The latest three-year cruise is running two months late
Villa Vie Residences was due to depart from Belfast on May 30. But after a couple of unexpected hiccups, the ship – the Villa Vie Odyssey – is still in the Northern Irish city.
Passengers were flown home to wait for a new departure date.
The cruise is now expected to embark on July 30, but it could be delayed by a day or two, CEO Mikael Petterson told CNN Travel on July 27.
“We will launch this coming week for sure,” Petterson said.
Petterson said that an initial issue with grey-water tanks turned into a bigger problem when the company learned that the ship also needed new rudder stocks. Villa Vie had bought the ship from Fred. Olsen Cruise Lines, who had called it the Braemar.
Petterson said that the tight turnaround scheduled between taking delivery of the ship and getting it out on the water had not left room for major works.
“Hindsight is always 20/20 but if I’d gone back, I’d probably have given myself more time,” he said, though he admits that he probably would have been delayed “by a couple of weeks” even without those issues.
Guests sent home to wait it out
Clients who were waiting to board in Belfast were initially sent off on other European cruises, he said. “But when the rudder stock situation happened we flew everyone home and said we’d fly everyone back when we had a date.”
He estimates that around 12 people are waiting in Belfast. The others have been booked on flexible tickets so can return at short notice once the ship is ready.
For skeptics fearing that this could be a replay of the Life at Sea situation, which fell apart days before the scheduled departure in November, Petterson (who was part of the launch team for Life at Sea, before parting ways with the company in 2022) says that the ship is now out of dry dock and is waiting on two final certifications.
“It could all go perfect and we leave on the 30th but the way things have been going we’d be foolish to expect things to go perfectly,” he said on July 25. “Our target date is July 30. If we have to push that we still should be able to have residents onboard, but that’s our target, not necessarily a critical date. It’s in god’s hands.” He added that next month he expects to “be in the water and this will be a distant memory.”
In the meantime, the company has cracked on with interior refurbishments that were due to take place once the voyage had already got going.
A rival is announced
Petterson says that all clients’ cabins have been renovated, and they have now moved on to the crew cabins, which they are changing from quad to double.
“[The ship] is in good shape, and we’ll be able to offer a better experience,” he said.
But where does that leave the itinerary, which promised to follow summer around the globe? Petterson says that they may have to skip the Faroe islands if they suffer further delays.
Around 320 cabins have been sold of a potential 350, he said, and they expect around 200 people to start the voyage in Belfast, with others joining later. Around 40 of them had previously signed up with Life at Sea.
Meanwhile, two people who were part of the Life at Sea management when the cruise was canceled have announced their own rival outlet.
Kendra Holmes, the former CEO of Miray Cruises – the umbrella company behind Life at Sea – has announced her new project, Globecruisers, which she has founded with other Life at Sea employees.
Planned to embark in April 2025, it should be another three-year cruise. However, unlike Miray Cruises, Holmes says they will not take any deposits until a ship has been secured, and guests’ money will be held in escrow after that.
The news of potential delays in the Villa Vie Odyssey's departure date has caused some travel inconvenience for those awaiting the cruise in Belfast. Despite the anticipated embarkation on July 30, Kendra Holmes, a former CEO of Miray Cruises, has announced a rival project, Globecruisers, set to embark in April 2025, offering a more secure financial arrangement for its guests.
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