It must have been the experience of a lifetime for hundreds of passengers. On November 1, they were supposed to embark in Istanbul to begin a three-year journey aboard a cruise ship, and circumnavigate the world. The promise of Life At Sea Cruises, a subsidiary of the Turkish company Miray Cruises, was beautiful. Embark on the longest cruise in the world, in other words, travel more than 200,000 kilometres, cross seven continents, make 382 stopovers and visit 140 countries. An extraordinary journey for which some clients have paid tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars. But the dream came to an abrupt end: after several weeks of waiting, the company has officially cancelled the departure... for lack of boat.
It was a shock for the passengers who had already chosen their cabin from among the 111 on the ship. Because some have given up work and housing to be part of the adventure. "A lot of people have nowhere to go, and some really need their refund — it's not good," one of them told CNN. The cruise line has certainly committed to reimbursing all customers... Except that most will have to wait several months before reviewing the color of their money. Miray Cruises has announced that it will make payments in monthly instalments, starting in mid-December and until the end of February.
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Passengers stranded in Istanbul
End of the nightmare? Not necessarily: some passengers are still stuck in Istanbul, the initial departure point of the cruise. The airline said it would pay for accommodation until December 1 and return flights. This is not enough to reassure those who find themselves homeless at the end of this shipwreck. In this story, Miray Cruises can at the very least be accused of a real lack of transparency. The departure, which was due to take place on 1 November, was initially postponed by ten days and postponed to Amsterdam, before being postponed to 30 November, still departing from the capital of the Netherlands. In the meantime, on 17 November, passengers were informed that the cruise was simply interrupted.
But what happened? Originally, the company was to operate the MV Gemini. But it turned out to be too small. So she decided to acquire another boat, the MV Lara (also known as AIDAaura), with a capacity of 1266 passengers. The sale is expected to close at the end of September to allow the cruise line to renovate the ship and put it into service on November 1. This was without taking into account several twists and turns, including a major one: the ship in question has in the meantime been bought by another cruise line, the Cypriot Celestyal Cruises, as announced on 16 November. The reason? The withdrawal of several investors from Life At Sea Cruises, blocking the acquisition of the ship.
Chaotic communication
Internally, the Turkish company has been chaotic and contradictory. It started on November 17, with a video of Kendra Holmes, the CEO of Life At Sea Cruises. The latter confirmed to the passengers that the cruise would not take place. Then, two days later, Vedat Ugurlu, the owner of Miray Cruises, said the company was still looking for a cruise ship. This is despite the withdrawal of investors who "refused to further support [the company] due to the turmoil in the Middle East," he said. Before a third statement from the director of operations, who in turn confirmed the cancellation of the cruise. "While we are all disappointed and frustrated that we are not sailing this time around, it is important to us that you are overall positive about your experience with us," it reads. "[We're] still hope that Miray will soon have an option to consider."
This was not enough to relieve the travelers who expressed their shock to CNN. "I had planned the next three years of my life to have an extraordinary trip, and now [I have] nothing," said one of them, who asked not to give his name to get his money back. "I don't know what direction my life is going to take," said another, also anonymous. "I've been working for the last eight months to make sure everything is really in order, that my life is organized and that I can do it," a third passenger, Keri Witman, told the Cincinnati Enquirer, a local U.S. media outlet. "It was a really big disappointment to find out it wasn't going to work." The latter had booked a cabin in April 2022 and paid $32,000.
"The company seems to have no regard for what it has done to our lives," other passengers said. All of them deplore a real waste, whether financial or human. Kendra Holmes, the former CEO of Life At Sea Cruises - she has since resigned - dangled the possibility of a new round-the-world cruise with another company, HLC Cruises, offering that disappointed Life At Sea Cruises customers be "transferred" to the new company. And that they can sail on a boat for three or four months, waiting for another long cruise to begin. A proposal which, also due to the lack of a boat, also fell through...