“We were going in a smaller and smaller circle,” said Claude Sadovsky, who joined the Odyssey when it first set sail from Belfast in September 2024. “I signed up for a world cruise, and I was in purgatory.”
By early October, Sadovsky was frustrated enough with the itinerary changes that he left the ship and returned to his home in Maui. For Starr Davis, who also joined in Belfast in 2024, it was the constant appeals for fuel money that got her to jump ship in late September. “I got so sick of all the cash calls,” she said.
The financial distress culminated in the ship’s abrupt halt in Cambodia on Tuesday, when passengers were given eight hours to pack up their belongings and leave. While the speed of the end came as a shock to some, residents said signs of trouble had been growing.
“The ship was just a pressure cooker,” Davis said. “You know, ‘Are we going to exist?'”
In an interview with Business Insider on Friday, Villa Vie Residences cofounder and executive chairman Mikael Petterson confirmed the company had made cost-cutting changes. “There were itinerary changes,” he said. “Of course there were.”
He said the changes aboard the Odyssey — home to a “never-ending” cruise for permanent residents who bought cabins for $119,999 to $439,999 — were driven by rising fuel costs and logistical challenges.
“When you’re the first one doing something, of course you’re going to make a ton of mistakes,” he said.
Petterson said roughly 88% of Villa Vie is owned by residents; the rest is owned by the founders, management team, and him. A drawback of that structure is that residents were the ones turned to when money got tight, he said: “When there’s money needed, residents are naturally called upon because there’s no private equity. There’s no big owner.”
“When things didn’t go as planned, it was a double whammy,” he added.
“That is what made Villa Vie Residences so strong, yet so weak.”
Villa Vie Residences CEO Kathy Villalba did not respond to multiple requests for comment from Business Insider. In a now-deleted apology to residents, Villalba said Villa Vie was still speaking to potential investors and “holding onto whatever hope remains.” Columbia Cruise Services, Villa Vie’s operational partner, did not reply to several requests for comment.
The round-the-world route started shrinking
As fuel costs rose after the onset of the war with Iran and Villa Vie’s financial pressures worsened, the company increasingly pared down its route: It canceled stops, slowed the ship at sea, extended stays in ports, and revisited destinations to conserve fuel and reduce operating costs.
To see how plans changed, Business Insider compared itineraries the ship issued at four different times: its initial itinerary from October 2024; its November 2025 itinerary, which showed where it went in 2024 and 2025; one from January 2026 showing changes before the war; and an October 2026 itinerary showing this year’s stops. We also reviewed messages Villalba and Petterson sent to ship residents at various points over the past three months.
We found that while the ship visited 54 nations between October 2024 and October 2026, it missed some territories and called at only 198 ports — 28% fewer than originally planned. Across the two years, our comparison of the itineraries showed the ship spent nearly two fewer months at sea than initially scheduled.
Business Insider’s analysis shows the Odyssey also made itinerary changes before fuel prices rose, including in Australia and New Zealand. Residents said those appeared to be for reasons other than fuel costs.
Planning around an ever-changing itinerary
For some residents, the route changes turned an around-the-world voyage into one long bout of déjà vu. “We have revisited some of the same ports countless times in the last several months,” Angela Nuran Gokturk, 65, said.
Messages from Petterson and Villalba to residents demonstrated how fuel, financing, and operating costs directly shaped the ship’s route.
In a message to residents on the ship’s internal messaging platform on August 1, Villalba said they would cancel a stop in Brunei and sail directly from Singapore to Nha Trang in southern Vietnam “to conserve fuel and reduce operating costs.”
On August 7, Petterson said in a memo that the ship had “aggressively reduced costs” and “redesigned itineraries to spend more time in port and consume less fuel.”
In a message on September 6, Villalba said the Odyssey would extend its stay in Ha Long, Vietnam, by one or two days, depending on “fuel availability and funding.” What was meant to be a three-night stay became a 10-night layover, the revised itinerary shows.
Residents said the route changes made it difficult to plan flights and excursions in advance. “People stopped trying to make plans because things could change literally within a few days,” said Sally Stunkel, 75, who joined the ship in February.
During the stay in Ha Long, Stunkel joined an eight-person excursion to China, but the group had already booked flights to one of the Vietnamese stops that was later cut from the itinerary. They had to buy new tickets to rejoin the ship at its revised next port.
“We spent more money trying to chase the ship, basically, to the next port so we could then board again,” she said.
Singapore became a repeat stop: The ship stopped there three times between May and July, spending 16 days there in total, according to the October 20 itinerary.
Stunkel said the one change that frustrated her most was the removal of Japan and South Korea from the itinerary. In March, the ship’s public itinerary showed it was supposed to visit 19 ports in Japan and South Korea, between June 26 and August 19. In April, the itinerary was updated to instead show stops in Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, and Brunei during that period.
Stunkel said she had bought a cabin on the cruise in part because it was scheduled to visit Japan over the summer. She said she was “extremely disappointed” by the change, adding, “Japan is my No. 1 bucket list destination.”
Onboard services like dining and internet were hit
In a memo to residents on September 10, Villalba said that because the ship had fewer residents on board and fewer staff available, dining service would be consolidated. An on-board restaurant, The Palms, would temporarily close, while breakfast and lunch would be served buffet-style. Dinner would be a combination of à la carte and buffet. Davis said residents would joke when they went to dinner that it was “slim pickings.”
Internet and TV services also suffered. Two residents said the internet had become spotty and unreliable. In a September 7 memo, Villalba said she had paid an outstanding balance and that internet service was being restored.
Davis said air conditioning on the ship was throttled up or down pending fuel needs, adding, “Everything was about saving fuel.”
Petterson, who did not live on the ship and said he was not closely involved in its daily operations, said the company took measures to save money that went beyond conserving fuel.
“We were cutting back where the residents would feel it the least, and that balance sometimes was difficult,” he said.
Residents were repeatedly asked to help keep the ship moving
Management made repeated requests for residents to help cover Villa Vie’s costs.
In April, Villa Vie offered residents an “Emergency Loan Investment Opportunity,” asking them to lend tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to the company at interest rates of 12% to 24%, according to a letter viewed by Business Insider.
Petterson said the request netted around $2 million that helped the ship survive for a few months.
From April onwards, Gokturk said it was “cash call after cash call.”
Gokturk and her husband did not participate in the loan program, she said, but they contributed to later appeals, including a voluntary fuel surcharge. “It became exhausting because it was constantly, ‘Hey, we need more money. We need more money. If we don’t get the money, then we’re not going to be able to sail,'” Gokturk said.
Stunkel said the cash calls felt “incessant.” She continued, “We felt like they were just leaching us out of whatever we had to keep the ship moving until the last possible moment.”
Four residents said that when they heard that staff had gone unpaid, they organized a fundraiser for the crew. Montoya said residents collected about $12,000 in cash outside the ship’s café and distributed it to workers in $100 bills.
There were several times in the last couple of months when payment owed to the crew was delayed, Petterson said, including by three weeks this month. He said as of around Wednesday, the crew had been paid. An employee in the Florida office said staff had received a partial payment, and that commissions hadn’t been paid in months.
Petterson said the company had been doing everything it could to keep the ship afloat. The company had tried to make the fuel surcharge mandatory but realized the residents’ contracts didn’t allow for it, so it became voluntary. Some residents contributed to the surcharge, while others bought additional discounted cabins through the VIP program.
He said he had spent July looking for outside investment. By August, the situation was dire. A potential deal with Oneil Khosa, the former CEO of Margaritaville’s cruise line, fell through last week. They were out of time. Business Insider was unable to reach Khosa for comment.
In the days since the Odyssey’s journey came to a halt in Cambodia, passengers have expressed a range of emotions. Some are heartbroken that their dream retirement came crashing to an end; others are hopeful the ship will sail again. One passenger said a group of fellow passengers is working on a “Hail Mary” attempt at buying the ship.
Petterson said the focus is on a recapitalization, adding, “Preferably we need an operational partner that can come in with a stronger hand and a bigger pocket.”
Several residents said that despite how it ended, they don’t regret the experience. But Sadovsky, who left before the Odyssey came to a halt, said the voyage he thought he had bought had become unrecognizable by the time he disembarked.
“There was no reason for me to stay because I wasn’t being exposed to new places anymore,” he said. “I was revisiting the same old places, and I’d rather be home.”
Additional reporting by Amanda Goh.
Read the original article on Business Insider
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