Residential cruise passengers in Belfast wait for months to board a 3-year journey
Residential cruises claim to offer travellers the chance to live at sea for an affordable price, appealing to retirees and digital nomads
Lanette Canen and Johan Bodin gave up life on land to become seaborne nomads on a years-long cruise.
Months later, the couple has yet to spend a night at sea. Their ship, the Odyssey, is stuck in Belfast undergoing repair work that has postponed its scheduled May departure for a 3 ½-year round-the-world voyage.
Bodin said on Friday that they have enjoyed their pit stop in the Northern Ireland capital, but “when we’d visited every pub and tried and every fish and chips place and listened to all the places that have Irish music, then we were ready to go elsewhere.”
“We’re ready to set sail, for sure,” added Canen.
Villa Vie Residences’ Odyssey is the latest venture in the tempest-tossed world of continuous cruising.
It offers travellers the chance to buy a cabin and live at sea on a ship circumnavigating the globe. On its maiden voyage, it is scheduled to visit 425 ports in 147 countries on seven continents. Cabins – billed as “villas” – start at $99,999, plus a monthly fee, for the operational life of the vessel, at least 15 years. Passengers can also sign up for segments of the voyage lasting weeks or months.
