A 3 year cruise. 382 ports. What could go wrong?
Longest cruise ever!
Miray Cruises from Turkey announced Life at Sea as the longest cruise ever - 1,095 days. The itinerary featured 382 ports in 140 countries. Prices ranged from $90,000 for an inside cabin to $975,000 for a suite, just $82/day for a couple. The $2,500 monthly price was less than the price of most apartments in major cities.
The cruise was mostly all-inclusive with meals, soft drinks, tea, and coffee, a drink with dinner, housekeeping and gratuities, Starlink Internet, gym, laundry, entertainment and enrichment programs, and business center. It was perfect for digital nomads who wanted to travel the entire world.
Life at Sea started taking reservations in March 2023. Within a month more than half of the ship’s 400 cabins were under contract with deposits. Joe and Kara Youssef from Ohio in the United States signed on. They sold their apartments and belongings and emptied their savings accounts to make $80,000 in payments.
Giiligan’s three hour Hawaiian tour on the SS Minow met with disaster. So did Life at Sea.
There was just one problem. The cruise owners didn’t have a ship.
Their initial 400 cabin, 1,074 passenger ship wasn’t up to cruising the oceans. They tried to make alternate arrangements but were unsuccessful. The sailing was postponed in November 2023, two weeks before its scheduled departure from Istanbul. It was canceled the next month.
The Youssefs were left stranded in Turkey, trying to get their money back. They said “We sold everything we have to make this dream happen. We feel completely defeated.”
As of January 2024 only negligible refunds had been made to a few cruisers. The cruise principals were individually working on their own future three year cruises.
Read 3-Year Cruise. How It All Unraveled in the New York Times. We cannot find a more recent update on the Youssefs and cruise refunds