I paid $55,000 to go on a 3-year cruise around the world after my wife died. The cruise was abruptly canceled, and I still haven't been refunded.

• Dozens of people signed up for a three-year around-the-world cruise.
• David Purcell was among the would-be passengers devastated by the trip's abrupt cancellation.
• Now Purcell and 77 others are asking the US government to investigate Miray Cruises for fraud. 

This is an as-told-to story based on a conversation with David Purcell, 78, a retired attorney. It has been edited for length and clarity. Purcell was among the dozens of people who signed up for a three-year cruise with Life at Sea — an around-the-world journey that was canceled two weeks before its departure. He and 77 other would-be passengers who have not received refunds are asking the US Attorney in Southern Florida to open a criminal fraud investigation into Miray Cruises, the parent company of Life at Sea.

A representative for Miray Cruises denied the passengers' fraud accusations and said they would refund the passengers by February 15.

I was always interested in the ocean, which is tough for a kid growing up in eastern Kansas. In 1968 when I was graduating from college, I opted to go to the Navy.

Later, when I was doing estate planning, I did some gigs on cruise ships giving seminars, but being a passive passenger on a ship had very little intrigue for me until an article popped up on my radar about the Life at Sea cruise.

My wife, Beth, had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and there was a lot to do and a lot to love but not much to look forward to. I thought, "God, this cruise is really something I could do."

In March 2023, I put down 500 bucks on the thing.

People can't appreciate the attraction of this cruise without looking at the itinerary — all the places we were going to go to, everywhere from up in northern Norway and down to Antarctica and circling New Zealand and Australia and down one coast of South America and up the other, and all through Asia and, of course, the Mediterranean.

But the social and cultural aspects of it were almost more powerful than the sightseeing and Kodak moments. It was going to be a small enough ship to really create a community. So I was really looking forward to that.

Beth died on May 12, 2023, and it was really sad. I didn't have any plan B for my life. We'd been married for nearly 52 years. We had lived in the same house for 48 years. We had three daughters. But this trip gave me something to look forward to.

By June, I went ahead and I picked a cabin on the ship and put money down for, I think it was up to 40% of the cruise fare, about $55,000. [Editor's note: Business Insider has verified Purcell's purchase.]

I sold my house in a screwy real-estate market. I had a little sports car I sold. My wife's car I gave to my daughter. I took economic hits in a lot of ways.

I went from living in a nice house in the suburbs to shutting that life down. I was couch camping with some generous friends who let me use their spare bedroom and getting ready to get on board the ship.

I started having questions about the cruise that went unanswered. But it wasn't so much as to demand money back because, at some point, the most you could get back was the 10% of the money you put down. And nobody wanted to do that.

A couple of days before Thanksgiving, I got the call that the cruise was officially called off

I was in Roatán in Honduras on a 15-day dive trip, trying to get my dive skills back up before the cruise.

But I spent Thanksgiving night in the Miami Airport so I could fly back to start a new life here. And I've given up my dreams of scuba diving around the world for a while.

Some people are probably calling us stupid. Well, OK, maybe there was an element of stupidity in this, but we were really sucked into this with a very dreamy, cool itinerary.

I haven't gotten any money back. We want to see some justice. People need their money back. Some people have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars. Cruising is indeed less expensive than having a place.

Now, I'm trying to make a life here in Kirkwood, Missouri. I wound up in a two-bedroom apartment, which I'm trying to make livable. I've been putting off processing my grief, and I'm going to join a grief group in the next couple of weeks.

I suspected confusion and incompetence and really poor planning early on but was assured by Miray that that was going to be all straightened out. And so I didn't really suspect fraud until probably early October. And I eventually figured the US Attorney was the best place to start.

The US Department of Justice is the biggest law firm in the world. And they've got cops, the FBI, US Marshals working for them. So let them do the heavy lifting for us, and if they can find proof of the criminal fraud, maybe that will pressure Miray to come up with the money or at least flesh out whether there is money or not money.

Life is so damn full of blessings. I want to just go out and enjoy mine as much as I can. I'm not on that ship, but I'm taking charge of my life.