The company is canceling a three-year cruise with less than two weeks to embark

Life cruise company The opening flight was cancelled, Who promised a A three-year voyage at sea, covering about 140 countries. The cancellation announcement came after two delays at the start of the flight. The company said it did not have the money to buy a ship and said it would compensate customers.

The cruise was supposed to depart Istanbul, Turkey, on November 1, but the departure ended up being postponed until November 11 and moved to Amsterdam, Netherlands. After that, a new postponement was announced until November 30.

However, according to CNN, on November 17, less than two weeks before boarding, passengers were informed that the cruise had been cancelled.

There were people who spent tens of thousands of dollars to experience what the company promised: “life at sea.” Now customers will have to wait a long time to get their money back.

Buy the ship

Life at Sea planned to buy a retired ship, AIDAaura, which would be renamed MV Lara. The sale was scheduled to be completed by the end of September. After that, the ship will be refurbished and transported to Istanbul, where the cruise will take off. What happened is that on November 16, Celestyal Cruises announced that it had acquired AIDAaura.

The next day, the company’s former CEO, Kendra Holmes, who resigned days earlier and said she would not speak on behalf of its parent company, Miray Cruises, recorded a 15-minute video of passengers acknowledging that the cruise would not take place.

After the video, passengers received a message from Vedat Ugurlu, owner of Miray Cruises and owner of Life at Sea, declaring that he was “very sorry for the inconvenience” and confirming that the cruise would not depart as planned. The reason: they did not have the money to buy the ship.

He said that although the company made the initial payment for the ship, investors “refused to provide us with greater support due to the unrest in the Middle East.” Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, a week after the ship’s sale was completed.

Payment

Although the cruise has been cancelled, the website is still up and running and counting down to the cruise. Meanwhile, passengers are waiting for refunds with headaches.

The company said it will make the repayments in monthly installments, starting in December, and will complete the final payments by the end of February. In addition to offering to pay for accommodation until December 1st and return flights for anyone stuck in Istanbul. But some say they have no homes to return to.

According to CNN, some passengers, among the 111 cabins sold, say they have nowhere to return to, as they sold or rented their homes in anticipation of the trip around the world.

“There are a lot of people now who have nowhere to go, and some need a refund to even plan a place to go – which is not good at the moment,” said one passenger, who wished to remain anonymous until he received the promised refund.

Source: Redacao Terra