A luxury cruise ship that had embarked on a years-long voyage around the world was forced to suspend its operations and leave passengers stranded in Cambodia because of remarkably high fuel prices.
The ship, known as the MV Odyssey, had been carrying 203 passengers, mostly Americans, along with 156 crew members, Cambodian officials told the Associated Press. The ship has a 650-passenger capacity.
The Florida-based operator of Villa Vie Odyssey, the company that operates the cruise line, said it was working with passengers on organizing “temporary living arrangements”. The cruise ship had begun its journey in Belfast in October 2024 for what was described as a “continuous voyage around the world”.
“Extraordinary increases in fuel costs have placed our current operating model under unsustainable financial pressure,” a statement on the company’s website said. “We are working with residents to coordinate disembarkation and temporary living arrangements, and are supporting residents, crew, and employees as we evaluate restructuring and recapitalization alternatives over the next 60 days.”
The ship is now docked at the Cambodian port of Sihanoukville on the Gulf of Thailand, with a departure date still unclear.
The price of fuel across the world has jumped since the start of the US war on Iran earlier this year. The ship’s operator said the monthly fuel cost per cabin in parts of Asia has risen to as much as $8,000 from $1,800.
The strait of Hormuz, which transports much of the world’s oil, has effectively been closed since 28 February, the beginning of the war. Oil prices climbed to above $117 per barrel this month.
One resident on the boat, Randy Cassingham, wrote in a blog post that he only discovered the cruise route’s cancellation after a company official posted a note on a message board for the ship on Monday morning.
“It of course didn’t come from out of the blue: we’ve been well aware of problems,” Cassingham wrote. “It was a cascade of problems piling up on one another, from the business model to mistakes by management to the mentioned crisis in fuel cost and availability, and more.”
Pamela Reckamp, a 59-year-old resident of the ship, told NBC News that company officials on the ship had held a meeting last month where they asked cabin owners to help them raise $1m so the ship could depart Ha Long Bay, Vietnam.
“She said: ‘If we don’t get this money, we have about four days of the ship running,’” Reckamp said. “‘Then the lights will go off and the AC will go off.’”
Carol Larson, 69, lived on the ship for 18 months along with her sister, Crystal Lavering, 72, she told the Associated Press. Larson, who is from California, expressed hopes that the journey could still be salvaged because she said the decision to live at sea had improved her health.
Larson told the outlet that she bought her cabin for $120,000, paid in installments, with additional monthly maintenance fees under a program that offered her the option of living aboard the ship for up to 15 years.
Larson blamed Donald Trump for the problems facing the ship and the suspended journey, as the war on Iran caused fuel costs to rise significantly. Despite the issues, however, Larson said she does not regret her investment.
“Because it was a startup company, I believe that it was a risk,” she said. “From the very first day, I said to myself that if it lasts a year, I can walk away and feel like I got my money’s worth … I still feel that way. I feel blessed to have been part of the experiment of residential cruising”.