I've become a Renaissance Man. And it only took 10 days.

This was the first cruise for Kathy and I. OK, we'd been on a boat up the Nile in Egypt (where we both got food poisoning, but that's another story) - and the Renaissance Cruises folk were quick to point out "that's a river boat". For the record, these are ships, not boats. When asked what's the difference, we're told "If the SHIP goes down, we'll put you into the BOATS. OK, we get the point.

We traveled from Lisbon, Portugal, to Barcelona Spain, stopping at various ports-of-call including Gibraltar (which actually was lovely), Morocco, and a bunch of spots in Spain. That was in the "early days" of our web site, so unlike our subsequent cruises (for example on Celebrity Zenith and Holland America Zaandam) there's not much content about this first cruise here on the web. But there are a few pictures to share below.

Alas, Renaissance is no more. Around September 2001 Renaissance declared bankruptcy and was ultimately dissolved. A couple of their ships have appeared as a part of a new line called "Oceana", but they're comparatively expensive and who knows whether their "formula" is anything like Renaissance's, or completely different.