R Eight Originally built as the last of eight R-class ships for
Renaissance Cruises,
Azamara Pursuit was first known as
R Eight, and entered service in 2001. After Renaissance ceased operations and filed for bankruptcy in late 2001, the vessel was seized by creditors and laid up in
Marseille,
France.
Minerva II In 2003, the vessel re-entered operation, this time as the sole cruise ship in
Swan Hellenic's fleet. The vessel was named
Minerva II, after both the
Roman goddess and the company's previous vessel,
Minerva.
Royal Princess On 7 April 2007,
Minerva II completed her final voyage with Swan Hellenic and was transferred by the parent company,
Carnival Corporation & plc, to
Princess Cruises. She was renamed
Royal Princess and debuted for Princess on her maiden voyage on 19 April 2007. Her christening ceremony was on 14 June 2007 in
Portofino, with Lorraine Arzt performing the honors. On 18 June 2009, a major fire broke out in her engine room.
Royal Princess was on a 12-day Holy Land voyage and just left
Port Said,
Egypt. A little while later a serious fire broke out in her engine room, disabling the ship. She waited to dock in Port Said for an assessment of the damage.
Adonia In 2010, it was announced that
Royal Princess was to transfer to the
P&O Cruises fleet. After completing a major refit in 2016,
Adonia was reassigned within the Carnival Corporation, and became the first ship for a new brand called "Fathom", focusing on the growing number of people who wanted to work alongside local communities as part of their travel experience in areas such as education, the environment and economic development. She sailed out of Miami to the Dominican Republic and Cuba on an alternating weekly basis. While in the Dominican Republic and Cuba, passengers had the opportunity to work on programs designed to make a positive social impact on the communities they visited. It was also the first time in decades that Cuban-born individuals were able to travel by sea to or from Cuba. An outbreak of gastro-intestinal illnesses occurred on the initial voyage, striking 14 passengers. In November 2016, Carnival announced that Fathom would discontinue operations in June 2017. The
Adonia returned to Carnival's P&O Cruises fleet at that time.
Farewell Voyage On 26 September 2017 P&O announced that Adonia would be retired in March 2018 with the last cruise leaving Barbados on 23 February and ending in Barbados on 9 March 2018. She arrived at the Grand Bahama Shipyard on 13 March 2018 and was officially handed over to Azamara the following day. She completed a short drydocking in Grand Bahama (which included hull inspections, along with changing her name and registry) before sailing for Belfast's
Harland and Wolff shipyard.
Azamara Pursuit Her first cruise under Azamara Club Cruises took place on 13 August 2018, when she joined two other R-Class vessels in the fleet,
Azamara Journey and
Azamara Quest. Her christening ceremony happened in Southampton on 28 August 2018, where she was officially named by Lucy Huxley and Ellen Asmodeo-Giglio, two travel industry executives. Before entering service, the ship underwent a substantial refit at Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, bringing her decor and image into line with Azamara's other ships. ==Incidents==