US couple stranded in Istanbul after selling everything to join three-year cruise that never happened

An American couple has been stranded in Turkey and could soon be “homeless” if they do not receive an $80,000 refund for the three-year cruise they booked that has since fallen through.

“They kept leading us on, making us hold out hope until the very last minute, just days before we were supposed to depart,” Kara Youssef, 36, told the New York Times of her and her husband Joe’s experience with Life at Sea, the seemingly once-in-a-lifetime trip announced by Miray International Cruises in March.

“We sold everything we have to make this dream happen. We feel completely defeated,” she lamented.

They are still waiting for a refund and “could soon be homeless,” Kara, a former humanitarian worker from Ohio, added.

Life at Sea – the brainchild of Miami entrepreneur Mikael Petterson and Vedat Ugurlu, the owner of Miray – promised a three-year “ultimate bucket list world cruise,” with cabin pricing starting at $90,000 for an inside cabin and rocketing up to $975,000 for a suite, according to its website and the Times.

When bookings opened in March this year, the team behind the excursion could “barely keep up” with demand, Petterson told the outlet.

As the Nov. 1 launch date inched closer, there were concerns that the ship Ugurlu proposed for the trip, MV Gemini, was not adequately fitted out for the 1,095-day journey – despite a $10 million refurbishment from Miray, the Times explained.

In a voice memo to his team, itinerary planner Robert Dixon alleged that he was denied access to the Gemini’s engine room and was even told by an engineer that the ship could not hold enough fuel to cross the Atlantic on schedule, the Times reported.

Dixon also expressed worries about the ship being able to cross the South Pacific.

“Even if you spend another $10 million on that ship, I don’t think it is enough to do what we want to do,” Dixon said in the memo. 

Petterson and Ugurlu also clashed over how to collect payments  – a squabble that eventually led Petterson to abandon the project altogether by June.

He was replaced with a team led by Miray’s then-vice president for business development, Kendra Holmes.

“It got to the point where somebody can’t be the captain, so they try to sink the whole ship,” Holmes told the Times of Petterson’s exit.

At the same time, however, would-be passengers like the Youssefs were reassured that the trip would go on as planned.

The couple paid a $5,000 deposit on May 6, and were told that a 25 percent payment was due by June 7, they told the Times.

“We felt very nervous, first sitting through one webinar with the team that left, then with Kendra Holmes,” Kara recalled of their first few interactions with the company.

The Youssefs ultimately started feeling more comfortable once Holmes started hosting daily webinars about getting a new ship, they told the outlet.

“Kendra was very convincing and dedicated,” Kara said, adding that “[Kendra] was very realistic, whereas Mikael [Petterson] had promised us the sun and the moon.”

On May 31, Holmes announced that Life at Sea was not going to set up an escrow account to process payments. 

Instead, she said the company was protecting passenger deposits using a bond filed with the Federal Maritime Commission – but the bond was never actually filed, the Times reported.

Still, in September the Youssefs sold their apartment to keep up with payments for the cruise, which had now supposedly been relocated to the 627-cabin MV Lara, the outlet said.

At that point, only 111 of the ship’s cabins were sold, but passengers were again assured that the trip would set sail as planned.

But on Sept. 26, Miray lost its main investor that was helping finance the purchase of the MV Lara. 

After receiving some cancellation requests, Holmes posted on the Life at Sea app that, according to the contract terms, passengers who reneged on the trip would now only get a 10 percent discount, according to the Times.

On Oct. 27 – when the Youssefs and other passengers were in Istanbul, ready to board – Life at Sea delayed the launch to Nov. 11 in Amsterdam, and then again to Nov. 30.

“We were frustrated and felt stuck in limbo, with no information to go on but what we discovered on our own,” Kara Youssef said of the moment she read in a newspaper on Nov. 16 that the MV Lara had actually been bought by another company.

Kendra Holmes also resigned from Miray that same day.

Three days later, Ugurlu said in a statement that investors pulled out due to the unrest in the Middle East. The following day, Miray said the cruise was officially canceled.

Passengers were asked to sign agreements to spread refund payments over three months, from December 2023 through February 2024.

But the first deadline passed with only some passengers receiving any funds, which Miray attributed to an issue with banks’ documentation, the Times said.

By Dec. 28, the Youssefs said they still had not received any money, and they have been living in a hotel in Istanbul paid for by Miray for the last month.

Another would-be passenger, retired social worker Mary Rader, said she was not expecting to see her own $80,000 refund any time soon.

“I have received nothing yet, but I did not expect to. My guess is that the company will be shut down or restructured, and anything I put in cash will never get paid out,” she told the Times.

Life at Sea’s website is currently advertising another launch date for November 2024.