Petterson didn’t want to give up on his concept, however. He attacked Miray online, and the company sued him for tortious interference and defamation. (The lawsuit was voluntarily dismissed.) He announced that he was working on his next project, Villa Vie Residences: “With total transparency and integrity, we will make the dream come true stronger, better than anything else on the market today. Stay tuned explorers.” Villalba, his romantic partner and colleague, joined him as a co-founder and the C.E.O. of Villa Vie. Public records show that both of them had declared bankruptcy in the past; Petterson had done so only a few years before.
The Odyssey was advertised as the “first truly affordable residential World Cruise.” In March, 2024, one couple paid a hundred and seventy-nine thousand dollars to buy a cabin. For an additional maintenance fee of six thousand dollars a month, which was supposed to hold steady in perpetuity, they would both receive three meals a day, housekeeping and laundry services, basic medical attention, and wine or beer at every meal—forever. Passengers who paid more up front would not owe a monthly fee. “There are no surprise costs going forward,” Petterson told Fox Business.
A former employee of Villa Vie told me that Petterson was a skilled public speaker who appeared to know what he was talking about, but that his business plan “seemed like a guesstimate.” The former employee remembered Petterson and Villalba saying that, as long as the Odyssey sold out of cabins, the business would be financially sustainable. The employee worried that they were “really just trying to wing a multimillion-dollar project.” Still, the company managed to purchase and retrofit a four-hundred-and-eighty-five-cabin ship that had been built in 1993.
The Odyssey was scheduled to set sail in May, 2024, from Belfast, Northern Ireland, with a portion of the cabins filled. Claude Sadovsky, a retired emergency-medicine physician from Illinois, was one of the passengers who travelled to the area before departure. He’d previously put down a small deposit with Life at Sea, which was refunded, and he’d paid a hundred thousand dollars for an interior cabin on the Odyssey. But residents soon learned that the departure would be delayed for repairs, and because of problems with the ship’s certifications. The Odyssey needed a new rudder stock, a vertical metal shaft that helps with steering, but when the rudder arrived staff members didn’t seem to know how to install it. An expert was called in. “The first thing the expert said is, ‘Why are you trying to fit it horizontally when it’s going to sit vertically?’ ” Sadovsky told me. Another incoming passenger, Jenny Phenix, complained in a WhatsApp group about the setbacks. Villa Vie informed her that her contract for a cabin was cancelled. Phenix is currently suing the company in U.S. district court.
The Odyssey finally departed in early October of 2024. It was different from other cruises that Sadovsky had been on. Residents were invited to give PowerPoint presentations on topics of their choice; a retired forensic psychologist gave a lecture on nature versus nurture, and a retired coroner spoke about resuscitation. The furnishings were simple and the pool seemed to be closed for maintenance just as often as it was open. The food was decent, but not decadent, with a rotating menu that frequently repeated. And yet Sadovsky started to have a wonderful time. He was meeting people and seeing the world. The itinerary changed constantly; Villa Vie eliminated about half of the ship’s planned stops in Alaska, instead spending ten days sailing back and forth along the coast, and the Galápagos Islands had to be skipped because ships with more than a hundred people couldn’t stop there. But Sadovsky grew to appreciate the chance to visit lesser-known spots. At one point, over dinner with some fellow-residents, he realized that he’d gladly pay twice the twenty-five hundred dollars a month that he was being charged. “That’s what I think the value of this thing is,” he told me. If anything, his worry was that he wasn’t paying enough. “How could you guarantee that you will never raise the monthly rate?” Sadovsky said.
When Toni Trombecky retired from a federal-government job, thirteen years ago, she and her husband moved to Las Vegas. They liked to travel, but as they got older long flights were harder to recover from. She was thrilled when she read about the Odyssey online. “You don’t have to pack your bags,” Trombecky told me. “And your whole neighborhood goes with you.” The couple spent a hundred and fifty thousand dollars on a fifteen-year contract for a porthole cabin, and in January, 2026, they boarded the ship in Australia. After eight weeks, they upgraded to a large-window cabin, for an additional twenty thousand dollars. Their room was only a hundred and forty square feet, but Trombecky thought of the Odyssey’s two restaurants as her dining room and the ship’s library as a living room. There were onboard exercise classes and games. She bought wallpaper, furniture, and new tile for the cabin. Fellow-passengers often invited her and her husband to join them for meals. “This was not a vacation,” she said. “It’s a life style.”
