Keith Cassingham credits her yoga practice and experience as a life coach with keeping her sane these days.
Cassingham has plenty of reasons to be mad: earlier this week, she and her husband Randy they were told to disembark for good Villa Vie Residences Odyssey cruise ship where they lived for the past two years.
The Cassingham family, along with about 200 other passengers, were told that the Villa Vie Odyssey had run out of money and could no longer afford fuel, so the passengers had to pack up and find somewhere else to live.
Their odyssey with Odyssey began more than two years ago, when Kassingham and her husband decided to sell the dream home they had built in Colorado.
“Randy realized he was allergic to Colorado,” Cassingham said Realtor.com. “He was allergic to four-legged animals, molds, dust, grasses, weeds, grasses, juniper trees. And we lived in a pine-juniper forest. His allergies got worse and worse, even his allergists couldn’t stop it.”
So the couple decided that a never-ending cruise would be a place where Randy could be safe from the scourge of grass and tree allergies.
The Cassinghams made a deposit with Victoria Cruises before realizing the company didn’t actually own a ship (and still don’t, though continues to sell the cabin).
By then, they had already sold their house and were on a pre-cruise trip to say goodbye to friends. So they started looking for other options.
Enter Villa Vie Residence’s Odyssey, where passengers are promised the opportunity to cruise for the rest of their lives if they choose.
The Cassinghams bought a balcony cabin on the 7th floor of the Odyssey for $369,000. The monthly bills, which cover cleaning, laundry, fuel and three meals a day, were $8,000, although the couple bought shares in the company, which gave them “founder” status and reduced their monthly payments to $6,000.
Things were a bit rocky from the start. The Odyssey was due to set sail in May 2024, but mechanical problems kept the ship docked in Belfast until October 2024.
At that point, he said, he began to see that Villa Vie’s owners were in over their heads.
“We were going to go all the way to the Amazon and it turned out our boat was too big,” he said. “And they just didn’t pay attention to some of the details.”
Cassingham believes delays leaving Belfast have set the company back.
“Because we stayed in Belfast for so long, they spent more money on problems. Every time they solved one thing, two more problems would pop up. So they ended up in deep debt in Belfast.”
And then in February, when the Iran war started and the Strait of Hormuz was closed, “our fuel bills doubled and then tripled. Yeah. If you’re already spending more than you’re making, doubling and tripling it was crazy. They asked us to pay the fuel bill several times.”
Despite it all, says Cassingham, “the morale on board remained strong because we were all doing what we loved and wanted to do.”
The ship arrived in the Philippines days after the deadly typhoon hit the country, and passengers collected donations and contributed to care packages for the victims.
“We do this kind of community work and we have no problem raising money for it. We’re just tired of raising money for things we think we’re already paying for.”
Things changed when the ship touched down in Thailand, and Petterson told passengers he wouldn’t leave the country until he secured an investor.
“Next thing we know, he’s pulling up stakes and we’re off to Cambodia, where there’s no Starlink, bad cell service and expensive fuel.”
Fuel costs per cabin have risen from $1,800 to $6,000 to $8,000 a month, according to Villa Vie’s estimates, putting “its current operating model under unsustainable financial pressure.”
“Since the conflict (in Iran) began in late February, we have taken significant steps to reduce fuel consumption, including slowing the route and spending more time in port,” the company said in a statement. “These measures were not sufficient to offset the extraordinary increase in fuel prices and we were unable to continue to carry the resulting operating losses.”
in an interview with Business Insider on Wednesday, founder of Villa Vie Residences Mikael Petterson called himself “the villain in the story”.
“Nobody else who’s tried residential travel has succeeded, and we’ve gone further than anyone else,” he said. “I think if it wasn’t for the Iran war, we’d be absolutely fine and get over it.”
Red flags before closing
In retrospect, Cassingham says there were a number of red flags.
“Personally, I had red flags because when we talked to Mikael, he could never look at the camera. His eyes were always shifting back and forth and mysteriously drifting off into space.”
“Another red flag for me was the revolving door on their employees. The other red flags were the invoicing… Our monthly invoices were never correct. We always triple-checked them if we could get them. Turns out they were using a spreadsheet to run the company. Now, I’m not an accountant, but I know what you’re using a spreadsheet to run isn’t great.”
Cassingham says she and her husband have no plans to return to the U.S. at this point, especially since Randy is in the middle of treatment for prostate cancer. They want to see what’s going on with the ship, and Randy is having additional cancer tests in Thailand in December.
A group of passengers have formed an LLC and are investigating how they can restore the ship to operating condition. But for now, Cassingham thinks things won’t be resolved for at least 60 to 90 days.
Cassingham says some passengers are talking about the lawsuit, “and they’re not ashamed of it.” “They’re going to say it in front of Mike and (the CEO). Cathy (Villalba). I am not a fight happy man. If they had hurt us on purpose, I could have had a different conversion.”
“Mike and Kathy may be incompetent,” he continued. “They definitely ignored all the good advice they got from people.”
Still, Cassingham seems confident about his current predicament. Yoga and meditation help, as does her work as a transformational life coach.
“When the pioneers made their way from the East Coast to the West, they had no idea what awaited them,” he says. “Whether you can do it or not.”
Realtor.com has reached out to Villa Vie Residences for comment.
Get real estate news in your inbox
