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.
US
Adam Boulton: ‘Like those old guys on The Muppets’ – bad sign for democracy as Trump and Biden call shots on how they will debate
That was easy. Donald Trump and Joe Biden duelled briefly over the airwaves about debating.
“Any time, any place, anywhere,” the Republican candidate had challenged. “Make my day, pal” the president retorted movie-style.
In just a matter of hours the two men agreed to Joe Biden‘s proposal for two televised presidential debates before the election on 5 November – at CNN HQ in Atlanta on 27 June and on ABC forum on 10 September.
There will be more role-playing between now and the agreed showdowns. Biden has already rejected Trump’s counter-offer of two further debates including one on Fox News.
But once again the US does seem on course to hold debates between the frontrunners for the White House, as it has in most of the presidential cycles since JFK took on Richard Nixon in 1960. The UK has only managed to hold proper equivalent prime ministerial leaders debates in 2010.
The two candidates will confront each other in different circumstances than previously. They will meet earlier in the cycle of the election year and without the usual rules.
Both sides have agreed to cold shoulder the widely respected Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD), which had proposed three debates before mass audiences closer to polling day.
The Republicans and the Democrats have decided that the CPD model is outdated because of the changing nature of campaigning and voting, the evolving demands of the media and above all because of the unique nature of this campaign in which the two main candidates have become clear so early in the year and in which they are the oldest in America’s political history.
“It’ll be entertaining, informative. Like those two old guys on The Muppets,” former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney quipped to Huffpost.
Pic: Disney/Kobal/Shutterstock
The traditional CPD debates are one of the many norms of US politics which have been subverted by Donald Trump.
According to opinion polls held afterwards as to “who won the debate?”, he is a poor debater.
He “lost” all three of his encounters with Hillary Clinton in 2016 and both of his debates against Biden in 2020.
Biden also “won” both his vice presidential debates against Sarah Palin in 2008 and Paul Ryan in 2012.
Yet what is remembered is Trump’s behaviour. He roamed about the stage and loomed threatening behind Hillary Clinton.
He invited her husband’s alleged ex-girlfriends to sit in the front row of the audience.
He called Biden “demented” before their first debate and abused him to his face, saying: “There’s nothing smart about you Joe.”
Trump refused to abide by the rules and talked over the moderator and Biden.
A senior White House correspondent summed up their first presidential debate as “a hot mess, inside a dumpster fire, inside a train wreck”.
Trump refused to take the required COVID test to take part and then developed it, resulting in the cancellation of their next scheduled debate.
At their final debate, a technician was employed to switch off the participants’ microphones except during their allotted speaking time.
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Trump: ‘Biden can’t walk off a plane’
It is usually the underdog who issues the challenge to debate. Biden has been trailing narrowly in key opinion polls and needs the debates to demonstrate that he is still up to the job at the age of 81.
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Many observers think that the president is actually showing fewer signs of cognitive impairment than Trump, who is only four years younger and whose rally speeches are becoming increasingly incoherent rants.
When the two men debate this summer, Biden may well “beat” Trump again. But Trump’s antics could well dominate – and they certainly impress some voters.
The problems with the debates four years ago explain why neither side wants to put the commission in charge this time.
The Republicans have accused the CPD of bias and the Democrats blame it for not keeping order.
Significantly the first debate this year, on CNN, will be in a studio without a live audience for the first time in the US presidential history.
Both sides also wanted to have their encounters earlier in the summer because there is an increasing trend to vote earlier, with some states opening their polls as early as September.
Biden and Trump during a presidential debate in Nashville in 2020. Pic: Reuters
The agreed debates will be head-to-heads between Biden and Trump, which suits them both because Robert F Kennedy Jnr is working flat out to get on enough state ballots to qualify for a CPD debate.
Polling suggests he would take votes from each of them and could have a decisive impact on who wins.
President Biden gift wrapped his debate invitation with the cheeky tag “I hear you are free on Wednesdays” because the criminal court where Trump is currently on trial does not sit on Wednesdays.
The dates they’ve agreed are actually a Tuesday and a Thursday but the dig still stands.
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The first Biden-Trump debate in 2020 drew 71 million viewers in the US making it the third most-watched presidential debate behind only Trump and Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Ronald Reagan versus Jimmy Carter in 1980.
But average audiences for the debates are diminishing.
Nate Silver, a leading political statistician, points out they are one of the few fixed points in a campaign which can have some direct impact today when “almost nothing moves the polls these days because the candidates are so well known and everybody is so partisan”.
America’s news networks have found out that Trump drives up ratings, even when the station’s editorial policy opposes him.
CNN gave his rallies saturation coverage in 2016 and apologised more recently when Trump was allowed to monopolise a “town hall” on the channel.
Now the networks and their guest debaters have parted company with the protections provided by the CPD and its heavily regulated debates before live audiences on university campuses.
They will be under pressure to show they can provide fair and informative programmes for their viewers and not just entertainment.
The precedents for success are not good from the UK, where broadcasters abandoned working together following a rigid formula after 2010.
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By competing against each other they effectively gave the whip hand to the politicians, who were free to withdraw or bestow their favours.
Since then the subsequent debate-style election programmes have not made a significant informative or influential impact on the campaigns. The viewers, a.k.a the electorate, have lost out.
This year the two people vying to be the leader of the free world are calling the shots on how they will debate.
It is hardly encouraging for democracy that a senior senator like Mitt Romney’s first comparison is with The Muppet Show.
Lily Tomlin, Morgan Fairchild and Ben Stiller have led tributes to “one-of-a-kind” actor Dabney Coleman following his death aged 92.
Coleman made his career playing comedic villains, mean-spirited bosses and villains in films including 9 to 5 and Tootsie, as well as playing Commodore Louis Kaestner in Boardwalk Empire.
Lily Tomlin, who starred alongside him in 9 To 5 with Jane Fonda and Dolly Parton, said: “We just loved him.”
In her post to X, the actress shared a photo of her character Violet Newstead dressed in a Snow White costume beside a tense-looking Coleman as her egotistical boss Franklin Hart Jr.
Morgan Fairchild, who starred in Falcon Crest and Friends, described Coleman as a “great one”.
“So very sorry to hear of the death of the wonderful #DabneyColeman”, she wrote on X alongside a black and white photo of them together.
“We went out for a bit in the ’80s and I adored him. This town has lost one of a kind!”
Coleman “took his last earthly breath peacefully and exquisitely” in his Santa Monica home on Thursday, his daughter said in a statement on Friday on behalf of the family.
“My father crafted his time here on Earth with a curious mind, a generous heart and a soul on fire with passion, desire and humour that tickled the funny bone of humanity”, she said.
“As he lived, he moved through this final act of his life with elegance, excellence and mastery.”
Coleman in 1989. Pic: AP
Ben Stiller, Zoolander and Meet The Parents actor, praised Coleman for paving the way for character actors.
“The great Dabney Coleman literally created, or defined, really – in a uniquely singular way – an archetype as a character actor.
“He was so good at what he did it’s hard to imagine movies and television of the last 40 years without him.”
Coleman with Lily Tomlin, Dolly Parton and Jane Fonda in 1980 Credit: Ralph Dominguez/MediaPunch/IPX
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Coleman starred in a number of films and TV series in the 1960s, then made his breakthrough as a corrupt mayor in the satirical soap opera Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, in 1976.
His film credits include a computer scientist in WarGames, Tom Hanks’ father in You’ve Got Mail and a chief firefighter in The Towering Inferno.
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
He won a best actor Golden Globe for The Slap Maxwell Story and an Emmy for best supporting actor in Peter Levin’s 1987 legal drama Sworn To Silence.
Coleman also won two Screen Actors Guild Awards as part of the cast of crime drama Boardwalk Empire and received Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for his starring role in the NBC sitcom Buffalo Bill.
“Gut-wrenching” CCTV footage which appears to show Sean Combs attacking singer Cassie in a Los Angeles hotel “has only further confirmed the disturbing and predatory behaviour” of the rapper, her lawyer has said.
The 54-year-old, whose homes in Los Angeles and Miami were raided by Homeland Security Investigations agents in March, has faced a series of public allegations of physical and sexual violence.
Footage obtained by CNN appears to show Combs – also known as P Diddy and Puff Daddy – wearing only a white towel as he punches and kicks Cassie in a Los Angeles hotel hallway on 5 March 2016.
The R&B singer, whose legal name is Cassandra Ventura, was his protege and girlfriend at the time.
Pics: CNN via AP
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The footage also shows Combs shoving and dragging her across the floor, as well as throwing a vase in her direction.
It closely resembles the description of an incident at the now-closed InterContinental Hotel in Los Angeles described in a lawsuit filed by Cassie in November that alleged years of sexual abuse and other violence from Combs.
The case was settled the day after it was filed.
Sean Combs and Cassie in 2017. Pic: PA
Several more lawsuits were filed in the following months, along with a federal criminal sex-trafficking investigation that led authorities to raid Combs’ mansions in Los Angeles and Miami.
Representatives for Combs did not immediately comment on the video. He has previously denied the allegations in the lawsuits and his lawyers have said he denies any wrongdoing.
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P Diddy’s homes raided
Cassie’s lawyer said: “The gut-wrenching video has only further confirmed the disturbing and predatory behaviour of Mr Combs.
“Words cannot express the courage and fortitude that Ms Ventura has shown in coming forward to bring this to light.”
According to NBC News, Sky News’ US partner, if Cassie were to make a complaint the LAPD could investigate, but charges would likely be declined by the district attorney because California law has a one-year statute of limitations for assault and the alleged incident happened nearly eight years ago.
CNN did not say how it obtained the video, but noted it verified the location it was shot by comparing the footage to publicly available images of the InterContinental Hotel.
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