Life at Sea 3 Year World Cruise Cancelled

Table Of Content

• Carnival Corporation Reroutes 12 Cruise Ships
• Comments
• Former HGTV star slapped with $10 million fine and jail time for real estate fraud
• Royal Caribbean Scrubs Middle East Cruises on Rhapsody of the Seas
• Crystal Cancels Middle East Cruise on Symphony; Reroutes World Cruise
• Windstar Cruises Cancels Star Legend’s Middle East Season, Redeploys Ship to the Med

Terms of the deal help illuminate the would-be passengers' financial and logistical plight. Under its 12-month payment plan, the first draw came due one month ahead of the sail date. Those customers are now scrambling to make new plans for where they will live for the next three years — and to extract refunds from the cruise line. The intense fallout is drawing comparisons to infamous debacles such as the Fyre Festival — the "luxury" music festival that was more like a "disaster relief area."

Carnival Corporation Reroutes 12 Cruise Ships

Life at Sea did not immediately respond to additional questions about the guest’s experience. But it seems that it was the company's focus, not the public's, that was the problem. Witman says she also shipped boxes to have on the cruise, back in early October. "Having a like-minded community of people that all were interested in travel at the ready was really appealing to me," she said. Witman, who owns a marketing agency named Clever Lucy, was planning to work remotely aboard the ship, using its Starlink internet service.

Comments

Ongoing unrest in the Middle East has led to a series of changes and cancellations to cruise line itineraries, with more lines opting to re-route their Red Sea itineraries, including World Cruises, away from the conflict. "I had the next three years of my life planned to live an extraordinary life, and now [I have] nothing. I’m having a hard time moving forward. The company intended to buy the AIDAaura ship, which was retired by AIDA Cruises, part of Carnival Corp. over the summer. However, the sale took longer than anticipated, and a different company, Celestyal Cruises, bought the ship. Trade publications reported Miray would be acquiring the 20-year-old AIDAAura — which left Carnival Corporation's fleet in September — for its never-ending cruise.

The 3-year Cruise to All 7 Continents Has Been Canceled — Here's Why - Travel + Leisure

The 3-year Cruise to All 7 Continents Has Been Canceled — Here's Why.

Posted: Mon, 27 Nov 2023 08:00:00 GMT [source]

Former HGTV star slapped with $10 million fine and jail time for real estate fraud

The company responded to a request for comment from BI with a statement that didn't address specific questions. The statement followed the resignation of Kendra Holmes (Life at Sea's CEO) who reportedly recorded a video for passengers admitting the voyage's cancellation. The reasons for her being chosen to make the announcement after her resignation remain unclear. Despite the promises of a trip of a lifetime, signs of trouble emerged over the past few months.

The line has canceled three repositioning ‘Grand Voyage’ sailings in April from South Africa and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to Europe. MSC Cruises has become the first cruise line to cancel cruises due to the ongoing risks to shipping in the Red Sea. Anticipated transits of the Suez Canal later in 2024 and into 2025 are not affected at this time. Queen Mary 2 will maintain its existing itinerary until after its call in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

There were also promises of a state-of-the-art wellness centre, multiple dining options and philanthropic initiatives that guests could register for. “There’s a whole lot of people right now with nowhere to go, and some need their refund to even plan a place to go — it’s not good right now,” a passenger who wanted to remain anonymous told CNN. Vedat Ugurlu, CEO of Life at Sea’s parent company Miray Cruises, said the cruise was facing “challenges due to investor withdrawal” in a statement shared with USA TODAY. Warning flags went up earlier this year, when the company changed course from its initial plan to refit one of its ships, the MV Gemini.

Royal Caribbean Scrubs Middle East Cruises on Rhapsody of the Seas

With that ship, the MV Lara, the company raised the price of the trip from $30,000 to $38,513. In his message, Ugurlu claimed that "Miray is not such a big company to afford to pay million for a ship," but that it had "presented the project to investors, and had official approval from some of them to buy the vessel." But after six weeks of uncertainty, during which Life at Sea repeatedly told guests that the sale was taking longer than planned, on November 16 another company, Celestyal Cruises, announced that it had bought the AIDAaura. Some of the passengers who booked the 111 cabins sold are still in Istanbul, having made their way there ahead of the original departure date.

Others, like Costa, have elected to sail ships empty through the Suez Canal en-route to their spring European cruise seasons. Cunard Line informed guests it will re-route its World Cruise aboard Queen Mary 2, changing a full month of the planned voyage itinerary in order to bypass the Red Sea and Suez Canal in favor of transiting around the horn of Africa. The October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel by Hamas led to a number of lines canceling port calls (see below), while the latest attacks on cargo vessels in the Red Sea in early 2024 has led to cruise lines canceling itineraries in that region.

Windstar Cruises Cancels Star Legend’s Middle East Season, Redeploys Ship to the Med

"The ship was originally scheduled to sail in the Middle East. We’ve postponed our launch in that region to begin in November 2024,” said Windstar Cruises President Christopher Prelog. On October 24, Windstar announced Star Legend would instead be deployed to the Mediterranean, offering cruises from Rome (Civitavecchia) to Barcelona or reverse between December 2023 and April 2024. Ports of call include Nice, Monte Carlo, Florence (Livorno) and Cannes on select voyages. “The safety of passengers and crew is the number one priority and as there was no viable alternative itinerary, the Company has regrettably had to cancel the voyages. Carnival Corporation announced on January 30, 2024 that it would re-route 12 individual cruise ships across its family of brands in order to avoid the Red Sea and conflict in the Middle East.

“We were due to visit Israel, Egypt and Jordan next April but spoke to TA this afternoon about canceling." The affected ships, which include Costa Cruises' Costa Toscana and Costa Deliziosa; Princess Cruises' Island Princess; and AIDA Cruises' AIDAbella, AIDAblu, and AIDAprima, along with P&O Cruises' Arcadia. "Given recent developments and following extensive consultation with global security experts and government authorities, we have made the decision to reroute our itinerary to bypass the Red Sea and the surrounding area," the company wrote. Silver Moon's February 11 departure from Mumbai to Singapore remains, as of this writing, unaffected. Originally scheduled to traverse the Red Sea and the Suez Canal, the ship will now sail around the coast of Africa on its way to the Mediterranean. Passengers were disappointed by the decision and lack of notice from the cruise line.

On November 17, passengers were informed by Miray Cruises, Life at Sea's parent company, that the company could not afford to buy a ship after "investors declined to support us further due to the unrest in [the] Middle East," according to ABC News. The company had been trying to buy AIDAaura, a 20-year-old ship, which was sold in November to another cruise company. The cruise, which was originally scheduled to depart from Istanbul on Nov. 1 and visit nearly 400 ports, was scrapped earlier this month. One passenger told USA TODAY he and his wife were notified of the cancellation on Nov. 17, after they had already arrived in Istanbul with plans to board the ship on Nov. 11. "While we're in talks to acquire a similar vessel, if the December 1 sail is jeopardized, we offer alternative departure dates or expedited refunds," said the statement, which went on to describe the refund process. The company would get a temporary ship to sail for three or four months, she said, while purchasing a permanent vessel for a longer voyage to start next year.

Now, less than two weeks before its maiden voyage, Life at Sea has acknowledged to anxious passengers that there is no ship, and that the once-in-a-lifetime trip has been canceled, CNN reported. But then in a message to passengers, Life at Sea said the sale had fallen through. Another company bought the ship that was to be rechristened the MV Lara, and Miray Cruises, the parent firm of Life at Sea, couldn’t afford to buy another ship. It's unclear why Holmes was chosen to make the announcement, which was provided to CNN by a passenger. Life at Sea Cruises had been planning to buy the AIDAaura, a ship retired this summer by AIDA Cruises, a German subsidiary of Carnival Corp. The company had originally slated the sale to go through by the end of September, before working on the ship in dry dock in Germany, then renovating it before sailing to Istanbul to start the cruise.

Life at Sea: What to know about the 3-year cruise around the world, now canceled - NPR

Life at Sea: What to know about the 3-year cruise around the world, now canceled.

Posted: Wed, 29 Nov 2023 08:00:00 GMT [source]

For the lengthy worldwide voyage, it planned to deploy the larger "MV Lara" — a ship that never materialized. Miray's attempts to purchase the ship dragged on for weeks, and it eventually stalled after investors balked, according to a company message obtained by CNN and other outlets. Some passengers reportedly only learned of the cancellation after arriving in Turkey. On Nov. 19, two days after Holmes’ announcement, guests received another message, this time from Vedat Ugurlu, the owner of Miray International, who also stated that the cruise would not be departing, per CNN.

The woman, a retired educator, did not respond to NPR's message seeking further comment. "Some people read the headlines and think, 'Oh, that was a scam,' but I really did my homework before I put a deposit down," Keri Witman of Cincinnati told NPR. "We are going to be following summer the entire time that we go around the world," then-Life at Sea CEO Kendra Holmes told prospective passengers in a Zoom webinar in September. According to the outlet, the cruise was postponed to Nov. 11 and relocated from Istanbul to Amsterdam shortly before its original Nov. 1 departure date. Life at Sea is also promising to pay for the hotel rooms and return-trip airfares for passengers in Turkey.