Kara Youssef and her husband Joe find themselves stranded in Istanbul, facing homelessness unless they secure an $80,000 refund for the three-year cruise they had booked with Life at Sea.
From New York Post:
“They kept leading us on, making us hold out hope until the very last minute, just days before we were supposed to depart,” Kara Youssef, 36, told the New York Times of her and her husband Joe’s experience with Life at Sea, the seemingly once-in-a-lifetime trip announced by Miray International Cruises in March.
“We sold everything we have to make this dream happen. We feel completely defeated,” she lamented.
They are still waiting for a refund and “could soon be homeless,” Kara, a former humanitarian worker from Ohio, added.
Life at Sea — the brainchild of Miami entrepreneur Mikael Petterson and Vedat Ugurlu, the owner of Miray — promised a three-year “ultimate bucket list world cruise,” with pricing starting at $90,000 for an inside cabin and rocketing up to $975,000 for a suite, according to its website and the Times.
When bookings opened in March this year, the team behind the excursion could “barely keep up” with demand, Petterson told the outlet.
As the Nov. 1 launch date inched closer, there were concerns that the ship Ugurlu proposed for the trip, MV Gemini, was not adequately fitted out for the 1,095-day journey — despite a $10 million refurbishment from Miray, the Times explained.
Embarking on a three-year cruise around the world might sound like a dream, but evidently, this venture wasn't exactly designed to navigate the logistical challenges. It's a classic case of dreaming too big without meticulously sorting out the details.
