Villa Vie Odyssey cruise ship leaves Cambodia after suspending operations

The cruise ship Villa Vie Odyssey left the Sihanoukville Autonomous Port in Cambodia shortly after midnight on Wednesday (November 4), after more than a week docked there.

Passengers unloaded their last belongings from the vessel on Tuesday (November 3), and many said they did not expect to be able to go back on the ship.

Sixty-seven-year-old retired high school teacher Mary Ann Demsar from Ontario, Canada, said the owners of Villa Vie did not provide information on whether travel would continue.

The status of the remaining passengers and the ship’s final destination are both unconfirmed. Some passengers and local media earlier said it is bound for Singapore.

People who paid as much as $440,000 to live permanently aboard a touring cruise ship were forced to disembark in Cambodia this week after the vessel’s operator said fuel price increases from the Iran war had made operations prohibitively expensive.

The Villa Vie Odyssey had been cruising the world for at least 755 days as one of only a handful of ships that offered passengers the opportunity to rent or buy long-term or even permanent residences on board.

On Tuesday (October 27) the ship’s owner, Villa Vie Residences, announced it was disembarking those passengers in Cambodia and working to find them temporary accommodation.

Monthly fuel expenses that historically averaged approximately $1,800 per cabin have recently reached an estimated $6,000 to $8,000 in parts of Asia, Villa Vie Residences said in a statement.