Stranded cruise passengers’ efforts to cobble together enough funding to salvage their multiyear voyage appear to have faltered on Monday. The ship, the Odyssey, now in Cambodia, appears likely to be auctioned.
Last week, after two years at sea, the cruise ground to a sudden halt in Sihanoukville, Cambodia, when the ship’s operator, Villa Vie Residences, announced it could no longer afford fuel. The 200 passengers, who had paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for the residential cruise, disembarked and have spent the past week trying to retrieve their belongings from the ship while planning what comes next.
An effort by several passengers to buy the ship failed to come together over the weekend. The lender and the ship-management team from the Columbia Group are preparing to take control of the ship and plan to sell it at auction.
“Villa Vie is still technically in possession, but the bank is taking control and will start the 60-90 day process of securing their collateral,” Villa Vie’s founder, Mikael Petterson, told The New York Times via text message. “We hope to have a restructure completed much sooner.”
When the sailing was suspended last week, Villa Vie said that it was because of “extraordinary increases in fuel costs” caused by the war with Iran and that the company was working to restructure and recapitalize over the next 60 days.
Unlike short-term vacation cruises, Villa Vie marketed its multiyear voyage as an affordable “home at sea” for retirees and remote workers, with extended port calls for deeper cultural immersion. Prices ranged from about $120,000 to $440,000, in addition to fixed monthly fees of $3,500 to $11,000.
Some passengers said they would keep traveling in Asia, while others have decided to stay in Cambodia while they await news of what will happen to the ship, holding out hope that the trip of a lifetime isn’t over.
Joel Greiff, a 57-year-old former hospitality worker, was battling severe stress and undergoing radiation treatment for an amyloid protein buildup when he decided to change his life. He sold his condo in Naples, Fla., and took an early withdrawal from his 401(k), paying $350,000 for Villa Vie’s Endless Horizons program, which promised him permanent residency for the life of the ship with no monthly fees.
He boarded the Odyssey on Oct. 1 and spent only 26 days on board before all the passengers were told to get off.
“The ship has been in trouble for months, and I think I had already come to terms with the reality that I might lose my money when I got on,” Mr. Greiff said. As a Plan B, he said he would help other residents get back on their feet and then live in Asia, where he said he could have “wonderful experiences.”
This wasn’t the first time the Odyssey had run into money trouble. In late July, when the ship was docked in Singapore, the operators ran out of money and made emergency cash calls to residents to cover fuel and operational costs and help prevent the ship from being impounded, according to communications on an internal app called Circle that were reviewed by The Times. To save the ship, the operators started a program that offered guests the opportunity to buy more cabins and benefits at discounted rates.
The residents said they raised $400,000 for fuel to leave Singapore and paid it out of one passenger’s personal bank account to avoid sending any more money to the ship’s operators.
In another effort to save the cruise, three of the passengers started a resident-backed investment company to buy and assume operating control of the ship. That initiative collapsed over the weekend after the residents failed to reach an agreement with the lender and realized, after reviewing Villa Vie’s financial records, that the ship had more debt than they had expected.
While the operators said they were still looking for investors to salvage the cruise, most residents said they were financially tapped out.
Cherie Ohlsson, 77, a genealogist who sold her home in Florida before embarking on the cruise, said she spent almost $1.5 million on her cabin and various payments to try to save the voyage but had nothing left to give.
“It was magical,” she said, “to be surrounded by water all the time and travel the world effortlessly with wonderful people who became family. There’s nothing like it.”
She said she did not know what would come next and was staying in a hotel in Cambodia, taking each day hour by hour: “I’m just not ready for it to end.”
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