Cruise ship suspends round-the-world voyage: fuel too expensive
The ship: “Monthly fuel costs, calculated per cabin, have risen from $1,800 to between $6,000 and $8,000. These costs are unsustainable.”
A three-and-a-half-year voyage to sail round the world, visiting all seven continents and 147 countries. This is what the US cruise ship ‘Villa Vie Odyssey’ offers, for a modest sum ranging from 120,000 to 440,000 dollars. And it is precisely because of costs – fuel costs – that the ship has interrupted its itinerary, stopping in Cambodia.
The Villa Vie Odyssey had set sail in October 2024 from Belfast (Ireland) and was due to complete its voyage in November 2027. However, it is currently moored in the port of Sihanoukville, in southern Cambodia, where it arrived on 23 October for a scheduled five-day stopover. This stopover has been extended: the ship was due to continue on to Vietnam, but rising fuel prices have made the journey unsustainable. The parent company, the US-based ‘Villa Vie Residences’, explained that monthly fuel costs – calculated per cabin – have risen from $1,800 to between $6,000 and $8,000. According to reports by the British BBC, slowing down the itineraries and staying longer in ports would have been of little use. And passing on the increases to passengers is a solution considered ‘unrealistic’.
On board the ship there are 203 passengers – mostly Americans – and 156 crew members, all of whom were forced to disembark. For many, the journey aboard the Villa Vie Odyssey was not simply a holiday, but rather a way of living permanently at sea. This is an experience that Villa Vie Residences itself encourages, offering the opportunity to turn a cabin into a proper home.
And now, what will become of the passengers and the cruise? The company has stated that it is working to organise the disembarkation and find temporary accommodation. However, one passenger, the blogger Randy Cassingham, has expressed dissatisfaction with the assistance provided by the ship in finding accommodation and, more generally, has criticised the handling of the emergency. As for the round-the-world voyage, the Villa Vie Odyssey will undergo a sixty-day ‘refurbishment and recapitalisation’ process, the outcome of which, however, is by no means guaranteed.
