Luxury cruise liner Villa Vie Odyssey to return to Belfast hours after finally departing following four-month wait

A luxury cruise ship stranded in Belfast for four months will return to port hours after it finally set sail.

Villa Vie Residences chief executive Mike Petterson said the US liner still had to complete administrative paperwork before it could finally depart on its three-year round-the-world cruise.

The Villa Vie Odyssey was scheduled to leave Belfast in May but its departure was delayed as it needed repairs.

The ship was anchored off the County Down coast on Tuesday and information on the Belfast Harbour website indicated it was expected to return to the port before another departure scheduled for 11pm.

“We still have some administrative paperwork to be finished before leaving the Belfast area,” Mr Patterson told the PA news agency.

He said passengers would not disembark the ship when it returned to port and the liner would leave when the paperwork was completed.

Passengers on board included a couple from Palm Beach in Florida who had sold up everything to spend more than one million dollars acquiring three cabins on the Odyssey.

John and Melody Hennessee have said they plan to make the ship their permanent home.

Two passengers became engaged after getting to know each other as they walked to and from the ship over the last few months.

Gian Perroni, from Vancouver in Canada, and Angie Harsanyi, from Colorado in the US, said they did not think their engagement would have happened if the ship hadn’t been delayed in Northern Ireland.

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The stranded passengers have not been staying on the ship during the four-month delay and have instead stayed in hotels and short-term rental properties in Belfast.

Rooms can be rented on the vessel for between 35 to 120 days, or cabins can be purchased for between £90,000 and £260,000.

Ownership of a villa is guaranteed for a minimum of 15 years, but the ownership is only valid for the operational life of the ship, according to the cruise liner’s website.