SIHANOUKVILLE, Cambodia (AP) — A U.S. cruise ship on an around-the-world voyage that touted its cabins as floating homes suspended its three-year voyage in Cambodia due to fuel costs, forcing hundreds of passengers to disembark.
The MV Odyssey set sail two years ago on a voyage to the seven continents marketed as combining long-term living at sea with global travel. Its operator had offered to "make the Odyssey your permanent home," with the purchase price of a suite for the lifetime of the vessel starting around $230,000.
For now, it is docked at the Cambodian port of Sihanoukville on the Gulf of Thailand, with no certain departure date.
The ship has been carrying 203 passengers, mostly Americans, along with 156 crew members, according to Cambodian officials. It has a 650-passenger capacity.
Its Florida-based operator, Villa Vie Residences, said monthly fuel expenses per cabin that historically averaged $1,800 have reached an estimated $6,000 to $8,000 in parts of Asia due to the war in Iran. The company said it sought to reduce fuel consumption by slowing the itinerary and spending more time in port, but was unable to offset the surging costs.
Traffic has been curtailed in the Strait of Hormuz since the war in Iran began, squeezing supplies of all kinds of petroleum-based fuels, especially in Southeast Asia, and sharply increasing prices.
"We have been unable to continue carrying the resulting operating losses," Villa Vie Residences said in a statement issued Tuesday. "Passing the full increase on to residents is not a realistic solution. Our focus now is on supporting residents, crew, and employees" while it tries to restructure.
"The company is working with residents to coordinate disembarkation and identify temporary living arrangements," it said.
However, a blogger who has been on the cruise, Randy Cassingham, wrote online that "the company has done absolutely nothing to help: we couldn't even walk out of the port, so there were shuttle buses that dropped us in the middle of town, Sihanoukville, Cambodia."
"They didn't even give us a list of hotels, let alone help us get there or pay for them," Cassingham said on his website. The company could not immediately be contacted for comment.
The ship arrived in Sihanoukville last Friday and was scheduled to depart Wednesday, according to a statement from Long Dimanche, the deputy governor of Preah Sihanouk province. He said it was now expected to refuel and depart Cambodia on Saturday, but the ship's operator has not yet publicly confirmed any date.
Built in 1993 and operated under different names by several cruise lines over the years before being becalmed by the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, the Odyssey was bought by Villa Vie Residences in 2023.
Its current cruise, originally intended to last 3 1/2 years, began in October 2024 in Belfast, Northern Ireland, where the ship had been refitted. A second cruise had been tentatively scheduled to end in August 2030.
The Odyssey is not the first cruise ship Sihanoukville has hosted in crisis.
In February 2020, the MS Westerdam was allowed to dock in Cambodia after being turned away at five ports in other nations because of fears of COVID-19, which just a month earlier had started to spread from China. It carried 1,455 passengers, more than 600 of whom were American citizens.
After being stranded at sea for two weeks, Cambodia's then-Prime Minister Hun Sen allowed it to dock for what he said were humanitarian reasons. Cambodia won plaudits as passengers were welcomed ashore and arrangements were made for them to fly home.
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Associated Press writers Eileen Ng in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and Grant Peck in Bangkok contributed to this report.