When the Never-Ending Cruise Stopped

Imagine being told you could cruise around the world indefinitely.

From the website:

The Never-Ending Cruise

With Villa ownership on the Odyssey, you got a continual world cruise on a 642-foot cruise ship. One couple in their mid-50s told the Wall Street Journal that they sold their car rental company and paid $100,000 for a 144-square-foot cabin. Also including $3,500 monthly maintenance, their package covered drinks with lunch and dinner, laundry, housekeeping, pickleball, Starlink, yoga, and 425 destinations.

Odyssey residents visited Rio during Carnival for 6 days, saw the Great Wall, Bora Bora, and the Colosseum. The boat was their new home- maybe for the next 15 or 20 years.

I copied these images from the Villa Vie/Odyssey website:

They also provided a taste of the stopovers:

And, your cat could go too:

More recently, though, all had not gone smoothly. Repairs delayed the ship’s October 2024 departure from Belfast by several months. Then, passengers had an unexpected $6,000 fuel surcharge and the monthly service fee for two went up to $8,999. The ship’s owners told WSJ that fuel soared to as much as $8,000 per cabin from $1,800.

Then, this week, it all abruptly ended. Learning that the Odyssey’s owners could no longer fuel their vessel, during a stop in Sihanoukville, passengers had to leave by 2 p.m.

Our Bottom Line: Sunk Costs

We can wonder why 203 Odyssey residents remained onboard until the last moments, although they certainly received many clues that it all could end soon. An economist would cite sunk costs. What we paid in the past can distort our judgement about the future.

Several days ago, during a phone call, I was asked to “hold” for a moment. 5 minutes passed. No one returned. I considered hanging up but thought, I’ve already waited 5 minutes. They will have been wasted if I leave. 10 minutes passed. Still no one.

My 10 minutes are “sunk costs.” Whatever we paid is gone. Thinking rationally, we should look to what the future will cost us. More time waiting on the phone?

According to one psychologist who has studied sunk costs, the higher the past cost, the more unrealistic people are about its rosy future potential. Because they worry about having wasted the past, people demonstrate “cognitive dissonance,” an unrealistic assessment of their future behavior. As a result, they continue the behavior rather than accepting a loss and moving on.

For Odyssey residents, the sunk cost was massive–perhaps an entire past life. As a result, they probably resisted leaving their never-ending cruise until it ended.

My sources and more: While the Wall Street Journal details the abrupt end of the Odyssey’s cruise, the Odyssey website still conveys the dream.