Navigator Dry Dock

[Wendy The Wanderer]

I have only had one other cruise cancelled in my life. It was Renaissance back when. And guess who the president of Renaissance was.. Mark Conroy, the same guy who is president of Regent.

 

Sorry, remind me what year Renaissance when bankrupt? I know it was long past when Conroy was there--his bio says he left in 1992. We saw a Ren ship in Tahiti the first time were on the PG in 2000, so he left long before the "troubles".

[hondorner]

Sorry, remind me what year Renaissance when bankrupt? I know it was long past when Conroy was there--his bio says he left in 1992. We saw a Ren ship in Tahiti the first time were on the PG in 2000, so he left long before the "troubles".

Wendy, you are correct. Manfred Urspringer was in charge at Renaissance Cruise Lines when they went bankrupt. He as appointed on May 4, 2001 when R Holdings was purchased by Malvern Marine, owned by Peter Gram.

 

He replaced the co-CEOs Richard Kirby and Frank Del Rio. Kirby resigned when Urspringer was appointed, and I believe Del Rio was fired, kicking and screaming. Kirby and Del Rio had gone a long way towards correcting the problems caused by Ren's early policies regarding travel agents.

 

Of course, none of the CEO's were ultimately responsible for the demise of Ren, which occurred very shortly after the 9/11 tragedy, when it quickly became apparent that people were fearful of traveling in the short term. Ren couldn't handle the abrupt loss of revenue, and Malvern, Gram and Urspringer shut it down.

[Wendy The Wanderer]

Thanks Horndorner for those facts. Yes, of course, I remember what a devastating impact 9/11 had--I got a sweet deal on the PG in spring 2003, shortly after Ren went under when the whole industry was literally reeling, and the talk over there was of "Freedom Fries".

[UUNetBill]

Hmmm - my wife and I are already booked on that same Baltic cruise next yeat (7/18/2010) but barring any major problems with Regent in the immediate future (and we don't consider an unscheduled dry-dock 'major') we plan on taking this cruise and having an even better time than we had on the Navigator this July.

 

Lemonade, anyone? :D