Cabins on This “Never-Ending” World Cruise Sold for Up to $439,999. Now Residents Have Been Ordered Off the Ship in Cambodia, as the Company Says Fuel Costs Rose as Much as 344%
AJ Tiarsmith
5 min read
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Villa Vie Odyssey stranded 200+ residents in Cambodia with eight hours' notice after per-cabin monthly fuel costs surged 344%, from $1,800 to $8,000.
Internal documents showed monthly operating costs of $3.1 million against just $2.5 million in revenue even at 100% occupancy.
Villa Vie is preparing a Chapter 11 filing with no refunds announced, likely placing prepaid cabin buyers at the back of the creditor line.
Around 6 a.m., residents of the Villa Vie Odyssey got a notice from the company's chief executive. They had to be off the ship in Sihanoukville, Cambodia, by 2 p.m. Business Insider dates the departure Oct. 27, while gCaptain says the notice came Monday, Oct. 26.
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Lanette Canen and John Bodi are a couple in their fifties who run a cruise-life YouTube channel. They told Business Insider: "We knew leaving was a possibility, but the eight-hour notice still surprised us." They added: "It was difficult to process the news while packing up our life and saying goodbye to the place we had come to love."
Those homes were expensive. Per Business Insider, permanent cabins on the 509-cabin Odyssey sold for $119,999 to $439,999, and five-year residences started at $59,999. Villa Vie also sold lifetime cruising for a one-time payment through its Endless Horizons program, according to gCaptain. The Maritime Executive says the ship had reached 754 days of a planned 3.5-year voyage covering over 425 destinations. CBS News counts more than 200 passengers stranded. Cruise Law News, which mentions no source, puts the figure at 203 residents and 156 crew.
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The company links the stop to the Iran war and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Villa Vie Residences told gCaptain that monthly fuel costs on a per-cabin basis rose from a historical average of about $1,800 to between $6,000 and $8,000 in parts of Asia. The increase was as much as 344%. The company issued a statement. The statement said: "Those measures have not been enough to offset the extraordinary increase in fuel costs." It also told The Maritime Executive: "Passing the full increase on to residents is not a realistic solution."
Cash Ran Short Long Before Cambodia
The fuel spike landed on a company that was already struggling for money. Cruise Industry News reported that Villa Vie recently asked residents for $360,000 to cover fuel. gCaptain reports that in April the company offered residents an emergency loan seeking $3 million at interest rates of 12% to 24%. Court records obtained by CBS News show the ship was held in Hong Kong until the company paid a fuel provider $167,844.48. Sources also told CBS News that $400,000 went to a Villa Vie Residences fuel supplier from one resident's personal checking account.
Internal documents reviewed by CBS News put average monthly operating costs at $3.1 million, against $2.5 million in revenue even at 100% occupancy. A source close to the company disputed that to CBS News, saying costs were under $1 million. The CBS News documents also covered cabin sales. 139 of 490 cabins were still unsold in August. gCaptain reports that only three months before the halt, Villa Vie Residences announced a second ship, Legacy, and said more than 85% of Odyssey's residences had been sold. Residents had been warned at an Aug. 4 town hall that operations might stop. Resident Darrell Carp told CBS: "We never fully understood the level of their debt."
Bankruptcy Looms With No Refunds Announced
TheStreet reported on Oct. 29 that CBS News had confirmed Villa Vie is preparing a Chapter 11 filing. No date has been given. Mikael Petterson is the company's founder according to CBS and its CEO according to TheStreet. Petterson asked CBS how the company could cover a $1.6 million monthly gap after expenses rose from $400,000 to $2 million. In his words: "We've borrowed money, we've stretched our payrolls as far as we can, and we're at a point where it's just at a breaking point where we need capitalization."
According to gCaptain, the ship goes into temporary layup with crew aboard while Villa Vie Residences works on a restructuring over the next 60 days. No deal has been settled, and the company's own statement says "No outcome is assured." Refunds have not been announced.
What Prepaid Residents Hold Now
When you prepay a young private company for years of housing or travel, you are in effect lending it money with nothing pledged against the loan, and if that company goes bankrupt, buyers usually join the line of unsecured creditors. Anyone holding a similar contract can ask for written refund terms, find out whether recent card charges still fall within the dispute window, and check whether travel insurance covers a supplier going broke. None of these steps guarantees you get money back. During Villa Vie Residences' 60-day restructuring, the key question is whether an investor steps forward to recapitalize the Odyssey.
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