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Private company

Renaissance Cruises

Former cruise ship company

Renaissance Cruises was a cruise ship operating company that was founded in 1989 (1989) and owned by Fearnley & Eger Rederi in Oslo, Norway. It was purchased by Edward Rudner (founder of Alamo Car Rental) as the company faltered during the Gulf War. It operated year-round cruise itineraries to the Mediterranean Sea, the Greek Isles, Tahiti and the South Pacific, northern Europe and Scandinavia.2 Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0

Last updated Oct 21, 2026.

Overview

1989Founded1

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Bordeaux - MS Insignia (6)
Photo: Remi Jouan, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons4

Renaissance Cruises was a cruise ship operating company that was founded in 1989 (1989) and owned by Fearnley & Eger Rederi in Oslo, Norway. It was purchased by Edward Rudner (founder of Alamo Car Rental) as the company faltered during the Gulf War. It operated year-round cruise itineraries to the Mediterranean Sea, the Greek Isles, Tahiti and the South Pacific, northern Europe and Scandinavia. The company ceased operations on 25 September 2001 (2001-09-25), having accommodated up to 220,000 guests in 2000. While the company had been in poor financial health for quite some time, the economic decline resulting from the September 11 attacks in 2001 is credited with the demise of this cruise line. It was headquartered in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.2

Products and brands

Renaissance class

The company also owned and operated eight Renaissance-class yacht-like ships between 1989 and 1992. The first four of them were built in Cantieri Navale Ferrari-Signani shipyards in La Spezia, Italy, from 1989 to 1991. They were 88.3 metres (289 ft 8 in) long, and 4,077 gross tonnage (GT) in size, and they carried 100 passengers in 50 cabins, with 72 crew. The other four were built in Nuovi Cantieri Apuania shipyards in Carrara, Italy, in the same period. They were 90.6 metres (297 ft 3 in) long and 4,200 GT in size, and they carried 114 passengers in 57 cabins with 72 crew. The small, intimately sized vessels used Roman numeral designations as part of their names: Renaissance I through Renaissance VIII.

These are the current names, former names and registries of the Renaissance-class ships;

Renaissance I, Renaissance III, Renaissance IV, and Renaissance VIII were all chartered and sold in 1998 so the line could concentrate on the larger, newer R class. Before the line folded for the R class, Renaissance V, Renaissance VI, and Renaissance VII were sold to other interests. Renaissance II was renamed Neptune II In 1998 for operations in Singapore before EasyCruise was formed. Current operators of these vessels include Noble-Caledonia, Silversea, and Antarctica XXI.

Renaissance class I

Built at Cantieri Navale Ferrari-Signani shipyard (1989–1991):

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Renaissance class II

Built at Nuovi Cantieri Apuania shipyard (1991–1992):

R class

The pride of the fleet were the line's eight brand new 684-passenger R-class ships named R One, R Two, R Three, R Four, R Five, R Six, R Seven and R Eight. The ships in this class were all built between 1998 and 2001. They were all built at the shipyard of Chantiers de l'Atlantique in Saint-Nazaire France and were designed, internally and externally, by British designer John McNeece. Following the bankruptcy of Renaissance Cruises, all of the vessels were chartered or sold to other cruise lines and continue to operate to this day.

From Wikipedia’s article on Renaissance Cruises, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3

Timeline

  1. 1989Founded Founded1

Sources

The numbers on this page point here. Each one links to the record it came from.

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