The luxury cruise liner stranded in Belfast for four months has finally set sail after three days marooned in Belfast Lough.
By 8pm the Marine Traffic website showed the Villa Vie Odyssey skirting the Isle of Man, apparently on its original course to Brest in France. Six hours after raising anchor, the company issued a statement confirming the ship was on the way to France at the start of what it described as “an extraordinary journey”. There was no explanation for the delay.
The Villa Vie Residences chief executive, Mikael Petterson, said: “We’re now moving towards our first destination, Brest, France. With a community united by adventure, the journey we’ve all anticipated has begun. The world awaits us.”
All day the eight-storey Villa Vie Odyssey had gently pivoted on its anchor about a mile from the seaside town of Bangor, just east of Belfast, being overtaken by cargo vessels and Stena ferry ships on their way to Great Britain.
Initially some of the passengers had thought the ship was first heading to Scotland. One of them, Angie Harsanyi, tweeted at about 4.30pm on Thursday: “We have just lifted the anchor and sounded the horns about 20 minutes ago and we are on our way to Scotland.”
Earlier, Villa Vie Residences did not make any comment on where the ship would go first.
Some of its 125 passengers have spent four months in Belfast after the ship required repairs. They were finally allowed to board on Monday but only got one hour out to sea before anchoring.
After France, the Villa Vie Odyssey is understood to be heading to Portugal and farther south, reaching the Caribbean in April.
The mood was jubilant on Thursday. Referring to Petterson, Harsanyi said: “We were all up in the observation deck and Mike and Kathy [the chief operating officer] came up and they had champagne and food for everyone and we set out with confetti being thrown. Everyone is so happy.”
Harsanyi has more reason than most to be joyous as she got engaged to a fellow passenger, Gian Perroni, while stuck in Belfast.
For days the ship’s owners had said only that “paperwork” was the cause of the delay, causing disgruntlement among some passengers. Kit Cassingham, from Colorado, told the Belfast Telegraph on Thursday that feelings onboard the Odyssey were “mixed” as passengers waited for news. She said some people were “so annoyed” while others were “chatting up a storm”.
The latest delay “really was a surprise. I heard reactions … of everything from ‘god damn it, here we go again’ to ‘let’s go have another drink’.
“People are frustrated when [management] don’t have answers,” she added. “They can’t say anything other than ‘I don’t have answers’. That gets to be tedious, so they kind of go dark, which makes people annoyed. I’ve had a year of twists and turns and cold stops and fast starts. So to me, this is just more of the same.”
The ship, which is 31 years old, sails under the flag of the Bahamas, which is responsible for ensuring it complies with all regulations. The Bahamas Maritime Authority confirmed it had been dealing with an issue but could not say what that was.
A seasoned private company, DNV, which has been acting for the company in relation to certification, said it could not comment.
The Villa Vie Odyssey was originally due to embark on a “perpetual” three-and-a-half-year trip on 30 May. It offers room rentals from 35 to 120 days, or “villas” can be bought at prices ranging from £90,000 to £260,000. Owning a villa onboard guarantees the room for a minimum of 15 years, but the ownership stays valid for the entire operation of the ship.