5 business problems that sent the 'never-ending' cruise into a financial spiral

The Villa Vie Odyssey's residents said they were given eight hours to disembark in Cambodia. TANG CHHIN Sothy / AFP via Getty Images A financial whirlpool sucked the "never-ending" cruise under.The founder behind the Villa Vie Odyssey told Business Insider that the Iran war fuel-price surge was the beginning of a "cascading effect" that led the cruise to shut down this week. Mikael Petterson, Villa Vie Residences' founder and executive chairman, said he's considering bankruptcy.Villa Vie sold permanent cabins at prices ranging from $119,999 to $439,999, promising residents an endless cruise with stops at more than 400 ports of call and a global circumnavigation every three-and-a-half years.Here are five business problems that brought the trip to an abrupt end.1. Fuel prices soared.In February, the United States and Israel launched a war in Iran. Fuel prices surged. The Odyssey uses marine gas oil, or MGO.Villa Vie had typically paid around $600 or $700 per metric ton for the Odyssey's fuel, Petterson said. By March, the price of MGO in Singapore had soared to nearly $2,000 per metric ton, according to data from Ship & Bunker, a trade publication.2. The company was too small to hedge.Some publicly traded companies, like Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings, have told shareholders this year that they have taken measures to blunt the impact of fuel-price volatility. Unlike larger cruise lines, Villa Vie didn't have the scale to absorb the higher prices, Petterson said."They're able to hedge and take away some of that risk, but we're too small of a company to do that," he said.The ship changed its itinerary to spend more time docked at ports and conserve fuel, but it wasn't enough, Petterson said. 3. Villa Vie spooked its own passengers.In April, Villa Vie wanted residents to help shore up its finances. The company asked them to loan Villa Vie money, offering them interest rates of 12% to 24%, according to a letter viewed by Business Insider.Some residents got "scared," Petterson said. They sold their cabins to other people who wanted to live aboard. That made things more difficult for Villa Vie's sales team, which was still trying to find buyers for the remaining vacancies on the ship, Petterson said.4. The company's reputation was damaged.Some of the Odyssey's residents were content creators. In Substack posts and YouTube videos, they posted about their experiences, some positive and some negative, for the roughly two years that it sailed the world.Some travel bloggers and social media posters blamed Villa Vie's management for the operation's financial troubles. The negative publicity made it harder to bring more people aboard, Petterson said.5. The company struggled with cash flow.The ship's original launch in 2024 was delayed for four months while mechanical problems — including issues with the aging ship's rudder — kept the ship stuck in dry dock. Preparing the ship for launch cost $15 million more than what Villa Vie had expected, Petterson said.He said the operation was on track to get to break-even cash flow by the second quarter of this year — but the Iran war blew up that plan. Read next Business Insider tells the innovative stories you want to know Business Insider tells the innovative stories you want to know Business Insider tells the innovative stories you want to know Business Insider tells the innovative stories you want to know Jennifer Maloney is the executive editor for enterprise at Business Insider, leading a team of investigative reporters and coordinating enterprise journalism across the newsroom. She was previously a reporter and editor at The Wall Street Journal, where she broke major stories on the rise and fall of vaping startup Juul Labs and led an award-winning team covering consumer brands, retail and logistics. Before that, she led a Newsday investigation into hazardous platform gaps on the Long Island Rail Road that was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. Jacob Shamsian is a correspondent on Business Insider's Enterprise news desk. He is also a Global Reporter for Axel Springer.He was previously on BI's Legal Affairs desk, covering major litigation, courtroom trials, and the legal industry.Jacob has reported on the criminal trials of Donald Trump, Ghislaine Maxwell, Sam Bankman-Fried, Sean "Diddy" Combs, R. Kelly, and Anna Sorokin (AKA Anna Delvey), He's also covered blockbuster civil trials, including both E. Jean Carroll v. Trump trials, the New York Attorney General's fraud trial against Trump, Sarah Palin v. The New York Times, and Johnny Depp v. 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In his decade-plus in journalism, he has written about prediction markets including Kalshi and Polymarket, tech companies like Google, entertainers and musicians like Lil Wayne and Marshmello, and various nonprofits and healthcare companies. He has extensive experience writing about law firms, litigation, and regulation.Contact information is included below. Please only send Jack pitches by email. If you have sensitive information to share, please connect on Signal using the information below. Use a personal phone and a personal data or WiFi connection. He is originally from St. Louis, and graduated from Yale with a bachelor's degree in economics. Travel Bankruptcy