The couple who ‘sold everything’ to live on cruise ships for the rest of their lives
John and Melody Hennessee plan to spend the rest of their lives cruising around the world – and they reckon it could be as much as half as expensive as their life on land.
The couple, originally from Florida, sold almost everything they owned three years ago, including their main business and their home, and bought a motorhome to travel around the United States.
But then John, 76, got tired of driving, says Melody, 64.
Then they saw an advert on Facebook for a 274-day cruise with Royal Caribbean, and their journey to a permanent life at sea began.
On camels in Egypt
The pair are currently cruising around the Dominican Republic as part of the latest in a series of long-term sailings, which have taken them to places including Australia, New Zealand, and the South Pacific.
But while their new life is more exciting, they say it is cheaper too.
“We now have a telephone bill, a ship bill, and a few credit card bills for when we go ashore, but that’s it,” says John.
“We no longer have a mortgage or the expense of homes. We no longer have vehicle insurance, property insurance, or utility bills. The list goes on. We are certain cruising is cheaper.
“Right now it is probably close to half of what it was when we lived on land.”
Halibut fishing in Holmer, Alaska
At the moment, their life is planned in monthly chunks, as they hop from ship to ship – and they are booked up to December 2024.
But soon they will be taking up a more permanent residence on Villa Vie’s residential cruise ship – one of the first of its kind – where as many as 30% of those on board will be permanent residents.
The ship will circumnavigate the world every three years, largely following the warm weather, but life on board Villa Vie won’t come cheap.
An inside cabin starts from $99,000
An inside cabin starts at $99,000 (£78,000), but a balcony villa with views of the ocean costs $249,000 (£198,000) – and that is not forgetting the almost $8,000 (£6,369) monthly fee.
The ship is still being constructed, so while they haven’t set foot in their new home, they have seen digital renderings that have given them a good idea of what to expect.
It will be bigger than a traditional cruise ship room, with a kitchenette and pull-down bed in the living room for guests.
One of the balcony rooms
“We wanted to buy a cabin so we can design it how we want. It’s going to be home for us, for probably a minimum of 15 years on the ship,” Melody says.
Housed in a former Fred Olsen cruise lines ship, the Villa Vie Odyssey is currently undergoing a multi-million-pound transformation and will enter service in May 2024, launching from Southampton.
“Every operator has its own world cruise,” says founder and CEO Mikael Petterson.
“And they just get longer and longer and longer. So why not push the envelope and create the ultimate world cruise where you don’t stop and you just keep going?“
At a glacier in Alaska
Mikael has a background in cruising and is the former managing director of Life at Sea Cruises.
Life At Sea advertised three-year global sailings, but the project was cancelled before the ship could depart. Mikael had stepped away before it ran aground, after voicing concerns over the choice of ship.
“We learned a huge amount from that experience,” he told Sky News.
So far, around 85% of occupants are American, but Villa Vie have just signed their first British couple.
The ship has a business centre for digital nomads to work
Those living on board will be able to bring their families on to the ship for free – once they’ve paid the port fees – and a set number of cabins will be reserved for them.
There will be a business centre and private offices, allowing digital nomads to work from anywhere in the world.
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Mikael says almost half of cabins are singles, with a third being business owners and those who can work from anywhere in the world.
With the ship averaging an age of almost 60, residents have a dentist and doctor on board for routine procedures. For more serious health scares, there is a hospital – and a two-person morgue for the worst-case scenario.
In the French Riveria
Melody and John say “overindulging” is their biggest problem on board. They try to walk as much as possible around the ship, and on a day at port can walk as many as eight miles exploring.
The ship will dock slightly longer in ports – for three to five days at a time – and the couple can even choose to stay longer and fly on to meet their new floating home at a later place.
In Canada
John’s son is 54, and Melody’s daughter is 43, but they aren’t worried about losing touch with them.
Several cabins aboard Villa Vie will be reserved for friends and family to visit, and with the itinerary planned years ahead, Melody says some family members have already staked a claim on when they are going to come join them.
And they aren’t worried about getting bored.
“We are just water people. We are both boaters, and we love being on the ocean,” Melody says.
Federal air safety regulators have opened a fresh investigation into the Boeing 787 Dreamliner – after the firm said several employees had committed “misconduct” by falsely claiming tests had been completed.
The probe will look into whether Boeing completed inspections to confirm adequate bonding and grounding where the wings of certain 787 Dreamliner planes join the fuselage, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said.
The investigation will also look at “whether company employees may have falsified aircraft records”, the US federal government agency added.
The FAA said Boeing is “reinspecting all 787 airplanes still within the production system and must also create a plan to address the in-service fleet” while the investigation is taking place.
Boeing shares were down 1.5% at $177.03 late on Monday afternoon.
‘Several people not performing required test’
In an email from 29 April, Scott Stocker, who leads Boeing’s 787 program, said that an employee saw what appeared to be an irregularity in a required 787 conformance test.
Mr Stocker wrote that after receiving the report “we quickly reviewed the matter and learned that several people had been violating company policies by not performing a required test, but recording the work as having been completed”.
In the email, addressed to employees in South Carolina where the 787 is assembled, Mr Stocker said Boeing promptly informed the FAA about what it had learned and said it is taking serious corrective action with “multiple” employees.
He added that “our engineering team has assessed that this misconduct did not create an immediate safety of flight issue”.
‘They are putting out defective airplanes’
It comes weeks after a Congressional investigation in April heard evidence on the safety culture and manufacturing standards at Boeing.
Sam Salehpour, a quality engineer at the company, told members of a Senate subcommittee that Boeing was taking shortcuts to bolster production levels that could lead to jetliners breaking apart.
He said of Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner, which has more than 1,000 in use across airlines globally including at British Airways, that excessive force was used to jam together sections of fuselage.
He claimed the extra force could compromise the carbon-composite material used for the plane’s frame.
“They are putting out defective airplanes,” he concluded, while adding that he was threatened when he raised concerns about the issue.
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Boeing quality engineer Sam Salehpour testifies during the Senate homeland security subcommittee hearing. Pic: AP
The engineer said he studied Boeing’s own data and concluded that the company is “taking manufacturing shortcuts on the 787 programme that could significantly reduce the airplanes’ safety and the life cycle”.
Boeing denied his claims surrounding both the Dreamliner’s structural integrity and that factory workers jumped on sections of fuselage to force them to align.
Two Boeing engineering executives said this week that its testing and inspections regimes have found no signs of fatigue or cracking in the composite panels, saying they were almost impervious to fatigue.
Boeing has been grappling with a months-long safety crisis since a panel blew out of a Boeing 737 MAX 9 plane mid-flight in January.
The Justice Department is conducting a criminal investigation into the mid-air emergency.
The National Transportation Safety Board has said four key bolts appeared to be missing from the plane.
Boeing has said it believes required documents detailing the removal of the bolts were never created.
A US soldier was detained in Russia over the weekend while on a private trip, according to officials.
The soldier, who hasn’t been named, has been accused of stealing from a woman, Sky News’ US partner network, NBC News, reported, citing four US officials.
The White House is aware of reports of an American soldier being detained in Russia, national security spokesperson John Kirby said on Monday.
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
The soldier was arrested in the port city of Vladivostok on 2 May, “on charges of criminal misconduct,” US army spokesperson Cynthia O Smith said.
He had reportedly been stationed in South Korea and travelled to Russia for a personal trip and not on official duty, according to the US officials.
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“The Russian Federation notified the US Department of State of the criminal detention in accordance with the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations,” Ms Smith said.
“The army notified his family and the US Department of State is providing appropriate consular support to the soldier in Russia.
“Given the sensitivity of this matter, we are unable to provide additional details at this time.”
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