Oct. 2 (UPI) — A cruise ship stranded for months on the Northern Ireland coast after a string of delays is expected to finally set sail on its years-long cruise around the world Wednesday.
The 31-year-old cruise ship “Villa Vie Odyssey” has been anchored off the coast of Northern Ireland for nearly four months after at least two failed attempts to finally embark on a three-and-a-half-year global voyage.
The ship is expected to return to port in Belfast to “pick up a few things” on Wednesday afternoon before making its departure for France in the evening, passengers John Frim and Monica Frim told the BBC.
An original May 30 embark date was pushed after needed repairs left 125 ship passengers stranded in Belfast, Ireland over the summer where it has since remained.
It set sail Monday night around 11 p.m. local time but turned back less than 24 hours later and dropped anchor near the mouth of Belfast Lough.
Initially, the Odyssey arrived at Queen’s Island in the Northern Ireland capital in April in order to be outfitted. The troubled liner was scheduled to visit 425 ports in 147 counties across its three-year voyage.
The Belfast Harbor website, however, at one point indicated the Odyssey was scheduled to depart Thursday.
On Tuesday, the ship’s operating company Villa Vie Residences confirmed there was “some administrative paperwork to be finished before leaving the Belfast area”
The cost of buying a cabin, according to the company website, can range from $99,999 to $899,000.
Yet despite the travel setbacks, passengers appeared to make the best of a bad situation with their unexpected non-travel plans, but were ready to set sail for sea.
Donna Martemucci told the BBC the new delay meant “another day to explore a lovely city” in Belfast.
“I’m ready to go,” Andy Garrison, 75, told The Guardian. “We stop briefly in Brest, France, and then we go to Spain, we go to Portugal, and we head across the ocean to go to the Bahamas, where we stay for a while in the Bahamas.”
The ship was in Belfast until Sept. 30 due to mechanical issues with its rudder and gearbox, and had final inspections this week in order to set sail.
The decades-old ocean liner sat idle four years before the cruise company took ownership.
Aaron Saunders, a senior editor at Cruise Critic, previously told UPI that while there’s certainly an audience for smaller, more intimate vessels, it’s far more expensive to build a small ship on a per-berth basis than it is to build a big one.
In January, the world’s largest cruise ship set sail from the Bahamas in what is becoming a trend with “mega cruise ships.”
Saunders said big ships are in demand and companies continue to roll out ships that continue to out-do one another.
“If you’re worried about being at loss for choice at sea, that concern is squashed on a mega-ship — from roller coasters and bumper cars, to Broadway-caliber shows and a wide array of dining options — sailing on a mega ship provides travelers the opportunity to not only visit the destinations on a ship’s itinerary, but also enjoy the ship as a destination in its own right,” he said.