2y ago

Three-year cruise canceled weeks before shoving off, after one woman sold her apartment to join unique voyage

www.foxbusiness.com

Passengers who booked trips have been told refunds will be issued in monthly installments

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Life at Sea Cruises' first three-year sailing was announced in March and promised passengers willing to fork out at least $29,999 per year

90 comments

Cruise ships really need to disappear if we are gonna keep this planet somewhat livable. Mega polluters.
- The problem isn't the ships it's the insane amount of diesel they suck down. We already run giant ships powered by nuclear reactors.
  
  Honest question: do the use diesel? A lot of big ships when they are not in a nation's waters burn bunker oil which is significantly worse.
- Cruise ships are pretty big polluters, yes. Cruise passengers have about 8x the emissions that they'd have from a comparable land-based vacation.
  But when people talk about ship pollution, they're usually talking about non-carbon pollution.
  For example, ships often burn heavy fuel oil, which produces tons of sulfur dioxide, which causes acid rain, and NOX, which depletes the ozone and causes smog and asthma.
  Cruise ships are bad for the environment, but there's honestly bigger fish to fry. Gas power plants are way, way worse for the planet.
  
  It’s all bad. This isn’t a competition. It all needs to cease.
  
  Are you comparing power plants to cruise ships?
  
  From the comparisons I've made in the past, they're also relatively cheap compared to land based vacations. For some reason, it's cheaper to make your hotel float.
  Then there's places where ships are more inherent to the experience, like transiting the Panama canal, or coastal regions of Alaska or Norway. Places that are too remote to get to by most other means.
  But fuck Caribbean cruises. That's a boat taking you from one tourist outdoor shopping mall to another.
- Nations won't stop using oil as long as it is economically viable.
  
  We're already forced to burn oil to power air conditioners so our elders don't die in heatwave. Just imagine the inside of a giant Vegas casino without electricity.
Cruises oughta be banned for how polluting they are. Rich folks can have em back when theyve cleaned up their climate mess.
- No they may not. We acknowledge they’re filthy, rife with noro and other viruses, and aside from other pollution, dump raw sewage into open water.
  
  Acquaintance went on a cruise. I made "covid cruise" jokes before he left. Well he came back and guess what.
- when theyve cleaned up their climate mess.
  Ah, a doe eyed optimist, I see.
  This oligarch party ain't stopping until everything that can burn does. At this point hope is irrational, a side effect of rational despair.
  No one tells the wealth class anything. They tell us, and we obey like good lil capital generating livestock.
  
  The old gods must die. Clash of the titans time.
- Apart from the areas others have mentioned they are also absolutely terrible for the local environment due to the number of tourists they drop on an area. We should ban them for that alone
- Rich folks
  Cruises are often cheaper than just going on vacation.
  My honeymoon cruise was less expensive than if we'd just flown to the Caribbean and stayed at an all-inclusive hotel.
- Nations won’t stop using oil as long as it is economically viable.
  Banning cruise ships doesn't matter if we still burn up the oil anyways.
  
  You are correct. Not using oil in one place, will only make it MORE AFFORDABLE for China and other mega pollution providers.
Refund paid in monthly installments seems like a huge red flag too…yikes. Hopefully these passengers can come out of this mostly okay at least.
- Yeah that was my first thought. I'm willing to bet the company declares bankruptcy soon.
- Seems like fraud to announce that close to leaving, the monthly payments on top makes it worse.
- Was wondering if I floated a bad thousand dollar check if my restitution would be allowed in monthly installments.
  
  (with a few extra steps) yes
  Wage garnishment, repayment plans, etc. The difference is for you it typically requires litigation before you're "allowed" to. Technically it's probably the same for them if someone challenged it, but they have the benefit of litigation costing less than all the paid lump sums, where your proverbial thousand-dollar check would not.
So they sold tickets to a cruise... But they didn't have the ship ready.
- It's worse even, they couldn't afford the ship. They claimed the sale was taking too long, when they couldn't afford it, and another company bought it out from under them.
- Larger companies do this often... but they build their own ships
Mmmm. What fun. Stewing in a disease-ridden floating money-sponge for three years. Marvellous.
- Idk man. You go hang out on a cruise for a bit you will find some old people who have made cruising their entire retirement plan. Basically just staying on boats going from port to port until they die.
  Which actually doesn’t sound all too bad. I’d think it’d get old after the first few weeks (I never heard Cupid Shuffle so many damn times in one week), but hey, whatever floats your boat.
- It's cheaper than a lot of retirement homes in America. Cruises outside of Caribbean voyages in peak season are like 90% retirees. It's a more viable option for a lot of people. If this 3yr cruise was a lot cheaper per day, it would make a lot of sense for them.
  
  Plus if you tick that little box, you (your estate/ descendants) save on funeral fees with a ‘navy burial’ at sea. The cabin boy-things garb your corpse in whatever finest they discover in your wardrobe/suitcase and slip you off a Teflon-coated plank into the gentle deep and sharks.
  
  The article said $29k/yr, and cruise prices generally include food. That’s cheaper than living most places
- Not my idea of a good time either but it was appealing to some people. Cruises are incredibly popular. I'd only go if it were free and I was unable to sell the ticket(s).
  
  I don't think I'd go if it were free. I have other things - productive things I could be doing.
  
  I don't think I'd go if it were free. I have other things - productive things I could be doing.
  
  But you’d still go? Like… if I bought you a ticket on a shitty cruise, you’d go just because you have to use up free things?
So… if I wanted to do a scam… and I’d sell tickets to a cruise ship for 3 years, upfront payment of $90k… let’s say I sell 2000 seats for $180mil.
Is that enough money to disappear forever and live under a false identity?
- Slowly paying it back
  Unless you declare bankruptcy.
- I am legally required to say no.
  ~~yes tho~~
- Maybe, maybe not. But if you're paying back in monthly installments, there's still going to be a lot of interest for you to live off of in the meantime.
  
  Yeah, I’ll… pay it back. Promise.
- Getting that money out of the company to use is very hard and can be traced/returned. It's not like they've got 180M in cash. And having your company bank exclusively with shady banks is likely to prevent you from getting a business license.
  
  You should read up on off shore accounts. Things are wild.
  
  Bitcoin?
Why are we linking to a Fox News affiliate?
- The article itself seems quite factual and straightforward. The comment section on the other hand…
~~Is it just me or does 10k a year for full accommodations seem wildly cheap?~~
Fml I need coffee
- Even at $30k per year it was ridiculously cheap. I have a friend of a friend that was going to do this for his retirement. $2500 per month for a room and board that allows you to spend your life sailing from port to port is actually a great deal, and if/when you need more medical care you simply move back off of the ship. The idea was that passengers could just buy another ticket and keep sailing for as many years as they wanted.
  I called this one.
  It sounded too good to be true. I had a feeling that they wouldn’t launch and if they did it’d be a floating Fyre Festival except with senior citizens who would not be able to escape.
  Cruise ships are Petri dishes as it is. The idea of a cruise consisting of mostly elderly people who stay on board and mingle with crowds in the various ports of call sounds like a death cruise. Just imagine a viral outbreak on that ship that was killing passengers, resulting in a lockdown.
  It was basically someone watching Wall-E and deciding that the dystopian part was actually a pretty idea.
- $30k/year is what I saw...
  
  Thank you, that makes more sense.
- Even 30k a year seems way cheap. Most of these "live at sea" "cruises" are orders of magnitude more expensive.
  
  I personally hate boats but yeah I could see people like my lil bro loving this sort of thing, he cruised at least once every couple years and loved it.
Lmao this small business paper where I grew up just did a little blurb on a local executive "living at sea" for three years - article came out days after this was all canceled
https://www.google.com/amp/s/local12.com/amp/news/local/work-cruise-ship-cincinnati-exec-will-3-years-life-at-sea-cruises-clever-lucy-keri-witman-remote-ship
Womp womp
- Because headlines are for clicks in 2023. If that headline gets you interested in clicking at all, then they've succeeded.

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