May 14, 2024
12/1/23 Will the third time be the charm?
But alas, I heard about one other company who was trying their hands at an affordable Residential Cruise Ship. I apprehensively decided to try one final time, to make this dream travel plan a reality. This time I am pinning my hopes on a new American company out of Florida, cruise capital of the world. It's a husband and wife CEO /COO couple who have both worked in the industry for years and it turns out that they were involved with both Storylines
and Life at Sea, as partial joint ventures, but severed both those relationships when they saw problems, with both firms, early on. There company is Villa Vie Residences (VVR), and their concept too, is to purchase an existing mid size cruise ship and retrofit it for residential living before setting sail May 15, 2024 from Southampton, England.
VVR's
sales model is a little different than the other two failed enterprises. You can buy your unit on the Ship upfront for 15 years ( the anticipated remaining life of the ship) or you can just buy the segments of travel you are interested in. There are 17 segments, that make up the full 3.5 year circumnavigation of the World. The segments are geographical based - so you can focus on only those that appeal to you or the time period, as they vary in length. As an owner you can rent out your unit when you are not using, either thru VVR
or on your own, like an Airbnb, or even exchange it through a House Share program. If you do segments, you pay as you go.
Needless to say, I proceeded cautiously to evaluate the options and signed a non disclosure agreement in December, to be able to have my financial advisor review along with me all the company specifics. After careful consideration, I have chosen to purchase a unit, a balcony cabin, in the middle of the ship, on the starboard side of deck 6. Unit 6065 and am again preparing to pack it all up and trust that this third time will truly be the winner!
On Saturday August 29, 2026 we achieved another historic milestone on this circumnavigation of the World , we cruised into Hong Kong Harbor. Hong Kong is a special administrative region of China. The land encompassed by Hong Kong is confusing. It includes part of the southern coast of mainland China, just below Shenzhen, Hong Kong Island, Kowloon and the New Territories . Looking at a map helps, but the rules changed so many times! I asked my buddy Chat several times, to tell me if what I was looking at was the Hong Kong that the British had owned for years. The answer was never straight forward!
Ha Long Bay in Vietnam is one of those bucket list places I have had in my sights for years. It's the iconic picture in my mind's eye, whenever I think of Vietnam . We had made plans to go with 8 others on a brand new, swanky Red Dragon Junk boat for a harbor cruise and overnight stay, but sadly the weather did not cooperate the whole 4 days we were in port. No ships were permitted to sail, per the local government. Many of us were bummed! This is typhoon session and there was a lot of rain and high winds our first couple of days - we were hoping it would blow out the last day and we could at least do a day trip but no luck!
To get to the final stop on our Vietnam FUN Tour in Hue, we had our driver take us on the scenic route called the Hai Van Pass. This 3 hour drive took us back through Da Nang and then into mountains and along coast for what is generally a very scenic route. Unfortunately for us, it was mainly covered in clouds and fog.