Life at Sea Cruises
- Life at Sea Cruises reportedly canceled its three-year voyage just two weeks before departure.
- Parent company Miray Cruises could not afford to buy the desired vessel, according to CNN.
- Miray had already postponed the cruise twice and revealed investors had withdrawn.
Life at Sea Cruises has failed to live up to its name. Its first-ever three-year-long cruise with a 140-city itinerary has been canceled, according to CNN.
Customers were informed on November 17, barely two weeks before its November 30 departure date from Istanbul, Turkey, the outlet reported. Parent company Miray Cruises failed to acquire its desired vessel, the 43-ton AIDAaura, which it planned to rename MV Lara, for the voyage, it admitted in a memo to customers.
"Miray is not such a big company to afford to pay 40-50 million for a ship," said Miray Cruises CEO Vedat Ugurlu in the memo.
Life at Sea Cruises has been "facing challenges" because of investors backing out, according to a memo previously obtained by Business Insider. Ugurlu attributed the withdrawals to "unrest in the Middle East" in the letter announcing the cancelation.
Life at Sea Cruises did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication. The cabin registration form on the company's website was still open as of 3:45 p.m. ET on November 24.
Three-year packages cost just over $115,500 per person. (The eye-popping price tag is less alarming when considering the average American household spent $72,967 last year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.)
Miray Cruises planned to have successive three-year cruises and to allow passengers to pay extra to stay on board — potentially indefinitely.
The company has promised to refund all customers and reimburse hotel expenses until December 1 as well as flights home for passengers who have already arrived in Istanbul, the memo said. But many customers have sold their homes in preparation for the trek, according to 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," one passenger told the outlet on the condition of anonymity.
Life at Sea Cruises isn't the only residential cruise company navigating choppy waters. The startup Storylines, founded seven years ago, has yet to find a ship either. There is only one residential cruise ship in operation, The World, where condos sell for up to $15 million.