Table Of Content
- Cruise Industry News Email Alerts
- MSC Cruises Became First Cruise Line to Cancel Cruises Due to Red Sea Attacks
- Young people 'tortured' if stolen vehicle operations fail, Montreal police tell MPs
- Winning $70 million Lotto Max ticket sold in Toronto
- Remember that 3-year-long cruise? It’s been cancelled, 1 week before departure
“We were on tour of Galilee region at Jordan River when we were all recalled to the ship,” writes CNSJ on Cruise Critic’s Holland America Line message boards. “Awaiting last passengers to return so we can depart for sea as soon as possible. Three days in Holy Land has become three hours…obviously this is beyond HALs control.
Cruise Industry News Email Alerts
Miray and Life at Sea CEO Kendra Holmes resigned from the company in November, according to CNN, which also reported that she is behind a new start up world cruise under the HLC Cruises banner. The Life at Sea guest said he and his wife planned to stay in Istanbul until they get a full refund. “We’re at a complete loss as to what to do or where to go without having our money,” he said. Life at Sea Cruises’ three-year sailing around the world has been canceled. But responding to a social media comment about that same statement, the company sought to clarify that its other operations are unaffected — and in doing so, it stated, "The cancellation in question is related to our 3-year world tour project."
Royal Caribbean, MSC cancel cruises due to Red Sea attacks - Reuters
Royal Caribbean, MSC cancel cruises due to Red Sea attacks.
Posted: Fri, 19 Jan 2024 08:00:00 GMT [source]
MSC Cruises Became First Cruise Line to Cancel Cruises Due to Red Sea Attacks
Some passengers said they didn't have a home to return to, since they were expecting to be on the cruise for three years. Life at Sea Cruises offered to pay for flights and accommodations until Dec. 1 for those who are in Istanbul. "Because as you know, three-year cruises is a mega project. The reason for this is our vessel capacity—needed to exceed more than 600 cabins. And right now, we only have 104 cabins." That, however, is little solace to those who sold or rented out their homes and ditched a bunch of their possessions ahead of the cruise.
Young people 'tortured' if stolen vehicle operations fail, Montreal police tell MPs
Ports of call include Nice, Monte Carlo, Florence (Livorno) and Cannes on select voyages. Carnival Corporation announced on January 30, 2024 that it would re-route 12 individual cruise ships across its family of brands in order to avoid the Red Sea and conflict in the Middle East. Cunard Line informed guests it will re-route its World Cruise aboard Queen Mary 2, changing a full month of the planned voyage itinerary in order to bypass the Red Sea and Suez Canal in favor of transiting around the horn of Africa.
Silversea Cancels and Reroutes Red Sea Itineraries on Silver Whisper, Silver Spirit and Silver Moon
Vedat Ugurlu, CEO of Life at Sea’s parent company Miray Cruises, said the cruise was facing “challenges due to investor withdrawal” in a statement shared with USA TODAY. “We both wanted to see the world, and this seemed like a cheap way to do this,” he said. Prices started at just under $30,000 per year for each guest based on double occupancy when the cruise was announced earlier this year, including meals, drinks, Wi-Fi and more. The cheapest packages started at $196,000 for a single traveler, and $231,000 for couples, according to the company's website.
Holmes relayed the information in a 15-minute video given to passengers, one of whom provided it to CNN. Once fully completed, the ship will be handed over to Royal Caribbean and will sail to her homeport of Miami. Icon of the Seas’ maiden voyage on January 27, 2024 will be a 7-night Eastern Caribbean & Perfect Day itinerary, calling at St. Kitts, St. Thomas, and Perfect Day at CocoCay, the cruise line’s private destination in the Bahamas. Viking notes its river cruise departures along the Nile in Egypt are still proceeding as planned, with the cancellation of select overland extensions to Jerusalem.
“But then this one popped up – they were leaving quickly, doing it for just three years and the itinerary was close to perfect,” says Florida-based Shay. “I jumped on it.” Within 12 hours of reading about Life at Sea, she’d booked a cabin. “It took a week or two – I had to find out the names of the owners and do a lot of research, but they finally acquiesced,” he says. Fox’s bank asked him to research Miray Cruises, the Turkey-based company that was launching the Life at Sea project after 30-odd years of cruising around the Mediterranean.
The company’s website has not been updated as of Monday morning, and still has both a countdown to the start of the cruise and a link allowing people to reserve a cabin via wire transfer or credit card. Organizers have scuttled a heavily promoted three-year cruise, which promised to let remote workers (and more) travel the world for $30,000 per year, saying the company has no ship on which to ferry those adventurers. The 140,600-gross ton Celebrity Xcel will initially homeport at Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale, operating 7-night Eastern Caribbean and Western Caribbean cruises.
Remember that 3-year-long cruise? It’s been cancelled, 1 week before departure
When the Life at Sea cruise line failed to purchase the German cruise ship AIDAaura, seen here in 2020, its plans for a worldwide cruise embarking in November began to unravel. She says the ship was sold to another company as Miray looked, unsuccessfully, for other investors. Kelter immediately put her house up for sale and called Life at Sea, asking if she could put down a third of the money they wanted – it was all she could afford until her house sold.
The Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) says a car that was initially stopped for stunt driving on Highway 401 in eastern Ontario had a child and a baby not safely seated Friday evening. A young brother and sister died and 15 people were injured, several seriously, when vehicle driven by a suspected drunken driver crashed into a birthday party Saturday. Phenix is one of the 78 disillusioned passengers who signed a letter to the US attorney of Southern Florida asking him to investigate fraud claims on January 16. In fact, Holmes says now, she flew to Germany in late September to complete the purchase of the Aura, and boarded the ship with her team, as well as crew that Miray had hired. She put her house on the market in April, then sold her car and possessions that she’d collected from all over the world.
Anticipated transits of the Suez Canal later in 2024 and into 2025 are not affected at this time. Each brand is offering affected cruisers a variety of compensation options, depending on the circumstances and whether their voyages are already underway. The cruise line also shared that it is currently reassessing other geographically similar repositioning voyages and will provide an update in the coming weeks on further changes. We will keep tabs on the situation as it develops, but if you have a cruise booked in this region it is best to reach out to your cruise line for all the latest information on changes and cancellations. Similarly, construction on Storylines' luxury residential vessel has been repeatedly postponed, prompting at least one buyer to ask for a refund.
In a statement to the news outlet, Miray Cruises owner Vedat Ugurlu said the cruise wasn't canceled but postponed until May 2024. “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,” a passenger who wanted to remain anonymous told CNN. Despite the setback, Witman says she's been able to form connections with other would-be passengers, who have been keeping in touch via apps and group texts. Warning flags went up earlier this year, when the company changed course from its initial plan to refit one of its ships, the MV Gemini. For the lengthy worldwide voyage, it planned to deploy the larger "MV Lara" — a ship that never materialized. Miray's attempts to purchase the ship dragged on for weeks, and it eventually stalled after investors balked, according to a company message obtained by CNN and other outlets.
But Life at Sea still has yet to acquire a vessel it would use for the around-the-world itinerary that was set to sail next week. And unless it's able to find one that doesn't require extensive refurbishments, this once-in-a-lifetime vacation could soon be called off. "Miray is not such a big company to afford to pay million [dollars] for a ship," he said, adding that while the company made a down payment, investors "declined to support us further due to unrest in the Middle East." While the cruise is canceled, some passengers are still in Istanbul, where the ship was set to originally leave Nov. 1 before the departure location was changed to Amsterdam. He said all passengers would be given full refunds in installments between December and February.
"I had the next three years of my life planned to live an extraordinary life, and now [I have] nothing. I’m having a hard time moving forward. "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 CNN. A three-year world cruise has been canceled less than two weeks before it was scheduled to set sail. According to CNN, the new HLC company would get a “temporary ship” to sail for a few months before acquiring a permanent vessel.
For many people, the idea of living in a small cabin is the stuff of nightmares. But for the passengers who’d signed up to fill 111 cabins of the Life at Sea vessel, it seemed perfect. Hearing their stories, two months after the cruise was abruptly cancelled, sheds light on why so many booked – some even selling their homes and property to do so.
Once in the Mediterranean, the ship will stop in Barcelona, Malta's Valletta, and Santorini before arriving in Athens (Piraeus). Throughout 2023, Life at Sea has wooed travelers with its advertised three-year around-the-world cruise on the MV Lara, a ship. On Nov. 16, Life at Sea Cruises' former CEO Kendra Holmes, who said she wasn't speaking on behalf of Miray Cruises, sent passengers a recorded 15-minute video explaining the journey was canceled.
