A global cruise liner, stranded in Belfast for months, has been mockingly labelled “SS Clusterf**K by furious passengers after toilets stopped working on the beleaguered ship.
Passengers on Villa Vie Odyssey finally set sail following a chaotic four-month delay. However, some admitted in the early days they considered leaving the ship for good due to the smell of sewage “wafting through the corridors” after the ship’s toilets ceased to function.
One passenger even likened the situation to a “Third-World scenario” due to plumbing issues and non-flushing toilets. Passenger Joe Rhodes, who had been documenting his unfortunate experiences on board the ship via Substack, revealed that the water supply failed on their first night departing from Ireland.
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Although it was repaired later that day, hot water wasn’t restored to the passengers until their second day in Bilbao. He penned: “Most Residents didn’t realise this – the shutdown happening in the middle of the night – until AFTER they’d made deposits, so to speak. Yep, we awakened to the faint smell of s**t marinating in a hundred unflushed bowls, wafting through the corridors, gently mixing with the ocean breeze.”
In a candid post, he admitted the journey was far from perfect, revealing: “Nothing about this trip, except for the fact that I’ve been drunk a great deal of the time, has gone like it was supposed to go. Every single thing, from the food to the furnishings, the TV channels to the swimming pools (neither of which are yet operational), has turned out to be something less than advertised.”, reports the Mirror.
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He added with disappointment, “Not on a catastrophic level – there weren’t any corpses in the cabins or anything, at least not on my deck – but it’s all been somewhat disappointing, somewhat shoddier and somewhat less functional than the brochures led us to believe. Have I mentioned that the beer sucks? “.
The cruise, which had its sights set on leaving Belfast in May for an impressive three-year, globe-trotting adventure, hit a slew of snags. Yet, earlier this month, the hopeful travellers did cast off from Northern Ireland.
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But joy was short-lived as less than 12 hours into their dream getaway, they were still bobbing around in Belfast Lough awaiting some pesky admin paperwork.
To add insult to injury, crucial repair works meant the 125 holidaymakers have been marooned, left to drown their sorrows on impromptu booze cruises and scrambling for sightseeing excursions in Northern Ireland, instead of experiencing the promised grandeur of Villa Vie Residences’ Odyssey and its luxury global journey, spanning 425 ports across 147 countries over three and a half years.
The posh cruise offers rentals from 35 to 120 days, or you can splash out on a villa ranging from £90,000 to £260,000. If you buy a villa on board, you’re guaranteed the room for at least 15 years, but the ownership remains valid for the entire operation of the ship.
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