A three-year cruise is canceled due to lack of a ship

If you are planning a three-year cruise around the world, a good first step is probably to purchase a ship.

For months, Life on sea cruises signed up travelers, took their money and launched this unusual offer, which it announced in March.

The website, which started advertising the cruise on Monday, described the ship, the MV Lara, and promised visits to the Great Wall of China, the Pyramids of Giza, Machu Picchu and the Taj Mahal.

However, potential passengers may pause before booking if they see that the trip is scheduled to depart as early as November 1. And they may be more alarmed to learn that the ship, under its original name, the AIDAaura, taken over in mid-November from Celestyal Cruises, not Life at Sea.

The day after that sale, Life at Sea announced it was canceling its around-the-world trip.

Miray Cruises, the cruise line’s parent company, said it could not pay the $40 million to $50 million asked for the ship and said investors had dropped out because of unrest in the Middle East. CNN reports this.

Neither Life at Sea nor Miray responded to requests for comment Monday. The cruise route and links to book passages remained live.

Phileas Fogg circumnavigated the world in 80 days, but the journey was expected to be leisurely – a Magellan-like span of three years.

The cruise was originally scheduled to depart from Istanbul and then make an extended tour of the Western Hemisphere before arriving in Asia in August 2024.

The South Pacific and Australia would fill much of 2025, followed by India. In 2026, the cruise would have visited Africa and then Europe, before ending at the end of 2026, three years after it started.

The cruise cost between $38,513 and $98,226 per person per year for double occupancy, so a couple making the full circumnavigation would have to pay at least $230,000, a price considerably lower per day than many long-term cruises.

Holland America for example calculates approximately $180 per person per night for the 128-day cruise, which would be almost $400,000 for a three-year trip for a couple.

The MV Lara, as it would be called, would have a capacity of 1,266 passengers, of which 80 percent were expected to be booked, the company said. Less than half of the cabins appeared to be fully booked on Monday morning.

The cruise was initially postponed to November 11 and then to November 30, and the departure city was changed to Amsterdam. It was then canceled entirely on November 17.

Passengers were promised refunds in monthly installments through February, CNN reported. It quoted several passengers, who it did not name, saying they were upset about the cancellation after planning their next three years around it.

Miray said it had considered moving the cruise to one of its other ships, but decided that ship was too small.

The three-year delay to the planned cruise was unusual and attracted excessive news media attention. Cunard’s around-the-world cruise, aboard the Queen Mary 2, lasts three months.