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When it was announced that the residential cruise ship Odyssey would set sail around the world this year, visiting more than 425 ports in 147 destinations over the course of three and a half years, some passengers immediately knew that they needed a place on that ship.
What they did not know, however, was that before this ‘trip of a lifetime’, the new residents would have to endure four months stuck in Belfast after a string of last-minute repairs.
Delay after delay haunted the vessel as its sailing date continued being pushed back. The summer slipped away from the cruise, leaving dozens of ports not visited and countries unexplored as the ship remained stuck in Northern Ireland.
As the setbacks continued, residents on the cruise formed lasting bonds, yet the devastation still lingered among some due to their new lives being put on hold.
Yet on 30 September, four months to the day Odyssey was supposed to embark, the ship finally left Belfast behind, having finally passed its sea trials and convinced authorities it was safe to sail.
Here’s everything we know about Villa Vie Odyssey’s journey before, and after, it set sail.
Where did the ship come from
The 542ft-long Odyssey cruise ship was built in 1993 in Valencia, Spain, consisting of eight decks, 485 cabins and can carry up to 650 residents.
Before it became Odyssey, the vessel started life under a different name, Crown Dynasty, owned by Crown Cruise Lines, and was passed through a number of hands before being taken over by Fred Olsen Cruise Lines to become Braemer.
Villa Vie Residences, a US-based company specialising in ‘residential’ cruising, then bought the 31-year-old ship in 2023, with the ship arriving at Queen’s Island in Belfast to be outfitted in April 2024.
The ship was extensively refurbished at a historic dry dock in the Northern Irish capital, owned by Harland and Wolff, a maritime engineering company that produced the ill-fated Titanic.
Odyssey then took on a new concept, housing residents in cabins or ‘villas’ that could be bought outright, with guaranteed ownership for as long as 15 years, or using a pay-as-you-go plan.
Before its journey around the world, the ship was transformed to include a pub, cocktail bar, business centre and a pool on the top deck. A fitness centre, medical room, dining hall and spa are also onboard the all-inclusive cruise for residents to use.
The plan is for the ship to embark on a world cruise, visiting 147 countries and 425 destinations, all within a three-and-a-half-year span.
After the ship’s makeover, plans were in place to start setting sail around Europe before heading towards the Bahamas and the rest of the Caribbean, but an unforeseen delay caused the cruise to be stuck in Belfast, forcing its residents to spend their summer days in and around Ireland, rather than the tropical sandy beaches over 4,000 miles away.
Passengers traded life on land for three years at sea
Some passengers who decided to purchase a cabin outright have said they left their old lives behind to become permanent residents of the sea.
When Steve and Angela Theriac, who run the YouTube channel MidLife Cruising, which documents life at sea, learned about the ship in March, they wasted no time in deciding to buy a cabin.
“Being from Florida, cruising was always our favourite mode of vacationing. We knew this lifestyle was for us,” Angela said.
“We are residents of Nicaragua, and we rented out our home to a friend while we sail the world.”
Randy Cassingham and his partner Kit were living in the United States before moving into Odyssey, and after one “false start” with another residential cruise company, the couple found Villa Vie Residences.
“After 28 years in Colorado, I was ready for a change,” Randy said, adding that his job as a writer and Kit’s as a life coach could be done from anywhere in the world.
“We sold our house, cars, and nearly all of our belongings to sail with Villa Vie, and have no planned ending date – we are here ‘for life unless’ – unless we find something else we would rather do.”
The first cracks start to appear
Residents aboard Odyssey were first hit with a two-week delay in Belfast after the refurbishment work took longer than expected, moving the initial departure date from 15 May to 30 May.
Passengers hoped they would start their new lives on the “forever ship” at the end of May, with the summer’s itinerary promising “unforgettable moments of discovery on an extended journey, connecting people, places, and self”.
However, this would by far not be the longest delay the residents had to endure, as Villa Vie then announced that the ship would need to stay in the shipyard until 3 June due to “issues in the steelwork in one of our grey water tanks”.
Things were still not going swimmingly for Odyssey when the ship was hit again with another significant delay. This time, it was due to new rudder stocks reportedly being required before the ship could be certified to sail.
The 31-year-old ship’s gearbox was then also discovered to be causing problems, so instead of embarking on the around-the-world trip as it had intended, the vessel was forced to dock in Belfast for the entire summer.
While those already in Belfast could spend time in their cabins during the day to make the most of the onboard entertainment – including access to a swimming pool, theatre, gym and restaurants – they must disembark the ship for shuttle buses to provided hotels each evening.
Villa Vie Residences’ marketing manager, Sebastian Stokkendal, stated by August that the company had been “humbled by the scale of what it takes to reactivate a 30-year-old vessel from a four-year layup.”
Exploring Belfast and beyond
Some passengers packed up their entire lives, sold their belongings and said goodbye to their hometowns to become official residents of Odyssey, but what they did not know was before that, they would be gifted four months of a taste of the Belfast life, whether they wanted it or not.
The Northern Irish capital gained some temporary locals over the summer, many of whom were from the USA or Canada, with the delays also allowing some passengers to book their own trips, such as Angela and her partner, Steve, travelling to destinations such as Spain and Greenland while the repairs continued in Belfast.
Kit Cassingham, who is staying on Odyssey with her partner Randy, said that they would miss their time in Belfast once the ship was ready to move on to sunnier ventures.
“We were tourists five and a half years ago, so we played the role of local residents this time. I’ve loved getting to know my fellow Belfast residents and other Northern Ireland citizens,” she said.
“Everyone has been warm and welcoming. I’m going to miss Belfast. It’s been a good home for us.”
Lesly Curtis, a passenger from Seattle, shared similar sentiments about the city but said that throughout her life, she’s mostly travelled for work, so she was excited about the new experience of travelling around the world.
She said: “I’m going to miss Belfast and the wonderful folks I’ve met here – they have been warm and welcoming, making my stay in Belfast amazing.”
“I love the city and I’m taking great memories of my time here. I’m also thrilled to be setting sail on a trip of a lifetime.”
Others pinpointed their favourite haunts, with passenger Rebecca Cressy saying that their stay in Belfast created strong bonds between the residents during a Thursday night happy hour and dinners at the Malmaison Hotel.
Angela added that her husband will especially miss his pints of Harp and Guinness once they sail away.
“Though the waiting has been challenging at times, we have formed friendships of a lifetime with the other VV [Villa Vie] residents,” she said.
Highs and lows
Passenger kicked off
While the majority of residents were finding the silver linings out of a devastating situation, not all was completely harmonious between the ship’s passengers.
Jenny Phenix, 68, from Florida, sold her possessions to join the three-year voyage with the intention of stopping in Miami along the way to pick up belongings for the rest of the cruise.
However, in mid-September, Phenix’s comments on WhatsApp about when the ship would set sail, as well as concerns about the duration of refurbishments and having a temporary cabin, led to her being removed from the cruise altogether.
While Phenix said that these were private conversations that were not on social media, she was told her contract had been cancelled for impacting community morale.
“The frustration among the residents grew after every delay. I tended to be one of the more outspoken in asking important questions,” she told the Telegraph, “Many of the residents thanked me privately for speaking up for the entire group.”
However, after she was told she had been significantly impacting other passengers, the “founding residents” voted to suspend Phenix from the ship.
Residents told to cover expenses
Morale continued to dwindle more as the delays rolled on month by month. By September, passengers claimed that they were being asked to cover their expenses ahead of the adventure of a lifetime.
In a YouTube update from MidLife Cruising, run by Angela and Steve, they claimed that passengers received an email from the cruise line’s CEO late on Monday, 9 September, announcing “there were still some problems.”
According to the pair, the “devastating” email stated that “sea trials weren’t as great as expected, and they still had to get through some final certifications”.
The Villa Vie Residences then reportedly asked passengers to cover their expenses for “at least the next seven days”.
“Seven days is a lot in Belfast. It’s too much for us. It’s cheaper for us to fly back to the States,” the couple said. “They’ve spent basically half a million dollars already covering all of us here in Belfast.
The CEO later said that the passengers would be compensated with onboard credit of up to $200 per day.
A whirlwind romance
With passengers suspended from the ship, residents reportedly forking out on their own expenses, and the ship still stuck in the port, for two Odyssey cabin owners, things were a little more smooth sailing.
Two strangers who met while the cruise was experiencing severe delays announced they were engaged after a four-month whirlwind romance in Belfast.
Gian Perroni, 62, and Angela Harsanyi, 53, booked the years-long cruise separately but blossomed into a romance during their time marooned in the Northern Irish city.
The couple got engaged while walking along the River Lagan during a supermoon in September and planned to hold their wedding aboard the ship between Panama and Costa Rica.
Villa Vie’s founder and CEO, Mikael Petterson, said that hearing the couple had got engaged was “amazing news”.
“We heard about their engagement last week and plan [on] having a celebration onboard for them,” he told The Independent.
Higher hopes
Exactly four months to the day they were supposed to depart, Villa Vie Residencies announced that Odyssey would be sailing away from Belfast after successfully passing its sea trials and finishing up some paperwork that caused a few more days of delay.
Some passengers celebrated what they hoped would be their final night in the city by hopping on a beer bike tour, decorating their bikes with farewell posters thanking Belfast for the memories they made there.
Before the cruise set off, Randy Cassingham said he hoped this would be the last time they would be delayed.
“I’m feeling cautious since we’ve been disappointed again and again for four months. But clearly, we have to leave sometime, and it looks like this is it,” he said.
“It’s been a long journey just to get to the start: we sold and left our Colorado home a year ago last week. We have no firm plans on when we will leave the ship. We may just stay for the rest of our lives.”
Despite the growing pessimism about whether the ship would ever leave the Belfast port, Odyssey quietly sailed away from the port at 23.30pm, with its 125 residents in tow.
It’s off, but not quite
At first, the ship did not make it too far, dropping its anchor again after travelling a few miles to Belfast Lough, where it remained for a further three days out at sea.
Petterson blamed administrative paperwork for the delay in Lough, yet on 3 October, the ship began to sail away from Northern Ireland.
For a moment, passengers believed they would be taking a detour from its intended first stop in Brest, France, up to Ayrshire in Scotland to refuel overnight, but the ship persevered and finally completed its first call in France in the earlier hours of Saturday morning.
On 3 October after hearing the horn blast, Randy Cassingham looked out to see the ship was manoeuvring to pull up anchor, and a few minutes later, Petterson showed up in the main bar.
“I said I hoped we are not going back to Belfast,” Randy recalled.
“‘We are not going to Belfast’, Petteson replied, bringing cheers from everyone there.
“He said he had told the planner he doesn’t care where we go, just go. But not to Belfast. We are now headed to Brest, France, in calm seas.”
The journey continues, with a few mishaps along the way
After Brest, Odyssey sailed around several ports in Spain, Portugal and Morocco during its’ inaugural part of the itinerary, with the ship then planning on having short stops in Senegal and Cape Verde before embarking on the next phase of its voyage: a 34-day trip around the Caribbean starting on 14 November.
Things did not get off to a good start for some passengers however, as one resident, Joe Rhodes, complained of the “faint smell of s*** marinating in a hundred unflushed bowls” after the toilets stopped flushing when the water was turned off entirely in France.
To top it off, passengers were unable to get off the ship in France because too little notice was given to the port of their arrival, so passenger security nor water offloading was available to the ship.
While the toilet ordeal was fixed in a matter of hours, the hot water did not return until their second day in Bilbao, Rhodes said.
Petterson explained that due to being stuck in Belfast Lough for a few nights, their forward water tanks became too full, so they had to turn off the water temporarily to transfer them to the rear, which affected all water including toilets. The water was turned back on hours later and has been fully operational since.
For more travel news and advice, listen to Simon Calder’s podcast
