Three-year cruise trip last minute canceled

It could happen to you: you save for weeks, months, even years and take all the measures (many people even sold their house) and two weeks before your departure, you hear that the whole event is canceled. This happened to the passengers of Life at Sea, who booked a cruise for three years. Three. YEARS. That's quite different from a vacation that gets canceled due to fog at Schiphol. Imagine: you suddenly have to fill the next three years of your life differently. Starting with finding a roof over your head…

It was already not going smoothly when it came to the preparations for the Life at Sea cruise: the trip was initially supposed to start on November 1 in Istanbul, but just before that date, it was announced that the kickoff would be postponed to November 11 and that the starting point would be Amsterdam. Nice start already; not only do you have to rebook a ticket (or, and this seems more likely to me, book a new ticket), you also have to find a hotel or other accommodation for an extra ten days, all while dealing with the stress and tension of knowing that you will be living at sea for three years.

That November 11 came closer and that's where it went wrong: the cruise was postponed again, now to November 30, but the ship would still depart from Amsterdam. 111 departures were booked on the cruise ship, and all those people were eagerly waiting in Amsterdam. Until they received the final news on November 17: the cruise was completely canceled.

The passengers are – very understandably – completely beside themselves. Houses have been sold or rented for the upcoming three years, all their belongings have been placed elsewhere, tens of thousands of euros have been spent on preparations, and now the whole event is not going through and they have nowhere to go.

But then the misery is not complete, because they also won't get their money back all at once. The company behind Life at Sea has announced that they will start refunding a monthly amount from the total amount starting in December, and they aim to have everyone reimbursed by the end of February. Additionally, they have arranged accommodation until December 1, but after that, everyone has to figure it out for themselves. And according to many passengers, that is really very problematic: ‘There are now a lot of people who have nowhere to go, and many need their paid money to even plan or pay for accommodation. It really doesn't look good now,’ said one of the affected.

And then the silliest part: the whole reason why the cruise didn't go ahead. Life at Sea had forgotten that for a three-year cruise, you actually need a cruise ship — quite essential. And that's exactly what was missing: the organization ultimately had no ship available. Gigantically clumsy.