A US cruise ship has departed on a round-the-world trip after passengers were left stranded in Belfast for four months.
Villa Vie Residences’ Odyssey sailed out of Belfast Harbour just after 11pm on Monday night, after a series of delays and technical problems that forced many guests into an unscheduled stay in Northern Ireland.
The ship had been set to sail on a three-and-a-half year adventure around all seven continents on 30 May, but was instead forced into a series of repairs in Belfast.
Guests – who had purchased cabins for between $99,999 (£75,000) and $899,000 (£670,000) – were allowed to use the ship’s amenities during the day, but were required to sleep in hotels due to the repair work.
Many passengers returned home as the series of delays grew longer, but around 100 are believed to have remained in Northern Ireland for the past four months.
Among them were John and Melody Hennessee from Palm Beach in Florida, who had sold up everything to spend more than one million dollars acquiring three cabins on the Odyssey. They aim to make the ship their permanent home.
“We were ecstatic,” Melody said of the moment the departure was confirmed. “Now we can start partying,” said John.
Barring a couple of trips to Tenerife and Paris, the couple have spent the past few months exploring Ireland.
“We’ve done pretty much every tourist thing you have to offer here in Belfast, so we know Belfast pretty well,” said Melody. “Today we’re playing miniature golf. We’ve frequented every restaurant you have in Belfast, and bars. We now love Guinness, that’s a big thing. We have one every day.”
The Florida couple said they would miss the people most from Northern Ireland.
“The people are amazing, they’re so kind, genuine. So amazing. We don’t have that in the US. We’ve made a lot of new friends, it’s been a lot of fun.”
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“Everybody is just ready to go,” said passenger Andy Garrison. “It got very frustrating,” he said of the delays. “What’s nice is the people are being really resilient about it.”
Originally from Dallas in Texas, he was boarding clutching a model of the Titanic, and wasn’t worried if other passengers thought it was a bad omen. “They may, but that’s their problem, that’s not my problem,” he said, laughing.
Andy Garrison with his model version of the Titanic
Angie Harsanyi from Colorado and Gian Perroni from Canada fell in love and became engaged during their forced sojourn in Belfast.
They met in May over drinks in a city hotel, and gradually got to know each other walking to and from the moored ship. Do they think their engagement would have happened without the delay in Northern Ireland?
Gian Perroni and Angie Harsanyi, who found love while stranded in Belfast
“I don’t,” Angie replied.
“Obviously we were already friends,” said Gian, “but the fact that we had all this time to ourselves, as opposed to being with several hundred other people, definitely sped things up.”
The couple are now looking forward to the ship’s captain marrying them on board in April, somewhere between Panama and Costa Rica.