until they were unceremoniously dumped out of what are essentially their homes — with their life savings invested into them, filled with heaps of personal belongings — and onto the shores of Cambodia. There was seemingly no attempt made to drop them off at a more convenient location, either.
Villa Vie is somewhat notorious in the cruise industry, and its flagship cruise been plagued with problems from the start. The delayed launch of the Villa Vie Odyssey from Belfast in 2024 left residents, who were fully expecting to move in and start a permanent life at sea, stranded in the city for months. Passengers have complained about sudden cancellations in the planned itinerary preventing them from visiting the parts of the world they were promised to see, on top of daily quality of life problems like spotty wifi and unreliable plumbing.
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The post Company That Sold “Endless Cruises” Suspends Operations as Fuel Costs Spike, Kicks Residents Off Ship appeared first on Futurism.
