They bought cabins to live on a luxury cruise ship. High fuel costs pushed them to launch in Cambodia.

A residential cruise ship halted operations in Cambodia on Tuesday due to soaring fuel prices, leaving passengers in limbo after the U.S. company that operates the ship ordered them to disembark.

In a press release, Florida-based Villa Vie Residences said it was working to identify “temporary living arrangements” for people aboard the Odyssey, a 642-foot cruise ship launched in Belfast three years ago and promising passengers “an unprecedented lifestyle of luxury and exploration” as it circumnavigates the planet.

The cabins of the Odyssey were for sale or for rent.

According to the company, the ship can accommodate 650 residents, but it is not clear how many were on board Tuesday or where in Cambodia they disembarked.

A company executive, Mikael Petterson, declined to provide additional details in an email to NBC News. Earlier this year, in a release announcing the company’s second residential cruise ship, Petterson said the Odyssey was 85 percent sold.

In its Tuesday statement, the company said it had taken significant steps aimed at reducing fuel consumption, but those measures had failed to offset rising costs.

Global oil prices have soared since the start of the war with Iran earlier this year, disrupting global fuel supplies. Earlier this month, oil prices reached their highest levels since this spring.

“Passing the entire increase onto residents is not a realistic solution,” the company said. “Our focus now is on supporting residents, crew and employees as we work to restructure and recapitalize over the next 60 days. This work is ongoing and no results are assured.”

Randy Cassingham, a resident of the ship, wrote in a blog post that he learned his trip was over after a company official posted a note on a ship forum shortly after 7 a.m. local time Monday.

The Odyssey was entering a period of “temporary lay-up” — indicating the ship would no longer be used — and everyone had to disembark by 2 p.m. that day, the post said, according to Cassingham, who runs ResidentialCruising.com and did not immediately respond to an interview request.

Cassingham attributed this development to a “cascade of problems” that he would later detail.

Pamela Reckamp, ​​who rented a cabin on the Odyssey with her husband and disembarked earlier this month, said in an interview that she was not surprised the ship’s voyage was over.

Reckamp, ​​59, remembers attending a meeting in early September in which a company official asked cabin owners to help them raise $1 million so they could leave Ha Long Bay, Vietnam.

“She said, ‘If we don’t get this money, we’ll have about four days of ship operation,'” Reckamp recalled. “’Then the lights will turn off and the air conditioning will turn off.’”

When the ship’s financial problems were raised at another meeting a few weeks later, Reckamp recalled, a woman stood up and said she had purchased a cabin in August and had not been informed of the problems.

“I sold my house,” Reckamp recalled telling the woman. “I sold my car. I bought my house on this boat.”

Reckamp said she felt bad for the residents and staff, who she said were lovely.

“We dodged a bullet,” she added.

Villa Vie Residences did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday evening.

In a lawsuit filed last year, a company that purchased a cabin on the Odyssey for $469,000 accused Villa Vie Residences of fraud, alleging the ship’s operator misrepresented its financial stability.

The company’s business model was not financially strong, according to the complaint, “but rather precarious.”

The plaintiffs are seeking a jury trial and unspecified damages of more than $100,000. Villa Vie Residences has denied the allegations in the lawsuit, which is ongoing.

Other cabins on the ship were available for much less. Even if 85% of the ship was sold, the company said in 2024, potential residents could still “get the home of their dreams starting from just $119,000.”

“When we launched Odyssey, we wanted to prove that residential cruising was not only possible, it was sustainable,” Petterson said in July.