Originally built as the last of eight ‘R’ class ships for Renaissance Cruises, Adonia 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. 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. 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 entered into service for Princess in April 2007. The first voyage as a Princess Cruises liner was on 19 April 2007.
On 9 December 2009, it was announced Royal Princess was to transfer to the P&O Cruises fleet. The ship entered service with the company on 21 May 2011, and was renamed Adonia by Dame Shirley Bassey. The home port of Adonia is Hamilton on Bermuda.
After completing a major refit in March and April 2016, Adonia has been reassigned within the Carnival Corporation, and became the first ship for a new brand called “fathom”, focusing on the growing number of people who want to work alongside local communities as part of their travel experience in areas such as education, the environment and economic development. She is sailing out of Miami to the Dominican Republic and Cuba on a weekly basis where passengers will be working on programs that make a positive social impact on the communities they visit. Since April 2016, the ship is sailing every two weeks to the Caribbean. After nearly four decades of interruption due to the tense relations between the US and Cuba and the 2014 agreed normalization of relations between the two countries, the US vessel arrived at Havana on 02 May 2016. The port towns of Cienfuegos and Santiago de Cuba are on the cruise tour map, too.
