P&O Oceana Cruise Ship

TOP DECK DINING HALL

GOLF CAGE LIBRARY

History
Oceania Cruises is a Miami, Florida, United States-based shipping company that operates four luxury cruise ships on world-wide itenaries. It is currently the worlds largest upscale cruise line, offering goodquality food and itineraries at a cheap price when compared to other upscale cruise lines.[1] Since April 2007, Oceania Cruises has been owned by Apollo Management.[2]

Oceania Cruises was founded in 2002 by luxury cruise industry veterans Joe Watters and Frank Del Rio,[3] the latter being the former vice president of Renaissance Cruises.[4] The founding management team included industry veterans Bob Binder, Robin Lindsay, James Rodriguez, and Howard Sherman.[citation needed] The company chartered the former Renaissance Cruises ship R Two from Cruiseinvest and renamed her Insignia in October 2002.[5] In April 2003 the Insignia was chartered to the french travel agency TRM for three months, during which Oceania Cruises operated no vessels. On 15 June 2003 Oceania Cruises re-commenced service with two ships: theInsignia was renamed Regatta[5] and a new ship (R One, a sister ship of the Insignia/Regatta, also chartered from Cruiseinvest) entered service as the new Insignia.[6] In November 2005, a third R-class ship entered service for Oceania Cruises when the company chartered the R Five from Cruiseinvest and renamed her Nautica.[7] At the naming ceremony of the Nautica, Frank del Rio

announced the plan of adding a fourth ship, Marina, to the Oceania Cruises fleet in July 2007.[8] This however did not come to pass. In February 2007, the majority of Oceania Cruises' stock were sold to the New York-based Apollo Management. The following month Oceania made a memorandum agreement with the Fincantieri shipyard in Italy to construct two new 1,260-passenger ships.[9] The contract was finalised in June 2007, with delivery dates for the new Oceania Class ships set for January 2011 and July 2011.[10] The contract also includes an option for a third vessel of the same type that could be delivered in May 2012, but Oceania declined the option.[11]