Passengers are completely furious over Life at Seas' recent decision to cancel its three-year cruise just weeks before it was set to sail. The company announced delays and logistical challenges prompted it to come to this decision, yet passengers who spent thousands of dollars in preparation for the voyage are not happy at all.
The cruise line shared that it plans to repay passengers through monthly installments starting in mid-December. The cruise was supposed to set sail on November 30, 2023, from Amsterdam after its original set out date of November 1, 2023, was delayed and rescheduled.
Passengers received messages from the owners of Life at Sea’s parent company, Miray Cruises, explaining that the company wasn't able to purchase a ship after "investors declined to support us further due to unrest in [the] Middle East." On November 20, 2023, Vedat Ugurlu, owner of Miray Cruises, updated passengers that the cruise had been cancelled altogether.
In a statement to ABC News, Vedat said that the cruise wasn't canceled, but rather postponed until spring. "We just had to extend our approval," he said. "Because as you know, three year cruises is a mega project. The reason for this is our vessel capacity — needed to exceed more than 600 cabins. And right now we only have 104 cabins."
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The company told ABC News that anyone who wants a refund will have access to one, which will include money spent on acquiring visas and other travel expenses. It also said those who have already paid will have a cabin for the cruise in May 2024, and everyone will be invited on separate, shorter cruise in summer 2024, free of charge.
On the cruises website, it was said to have been supposed to travel to 135 different countries on all seven continents. It was also supposed to stop at 382 ports.
According to the website, prices for cabins started at $87,000 per year for double occupancy. One passenger, Keri Witman, had already paid $32,000 toward the trip and sold her home.
"The minute I saw an ad, I thought, 'This is really right up my alley,'" she said in an interview with Good Morning America. "I owned a house. I had needed knee surgery, so I expedited all of those things. I sold my house. Got rid of most of my things."
On September 6, 2022, the former CEO Kendra Holmes said that around 50% of the cabins had been sold. However, Vedat said this week that only 150 passengers had purchased cabins for a ship with over 600 cabins.
"I can’t believe they went so far as to take people’s money without even having a ship!" someone commented. "How can they possibly plan this and charge people for it if they don’t even know for certain what ship they’ll be doing this with, what the capacity will be, what the accommodations will be like, what kind of staff it can fit, or even if the ship is safe … I mean, the actual ship is kind of an enormous part of this. The most important part. How can they make any kind of promises to anyone without the ship in hand?"
