Woman sells apartment to pay for three-year cruise but it gets cancelled less than two weeks before it’s set to sail
Topics: Travel, World News
Mia Williams
Featured Image Credit: Life at Cruises
Topics: Travel, World News
The $30,000 a year world cruise was cancelled just before it was set to leave Amsterdam - which left one woman with nowhere to go.
The cruise, which was meant to set sail from Amsterdam on Nov 30, was set to cover 130,000 miles, visit 135 countries, and stop off at 375 ports.
The first ever three-year-long cruise was first announced back in March.
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Prospective passengers found out about the cancelled cruise on November 17, and have been told they will receive refunds in monthly instalments, which will start in the middle of December, CNN reports.
The ship was originally meant to depart from Istanbul on November 1, but the departure location was then changed to Amsterdam.
Life at Sea Cruises' were the company responsible for the ship, while their parent company, Miray Cruises, organised the expedition.
Life at Sea Cruises have offered to pay for flights and accommodation until December 1, after some passengers were left stuck in Istanbul with no homes to go back to.
And one woman, Kimberly Arizzi, had sold everything she owned to get onboard the cruise as part of her retirement.
And that included her apartment, furniture, clothes, and TV.
Speaking to Insider, she said: "I thought I had my life set up for the next few years.
"It's not only the furniture I lost, it was the boat-topia — the idea of being in a like minded-community, all doing something together for the first time ever."
One passenger told CNN: “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.”
While another said: “I’m very sad, angry and lost.
“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.”
Miray Cruises had intended to buy the AIDAaura ship, which had been planned to be renamed the MV Lara and was proposed for the three-year trip, but over the summer, the sale took longer than they had originally planned, according to CNN.
As a consequence, a different company, Celestyal Cruises, bought the ship instead.
It was also reported that, according to the owner of Miray Cruises, Vedat Ugurlu, the company had theorized that the MV Gemini could be used in place of the AIDAaura ship but it was decided that it was too small.
He also said in a message to passengers that he was 'extremely sorry for the inconvenience', according to the publication.
UNILAD has contacted Life at Sea Cruises' for comment.