Thread: ms Volendam - history

ms Volendam (1999-present) Built in 1999 as ms Volendam by Fincantieri - Cantieri Navali Italiani S.p.A., Marghera (Venice), Italy for Holland America Line. She is the third ship in HAL history to bear the name Volendam and the second ship of the four vessel 'R' class with Rotterdam (1997), Zaandam (2000) and Amsterdam (2000) being her sisters. There are differences among the four however and they really should be divided into two classes; Rotterdam & Amsterdam and Volendam & Zaandam. The ship was named after the town of Volendam located in the Dutch province of Noord Holland (North Holland), in the municipality of Edam-Volendam.



At 61,396 gross registered tons, Volendam is slightly larger than the “S” class ships and has three design changes that distinguish her from that class: Her aft swimming pool was moved from Navigation Deck up one level to Lido Deck, an alternate restaurant, at the time of her delivery called the Marco Polo and serving “California-style Italian cuisine”, but changed into the Pinnacle Grill in February 2003, was incorporated and a mid-ship elevator bank and stairwell was added. Volendam is similar to the lead ship of the “R” class, Rotterdam, but is a bit heavier (Her Lido restaurant is larger than Rotterdam’s) as well as slower (basically the same speed as the “S” class ships). Volendam also has a single funnel (a different. more rounded, design compared to the “S” class funnels), whereas Rotterdam has a twin-funnel, side-by-side arrangement. Unlike ms Rotterdam, one of HAL’s two flagships designed for longer, world-wide cruises, Volendam was designed for yeoman duty in the Caribbean and Alaska but has also found her way to Hawaii, the South Pacific, Australia and Asia.

The first Volendam, built by Harland & Wolff Ltd, at Glasgow, Scotland, was launched on 6 July 1922 as a 15,434 ton ocean liner and was purchased by HAL with the assistance of the Dutch government. She and her sister Veendam II were the first significant Dutch ships launched after the Great War. Volendam I would sail between Rotterdam and New York through 1940 however, at 15 knots, she proved too slow as well as too late for the great migrations to North America. Volendam I augmented her trans-Atlantic runs with pleasure cruises to Bermuda, Nassau and Havana. By the 1930s, 5-day cruises to Bermuad were priced from $45, while 6-week Mediterranean cruises began at $425. At the outbreak of World War II, the British government appropriated the Volendam and for a brief period, she housed the Dutch government in exile at Falmouth, England. Pressed into child evacuation service in 1940, Volendam was torpedoed by a German U-boat 300 miles off the Irish coast but miraculously all 335 youngsters aboard were saved. After being towed and beached, she was refitted and then served as a troop transport for the remainder of the war. After the war, she was used to transport Dutch troops to the former Dutch East Indies and Dutch citizens back to the Netherlands. She was also used as an immigrant ship on runs to Australia and Canada. She was scrapped in 1952.

The second Volendam was launched as Brasil at Pascagoula, Ms for Moore-McCormack Line in 1958. She was purchased by HAL in 1972 and used for Bermuda cruises out of New York during the summer and in the Caribbean during the winter season, interspersed with periods of lay-up and charter agreements (1976-1978 to a Greek line where she sailed as Monarch Sun). Reverting back to HAL and her Dutch name, Volendam pioneered cruises to Alaska. HAL sold her and her sister Veendam III, ex-Argentina, in 1983 and 1984 to make room for the “S” sisters, Nieuw Amsterdam and Noordam, and she joined her new owners in February 1984. (she was sold for scrap and broken up in 2004).

After running technical trials in the Adriatic, Volendam III was delivered to Holland America Line on 15 October 1999 and then crossed the Atlantic to Ft. Lauderdale, FL. under the command of HAL Captain Johannes “Hans” van Biljouw. Between 8 and 12 November 1999, inaugural events took place in Port Everglades in which Volendam played host to several thousand travel agents, past passengers and other invited guests. On 12 November 1999 at Port Everglades’ Pier 26, Volendam was christened by her godmother, tennis professional Chris Evert. The ship departed that afternoon on her maiden voyage, a 10-day eastern Caribbean cruise with port calls at St. John’s, Antigua, Castries, St. Lucia, Bridgetown, Barbados, Pointe-a-Pitre, Guadeloupe, Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, USVI and Nassau, the Bahamas.

Volendam has one penthouse verandah suite, 28 deluxe verandah suites, 168 deluxe (verandah) staterooms,383 standard outside stateroomsand 136 standard inside stateroomsfor a total of716 cabins. The basic layout of Volendam’s public rooms are the same as that of ms Rotterdam VI, including her two-tier 747-seat Rotterdam dining room, 386-seat Lido buffet-style restaurant and a Club HAL children’s room on her Sports Deck called the Sky Room and first introduced on Rotterdam VI, that can also be used as a meeting or reception room. She came out with a Java Café coffee bar, Explorers Lounge, Piano Bar and Seaview Lounge, Ocean Bar (a HAL trademark), 24-seat Erasmus Library, two multi-purpose meeting rooms named the Hudson and Half Moon rooms (the Half Moon doubled as Card Room), a children’s activity room called the Sky room, a small Video Arcade behind the Wajang Theater, Photo Gallery, Shopping Arcade (plus gift shops), Casino (offering blackjack, Caribbean poker, roulette, craps and 97 slot machines), two small and private dining rooms known as the Kings and Queens rooms (the Queens room has since been changed into the digital workshop), two outdoor swimming pools (one of which, the Lido pool, that can be closed off with a hydraulic sliding roof called a magrodome), two Jacuzzis plus a small children’s wading pool (since covered up and usually the base for a giant chess set) and on Sports Deck, shuffle board courts, a jogging track around the base of the funnel (since removed) and two dual purpose paddle tennis/volleyball courts (since changed to one practice tennis court on port, and one basketball court on starboard side) can be found. Her Casino Bar, in addition to being the ship’s sports bar, featured cinematic memorabilia, including costumes, props, photos and posters of movies and the stars who made them.

At the forward end of Volendam’s Lido Pool there is a 12-foot high cast bronze sculpture of five leaping bottlenose dolphins created by the British artist Susanna Holt.



Volendam’s main two-story 557-seat show lounge, named after Dutch Golden Age painter Frans Hals, features colorful colonnades against dark wooden walls. The Frans Hals’ decor goes back to the Art Deco era with a design inspired by the famous Tuschinski Theater in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. There was a wooden, oval-shaped dance floor in the center of the room in front of the stage. Her trade mark Ocean Bar attracts the pre- and post-dinner cocktail crowd and her 205-seat Wajang theater is the place for movies, religious services, meetings and presentations. The Crows Nest observation lounge has a 320-degree view for taking in port departures and arrivals. Volendam also launched with an Ocean Spa fitness center complete with beauty salon, dual sauna and steam rooms, six spa treatment rooms, gymnasium and a juice bar.

Volendam’s alternative 88-seat restaurant, Marco Polo, sported the contemporary pan-European warmth of light beech wood. Architect Frans Dingemans strove to create an artists’ bistro with works by Rubens, Rembrandt, Henry Moore, Picasso, Matisse plus a host of unknown talents, each framed in the style of its period. The result was a fine artists’ bistro that looks as if it evolved over the centuries. Open for lunch and dinner by reservation at no additional charge, the Marco Polo featured “California-style” Italian cuisine such as Scaloppine Di Vitello, Costoletta di Vitello Al Carbone, Petto Di Pollo Rustico, Agnello Aromatico, Filetto Al Barolo, Grigliata Di Mare, Pesce Del Giorno, Pizza Marco and Osso Buco Alla Milanese.

Volendam debuted HAL's first 24-hour Internet center/café managed by Digital Seas and called "The Web Site." It allowed passengers to go on-line on a real-time basis, check their own e-mail accounts and stock quotes as well as surf the World Wide Web. The new Internet center, equipped with eight computer terminals and a printer, was located on Upper Promenade Deck between the Erasmus Library and the Hudson/Half Moon meeting rooms in a space that was initially called the Puzzle Corner.



Volendam has a floral theme for her interior décor. This is reflected in the ship’s artwork, doors and other design elements as well as fabrics throughout the ship’s public rooms and staterooms. In addition to fresh flowers throughout the ship, Holland America Line has drawn on its collection of artwork to enhance the interior of the ship’s public spaces. Everything from ceramic vases handcrafted by Royal Goedewaagen in Delft, the Netherlands, pre-Columbian sculptures including a female figure in earthenware found near Jalisco, Mexico that dates from about 100 BC and a Jaguar vessel found in Central America from around 1500 AD, to Renaissance-era fountains imported from Italy, are included in her hallway galleries. At the heart of the ship in her atrium, Luciano Vistosi, one of Italy’s leading contemporary glass artists, created “Caleido”, a monumental three-deck-tall crystal sculpture combining red lacquered metal and blocks of glass. Vistosi is also responsible for the “Totem” sculpture on Maasdam and the “Jacob’s Ladder” sculpture on Veendam. For Volendam, he was inspired by the colors of a kaleidoscope

In November 2003, Holland America Cruise Line announced a U.S. $225 million program of up-scaling their cruise ships, cruise line image and passenger cruise experience called the 'Signature of Excellence program'. This enhancement program included stateroom amenities: Sealy Posturepedic Premium Plush Euro-Top mattresses, 100% white cotton woven bed linens, waffle-weave and terry cloth bathrobes and extra-fluffy Egyptian cotton towels to all cabin categories; new massage-type showerheads and professional-grade quiet hair dryers in all bathrooms; new flat-screen LCD televisions, 5x magnifying make-up mirrors with halo lightning, fresh flowers, complimentary fruit baskets and stainless-steel ice buckets with serving trays in all cabins; plus comfortable bed duvets, fully-stocked mini-bars, personalized stationary, DVD players and access to a well-stocked DVD library in all suite-category staterooms.

Also new would be a Culinary Arts Center (inside the Wajang Theater) presented by Food & Wine magazine with a state-of-the-art show kitchen equipped with plasma video screens and on-stage counters for gourmet cooking demonstrations, tasting events and interactive classes; a Wine Tasting Bar and Gourmet Shop where guests can purchase culinary items including china and silverware from the Pinnacle Grill as well as HAL Master Chef’s Rudi Sodamin’s cook books, (in place of her Java Café); the introduction of the Pinnacle Grill alternative restaurant and private Neptune concierge lounge on all ships (Volendam lost eight inside staterooms in order to built the lounge), two additional dining times in the main dining room,a casual dinner option inside the Lido Restaurant; an Explorations Café “powered by the New York Times” (taking in the Erasmus Library and the Web Site internet café and adding a coffee bar), which offers guests an opportunity to sip coffee, browse through one of the most extensive libraries at sea, enjoy a wide selection of music at one of several listening stations or surf the Internet; a refurbished Crow’s Nest; an expanded Greenhouse Spa and Salon with new treatment rooms offering a thermal suite with hydrotherapy and thalassotherapy hot tub/jacuzzi as well as heated ceramic lounges plus the extension of the fitness facility/gymnasium, out and above the ship’s bridge.

In addition, changes were made for non-adults, including newly expanded youth facilities within the "Club HAL" program and the creation of the interior “Loft” and exterior “Oasis” for teens. The younger cruisers (ages 3-7) can enjoy supervised, age-specific activities in a more comprehensive Youth Program (arts and crafts, face painting, candy bar bingo, a pajama party, story-telling, board games, drawing contests, ice-cream sundae parties, etc.) in Club HAL. Their room has art theme with paint can stools, palette tables, and vibrant colors. Tweens (ages 8-12) have their own arcade area with their own stage, a jukebox, air hockey, foosball, Karaoke, Sony Playstations, a Digital Dance Revolution machine (DDR), vending machines, miniature golf, ping pong, dance parties, sports events, scavenger hunts, etc. The Loft is a teens-only (ages 13-18) lounge designed to resemble a New York artist's loft and comes complete with dance floor, state-of-the-art sound and laser light system, big screen TV, music videos, DVDs, Sony Playstations, a DDR, comfortable couches, and Internet access. A spiral staircase leads up to the Oasis, a secluded, teens-only sun deck with covered snack areas where teens can soak up rays in hammocks and then cool off in a one-of-a-kind cave and wade pool complete with nine-foot high tropical waterfall.

Shipboard program changes under SOE #1 included an expanded Exploration Speaker series, unique Medallion and Collection shore excursions, iPod art tours of all ships, new wine packages, an early embarkation program (as early as 11:30 am) for guests, flexible As You Wish dining, an expanded Pinnacle Grill menu, exclusive flatware, china and stemware in all restaurants, and a broad expansion of the Greenhouse Spa and Salon facilities and treatments.

For Volendam, the SOE part 1 refit meant the disappearance of her Java Café, Erasmus Library, Web Site internet café, Sky Room and Video Arcade. After a dry dock period at the Grand Bahama Shipyard in Freeport, the Bahamas, Volendam completed her SOE part 1 upgrades to cabins and public spaces on 18 December 2005.

On 27 May 2009 while in Alaska, Volendam gained a Digital Workshop program by Microsoft which is comprised of complimentary classes led by a Microsoft-trained “techspert”. As part of the program, located in the Queen’s Room, her passengers can learn to use computers to enhance photos, produce and publish videos onto a DVD and create personal web pages or blogs. In addition, one-on-one coaching, called “Techspert Time” is available for more than 20 hours each week.



During July 2010, Volendam gained Canaletto, a complimentary casual-style Italian restaurant for dinner. Canaletto, named for the famous 18th century Venetian artist, and which debuted on the ms Eurodam in 2008, will come to life for dinner nightly between 5:30 and 9:30 pm when the port-side forward section of the ships' Lido restaurant is transformed into the Italian restaurant. Canaletto's menu begins with an antipasti plate that changes nightly, followed by soup choices, salad, four pasta dishes and entrees like Putanesca, Penne alla Vodka, Veal Milanese and Chicken Marsala. In addition, a Merabella luxury jewelry shop was added mid-ships forward of, and adjacent to, the Explorers Lounge on Upper Promenade deck. In order to install Merabella, a portion of the Explorers Lounge was gutted and converted.