Passengers bought berths on a 3-year cruise. Months on, the ship is still stuck in Belfast
Passengers who bought cabins for a 3 1/2-year round-the-world cruise have been waiting months for the vessel to depart
BELFAST, Northern Ireland — Lanette Canen and Johan Bodin gave up life on land to become seaborne nomads on a years-long cruise.
Months later, the couple has yet to spend a night at sea. Their ship, the Odyssey, is stuck in Belfast undergoing repair work that has postponed its scheduled May departure for a 3 ½-year round-the-world voyage.
Bodin said they have enjoyed their pit stop in the Northern Ireland capital, but “when we’d visited every pub and tried and every fish and chips place and listened to all the places that have Irish music, then we were ready to go elsewhere.”
“We’re ready to set sail, for sure,” added Canen.
Villa Vie Residences’ Odyssey is the latest venture in the tempest-tossed world of continuous cruising.
It offers travelers the chance to buy a cabin and live at sea on a ship circumnavigating the globe. On its maiden voyage, it is scheduled to visit 425 ports in 147 countries on seven continents. Cabins – billed as “villas” — start at $99,999, plus a monthly fee, for the operational life of the vessel, at least 15 years. Passengers can also sign up for segments of the voyage lasting weeks or months.
Marketing material, aimed at adventurous retirees and restless digital nomads, touts “the incredible opportunity to own a home on a floating paradise,” complete with a gym, spa, putting green, entertainment facilities, a business center and an “experiential culinary center.”
But first, the Odyssey has to get out of the dock.
It’s now at Belfast’s Harland & Wolff shipyard, where the doomed RMS Titanic was built more than a century ago.
Villa Vie Residences’ marketing manager Sebastian
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