‘Life at Sea Cruises’ cancels its three-year trip around the world

Life at Sea Cruises announced that its cruise has been cancelled two weeks before its scheduled departure. The cruise was meant to last three-years around the world.

Life at Sea Cruises declared in March that bookings were now being taken for its three-year global voyage. After multiple postponements, the ship's original departure date of November 1 was set to take off on November 30.

According to CNN, Life at Sea has informed nervous passengers that there is no ship and the scheduled once-in-a-lifetime trip was officially canceled less than two weeks before its inaugural voyage. According to a press release from March, the journey would travel more than 130,000 miles and stop at 375 ports in 135 countries on seven continents. Payment options began at $2,499 per month, and the costs began at $29,999 per year.

The original plan was for the three-year trip to leave Istanbul, Turkey, on November 1. It was moved to Amsterdam and rescheduled to November 30 after being delayed to November 11 just before that date. 

The parent business of Life at Sea, Miray Cruises, notified passengers on November 17 that the company could not afford to purchase a ship because “investors declined to support us further due to the unrest in [the] Middle East,” ABC News said. The business attempted to purchase the 20-year-old ship AIDAaura, but it was sold to a different cruise line in November. 

Owner of Miray Cruises Vedat Ugurlu said in a statement to the news source that the voyage was rescheduled for May 2024 rather than cancelled.